Facts about libraries

Published: 22 April, 2010

• I WRITE to address a number of factual inaccuracies in your article (Librarian pay-offs stay secret – £120,000 redundancies, April 8) and ask that you publish the following corrections:
The £120,000 figure within the article has been plucked from thin air. While we cannot release such personal information none of those who retired early received more than half this figure.
You state that £2million has been wiped off the departmental budget over the next four years.  As part of the growing your library project the council invested £1.5million into its libraries and will save £275,000 in this financial year and £384,000 a year from 2011 onwards.
The council continues to provide a high quality library service: our libraries remain open for the same long hours, and not only did we keep spending on books and other media at the same level in 2009/10 as the year before but, due to efficient working, we were able to invest an additional £25,000 on stock. 
The reorganisation resulted in staffing numbers reducing by 14 posts from 154 to 140. Six not 20 staff have left the council either through voluntary early retirement or redundancy and a further two members of staff may be made redundant in the future if they cannot be redeployed elsewhere within the council.
The unattributed accusations that the staff selected for voluntary early retirement were the subject of favouritism is totally without foundation. Selection was by a stringent and fair assessment using criteria that were applied equally.
In 2009 two and a quarter million visits were made to Camden’s libraries – an increase of 6 per cent on the previous year. At the same time as more people are enjoying using our libraries the cost of the service has reduced while quality and customer satisfaction remain high. Misreporting by the Camden New Journal undermines the excellent staff in our libraries who provide an outstanding service, which continues to be well loved and supported by Camden’s residents.
MIKE CLARKE
Head of Library Customer Services, Camden Council