Best Returns

Best Value Guidance
for
Library Authorities in England

Exhibit 7

London Borough of Sutton: Best Value Review of the Library Service

The Library, Heritage and Registration Service has a history of self-analysis, external challenge and scrutiny, and change.  This set the context of the Library Service Best Value Review - and was critical to its success; “best value worked for us because we have looked at ourselves before … it was not new to us to have external assessors poking about”. 

Examples in recent years include a priority based budgeting exercise, using external consultants to challenge “the social reasons for delivering services against hard economic information”.  The result was a repositioning of the service in response to national policy, with services delivered in different ways through a new organisational structure and a reduction in the number of professional staff.  The library service was also a pilot for the Due for Renewal value for money study carried out by the Audit Commission, who “were like critical friends and took us apart”.  It has been awarded two Charter Marks and Investor in People.

The review followed the Council’s corporate best value framework.  It was carried out almost entirely in-house, with focus groups and other support delivered by the corporate policy unit.  No external consultants were used, although the service commissioned MORI to facilitate non-user focus groups.  ‘External’ challenge came from a private sector secondee, senior elected members, and managers from outside the service.  Whilst this was fairly rigorous, in retrospect “a wider base for external challenge” may have been more beneficial. 

The review took eleven months - and on average three days a week - to complete.

The approach by both elected members and officers to the best value review was initially sceptical.  Members had some ideological concerns, and for officers the review was yet something else they had to do; “this is a real pain but we’ve got to do it, so let’s get it out of the way”.  But both took the view that “if we’ve got to do it, let’s do it properly”.

The library service felt well prepared to undertake a best value review; “we’d already done a lot in terms of repositioning the service”.  Much of the information and evidence gathered for the Charter Mark submission was used.  But the review demanded more additional work than was originally envisaged - for example, in reaching non-users.

Enthusiasm for the review grew as its value was recognised.  The review gave the library service an opportunity to “take the whole thing to pieces to find better ways of doing things” and “examine all the pros and cons”.

The experience and climate of continuous change was key to the review’s success.  Other critical success factors included awareness, understanding and support for the service from senior officers and members, which had been built over time; and investment in the time and effort needed to complete a thorough review.

Service improvements and outcomes from the review include:

Examples of approaches to partnership and procurement include:

As with the best value review, the authority was also initially sceptical about the best value inspection.  The inspectors did not have any library expertise, which made the authority feel “edgy”.  They “sent a two page list requesting documents for the service”, in addition to the corporate documents they had already received; officers doubted the inspectors’ ability to assimilate so much information and to identify the important issues. 

But their view changed at the pre-inspection briefing.  The inspectors gave an “excellent synopsis of the service” and had “obviously spent an awful lot of time reading everything”.  They made clear the areas they were going to focus on; the authority “realised that the next five days were going to be tough …. we were ready for the full works”.

Overall the authority found the inspection experience “positive …. fair … very thorough and very professionally done”, carried out by “very open and honest inspectors” who focused on “looking at services on the ground from the user perspective”.  Even at the “tricky times” there was “always respect and good humour”.

The service was judged by the inspectors as being an ‘excellent’ (3 star) service that is going to improve.

Contact: david.bundy@sutton.gov.uk