Labour's "ghost libraries" scam in Lambeth
November 9, 2008 2:01 PM
Streatham Library is alive, unlike the several "ghost libraries" that were reported for audit purposes
Lambeth Liberal Democrat Councillor Andrew Sawdon has demanded to know what special measures Lambeth used to improve its rating in the eyes of government inspectors, after the beleaguered Council tried to boost the borough's figure for library opening hours for a vital government inspection by setting up three temporary "ghost libraries", two in Brixton and one in Clapham, which were open for only six weeks. One of them issued no books in its entire, short lifetime.
Lambeth Libraries' opening hour figures form a critical part of the government inspector's assessment for Lambeth Council's "cultural services", but Lambeth council has been failing to meet national standards for library accessibility ever since Labour closed libraries at Clapham Park and in Streatham Vale.
However the Council discovered a loop-hole. Government target monitoring does not ask for the hours libraries are open over a whole year, just scheduled opening hours in one particular week - whatever week the 31st March, the end of the financial year, happens to fall.
Lambeth, fearful that its other library target figures were not robust or reliable, and could lead to the inspectors marking the council down, decided to exploit this loophole.
Cllr Sawdon was told by the Council that the consequences of losing the 1* cultural services rating would have undermined efforts by Lambeth to retain its 3* rating. So, a week before the inspection, the Council opened library temporary outlets, which it dubbed"cultural information hubs", and counted them in its opening hours statistics.
By the end of the week after the "cultural information hubs" - a room in a youth club in Brixton, a room in a children's centre, and a room in a council housing office in Clapham, had managed to issue only 25 books between them, over three weeks, and although they the stayed open another three weeks, the total number of book issues in those weeks was zero; the Council then closed them down.
The top scoring location was in Union Road Housing Office in Clapham (20 books, 10 of which during the inspection return week). Brixton Children's Centre in Mostyn Road in Vassall Ward, which Labour had managed to keep free of kids for two years, lent five books during its brief life-time. It was hampered by the fact that the building it set up in was still a building site, and not actually open as a children's centre. The wooden spoon was taken by the Marcus Lipton Youth Club in Brixton, which issued no books at all during the entire period it was open.
Cllr Sawdon says:
"There was once a Russian minister by the name of Potemkin, who pretended to have built whole new villages to meet targets and impress Catherine the Great, except they were just facades with nothing behind them - but I have never heard of Potemkin libraries.
"I shudder to think what other stunts and wheezes Labour may pull on government inspectors!! The inspector should re-audit all the figures they have been seen for the inspection."
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