Cumbria County Council’s Library and Archive Services are in the good books with service users and independent inspectors.
Under the Audit Commission’s new CPA “harder test” council services are given a score on a 1 to 4 scale with 4 being the highest. The CPA judgment of Cumbria County Council announced today sees the county’s culture service record a maximum service rating of 4.
The culture service achieved all 8 performance indicators assessed and scored higher than the CPA’s upper threshold in half of these. Cumbria County Council scored highly for the number of active library borrowers in the county; their standards on stock; cost to the libraries per visit; and the proportion of households living near a library.
County Councillor Roger Bingham, cabinet spokesman for culture says:
“We already had a strong library service in Cumbria and that has been recognised in previous inspections. However we have built on our existing success and improvements over the last year have seen the service develop further still.
We are committed to providing libraries that serve everyone in the county. To help counter the effects of Cumbria’s rural nature and isolated communities we have worked hard to make the Library Service more accessible than ever. We have introduced many improvements with more flexible opening hours including Sundays; the expansion of Mobile Library Services; and the Library Links Schemes in places like village shops and post offices.
This has helped our libraries increase the number of visitors they receive despite a national trend which has seen visitor numbers to public libraries decline. I would encourage anyone who hasn’t visited one of Cumbria’s libraries for a while to do so and see how much they have to offer.
Achieving the maximum rating is a significant and rare achievement and we are delighted with the recognition that the Audit Commission has given the service today. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff working in Cumbria’s libraries. It is their hard work and dedication which maintains our excellent levels of service.”