Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent estimate he has made of the number of public libraries operating for all or part of their opening hours without staff.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport monitors library service provision throughout England, but does not hold figures on the number of public libraries operating for all or part of their opening hours without staff.

Following discussions involving the Department and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) the annual library statistics, will for the first time, report for each local authority the scheduled staffed and unstaffed opening hours per week for their libraries. This annual report will be published by CIPFA in November or December.