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Funding and governance of library and information services for visually impaired people: international case studies

Part2:Country studies

UK

Gaps between policy and practice

One respondent observed “More often there are not even policies”.

Policies are certainly not specific enough to provide a benchmark for whether there are gaps in practice. Anti-discrimination laws

“do not prescribe improvements per se but require reasonable adjustments. Whereas SENDA was introduced with extra resources for education [as always] local authorities had to adopt the DDA 1995 without any additional funding, revenue or capital. The DDA 2005 introduces a duty to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people and its implementation will vary depending on the commitment of different local authorities. Some provide excellent library services for visually impaired people and some are not so good.”

Gaps are due to:

“Inadequate total funding for libraries; lack of designated funds and differing policy priorities.”

Another voluntary body said:

“So far, our central government has failed to provide the national leadership or funding necessary to close the gap between their stated stance on the rights and needs of disabled people and actually doing something about it! Most alternative format reading material in the UK is provided by charities, so the extent of this provision is constrained by their ability to fund-raise.”

The gap between policy and practice in public libraries “is not because of a lack of will on the behalf of those working in Library Services. Funding for all areas of the community is encompassed within an inadequate amount to provide the multitude of agendas, frameworks and needs. The public library service is always at the mercy of its need to serve everyone by Statute. It must be said though that the Statute is very necessary to protect the existence of public libraries at all. Without this, local councils would probably in many cases look at this service as a soft option from which to make savings.”

The government's view was somewhat different:

“Central Government policy aims to ensure that library authorities are aware of the needs of their whole communities and to make provision based on their judgment of those needs. Central Government is careful to (ⅰ) allow local authorities the freedom to manage their own budgets and (ⅱ) not to burden local authorities with extra duties, which bring inflationary financial pressure to local authorities. As an aid to library authorities, for those not already engaged in community profiling, a template has been provided by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to encourage a better idea about the communities that they serve. This would include them developing a clearer picture of their need to provide disability services and services for visually impaired people. An issue for individual authorities however is how to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient' service in any one particular alternative format. For example, it would place resource pressure on a library authority to hold a significant collection of Braille books. Most local authorities do however provide magnification equipment and software, in their libraries to enhance provision of services to visually impaired people. Most also provide a selection of large-print books. Growing use of audio formats widens the range of materials accessible to visually impaired people. Organisations such as National Library for the Blind (NLB) and Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) are better able to provide a service to meet the various specific needs of visually impaired people by providing access to significant collections in many alternative formats (Braille, Moon, audio, DAISY etc.) Additionally, MLA are encouraging better provision for visually impaired people for example: Raising staff awareness of visual impairment issues through promotion of ‘delivering services for disabled people' [http://www.mla.gov.uk/webdav/harmonise?Page/@id=73&Document/@id=20449&Section[@stateId_eq_left_hand_root]/@id=4332] and working in partnership with NLB and RNIB to secure the future for Revealweb [http://www.revealweb.org.uk/index.htm], the website which was established with funding from DCMS and managed by NLB and RNIB to improve access to alternative format content.

“There are 149 local authorities responsible for managing library ervices in England. It is impossible to list all local initiatives undertaken by all. Policy from the centre is not changing insofar as DCMS and MLA will continue to encourage library authorities to be aware of, and make provision for, whole communities.”

Sconul told us that

“There are significant gaps between policy on services for visually impaired people and the actual support and services they receive from education libraries.”