Public Bodies (Abolition of the Library Advisory Council for England) Order 2014

Earl of Dundee Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee and to my noble friend for missing her opening remarks. No doubt the library advisory council has served its time and should be wound up, as my noble friend indicated. However, does she consider that an outside process for both advice and monitoring is still desirable? This is apart from performance assessments that might be made by government and local authorities. For independent monitoring can give us some assurance of the real extent to which the library service may be improving consistent with national and local demand.

On maintaining an ever improving library service, how do we compare with our European Union partners? To our own advantage, should we perhaps take note of certain other systems and methods deployed by some of them and, if so, which ones?

Regarding further constructive developments over the next few years within the library service, which targets does my noble friend wish to draw to our attention?