I BELONG to the group leading the response to the reductions in the library service, which is affiliated to the others across the county.

I greatly resent Cllr Keith Mitchell’s attempts to deflect criticism of OCC’s plans for reductions in the library service, by suggesting the response is led by affluent “lefties”. In fact, the composition of the response groups is very catholic and throughout, whether or not people have accepted the need for such radical cuts, the aim has been to work with OCC.

He is also desperate, or misguided, to suggest defenders of our libraries are happy to deprive social care users.

The experience of working with OCC has been an eye-opener. We have repeatedly asked for management information concerning the library services so as to make well-informed counter-proposals. I and many others have been shocked by how poor and in many cases non-existent such information is. In talking directly to the staff of our own library we were able to establish better information than that possessed by officers employed to establish it.

We also discovered, on a comparative basis, how relatively expensive our service is and we suspect it is seriously over-managed.

OCC’s policies have rested on an assumption that volunteers might take over much of the service, relying on myths about the Big Society. We have asked repeatedly for answers to questions about the training and management of volunteers, none of which has been resolved. It would appear that OCC’s plans would have required the recruitment and management of more than 1,000 volunteers across the county, all of whom would meet their own expenses, including CRB clearance.

Towards the end of the consultation period we also discovered that OCC, nonetheless, plans to spend many thousands of pounds introducing a self-service system. We can see no evidence of any benefit from this in a library like ours. This money could have been used to offset some of the reductions.

Even if we suspend argument about the need for such radical cuts, electors should appreciate how much this campaign has revealed evidence of arrogance and poor management at OCC.

PAUL CARTER ORGANISATIONAL CONSULTING Old Croft Close Kingston Blount