OPPOSITION councillors at Hampshire County Council have reacted angrily to what they say is a plan by the cabinet to make at least one third of professional librarians redundant. In another feared blow for public servants this week, the Hampshire Police Authority would not rule out job cuts as it warned it was being forced to take measures to stem a cash crisis - although it hoped this would not affect frontline officers. On the anticipated library cuts, Liberal Democrat recreation and heritage spokesman Peter Chegwyn said: "The move to make 20 or more of Hampshire's 60 professional librarians redundant will mean that there will be fewer staff to serve the public and fewer books for library users to borrow." A Hampshire County Council spokesman said this week on the libraries' restructuring exercise, which is expected to shave £1million off the service's £15million costs: "We employ 814 full and part-time staff in the library service and of those we have approximately 60 professional librarian posts – this is the largest number in the country when compared with like authorities, hence we will be seeking to reduce this number. "There will be no difference to the service received by the public when visiting their local library as we do employ professional staff who are not qualified librarians, and we will not be reducing the number of library assistants who, on a day-to-day basis, are the people customers come into contact with. "We are still working on the restructure, therefore we cannot accurately provide a figure for the number of redundancies. "The county council's policy is to minimise or eliminate redundancies wherever possible and we will seek volunteers for early retirement or voluntary redundancy, and will do our very best to accommodate displaced staff elsewhere in the structure, or indeed elsewhere in the county." The Conservative-led cabinet has insisted some cuts are necessary to keep to three core library principles - no closures, no reductions in opening hours and no further cuts to the book fund. But the council has put aside £250,000 from the service's book fund in case it needs a reserve to balance the books at the end of the financial year in April. Mr Chegwyn argues the restructuring entails "savage cuts" which he fears will have a "terrible impact on the library service across the county". He said: "Hampshire already spends less on books per head of population than any other county library service in the land. "So far, £500,000 has been taken out of the book fund over the past couple of years and now another £250,000 is being cut. "These spending cuts are bound to result in a further drop in the number of people using Hampshire's libraries. There's a real danger that the library service will enter a spiral of decline, which will be very difficult to reverse. Libraries provide a valuable service to the public but it seems this service is undervalued by the Conservatives who run the county council. "With less staff and less books it can only be a matter of time before we have less libraries. "I fear the cuts in staffing and book-buying are just the thin edge of the wedge and library closures may well follow. "The decision to axe around 20 librarians is a particularly bitter blow just before Christmas. It will deprive the library service of dedicated professionals with a lifetime's experience and expertise who will be very hard to replace." Meanwhile, the chairman of Hampshire Police Authority's finance committee, Adrian Collett, warned this week that services were at risk and job losses could not be ruled out as the authority must find £16million of savings. He told The Herald: "The reality is that the mountain is so big, it is unlikely we are going to be able to get away without significant cuts in services." He said he could not yet be specific about what areas were likely to be hit, but the cost- cutting exercise was likely to be felt in all areas of Hampshire. He said: "We are now looking at the nitty- gritty and going through every aspect of the police budget. "Whatever resources there are, the Chief Constable has a responsibility to make sure they are distributed fairly, but it does not mean that everywhere will get the same. "Extra resources will be given to the areas of greatest need. If there is a higher crime level in one area, extra resources will continue to go there, but making sure that places like East Hampshire do have sufficient police to do the job is part of the equation. "The one thing we are trying to avoid is a reduction in frontline policing. This is the most important thing we want to protect and we hope there will be no noticeable change here. "In the past eight years we have saved £67million, but there is a limit to how much we can do and the reality is that we are running out of ideas because we are squeezed so tightly already." Mr Collett said that just to keep policing at its current level, the force would have to spend £286million, but Hampshire looked set to receive £9million less than this next year from the government and council tax. And he said that extra responsibilities being demanded by the government could cost another £9m. These include terrorism prevention and the training and equipping of police community safety officers. Hampshire Police now plans to recruit 206 fewer police community support officers than planned.
