Sunday 9 December 2012

Council forced to report monthly on Laing library performance - Inside Croydon - 9/12/12

http://insidecroydon.com/2012/12/09/council-forced-to-report-monthly-on-laing-library-performance/

"It took a special meeting at the Town Hall last week to insist that the management of Croydon’s public libraries should be monitored monthly, rather than the annual reporting period proposed by the Conservative-run council as its privatises the service under a £30 million, eight-year contract for John Laing Integrated Services.
With such a new way of running the borough’s 13 public libraries, regular monitoring of Laing’s performance will provide a vital safeguard for the interests of Council Tax-payers, who own the properties and whose money will be used to pay for Laing’s management."

Although i agree with the comments above about monthly monitoring being a safeguard i really doubt if Laing will agree to this and wether those in the council analysing the data, which might not be worth the paper its written on, will really know what to look for except for increases in issues and the user count and as we all know this doesn't give the full picture!
Also the library staff will be put under a huge amount of pressure, as they are in Hounslow, to hit performance targets otherwise Laing will be penalised.
This is of course a move which is in direct contrast to LSSI's secrecy in the US where they have recently lost a contract due to their lack of transperancy over profit margins etc.

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