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

Part2:Country studies

UK

Funding sources and adequacy

There is no overall figure available. The statistics for publicly funded libraries do not isolate expenditure on services for visually impaired people. For example: “Most authorities did not have a specific budget allocation for service for visually impaired people, and the percentages appeared to have decreased slightly since the 1997 survey, when half of the authorities had a budget either for the visually impaired or included in the budget for people with special needs.” [Kimmel, M et al. Public Library Services for Visually Impaired People. LISU, 2000, pp25-28]

There is no breakdown of expenditure by the education sector and the voluntary sector has not aggregated its expenditure. Therefore funding per visually impaired person or approximate percentages of total funding from the different sectors cannot be estimated.

Funding for public libraries comes mainly from central government as part of the overall settlement for local government.

Funding for the creation of alternative format materials comes mainly from charitable fund-raising, though some public money is channelled from education budgets to fund conversion of materials. There is also short-term project funding from central government but no on-going core funding from central government directly to provide alternative format materials or for library services for visually impaired people. The DFES also does not provide dedicated funding for visually impaired children to obtain ppropriate curricular educational materials in a format appropriate for their personal needs.

This was felt by one respondent to be more characteristic of Victorian times in its emphasis on charity rather than human rights.

DCMS told us that:

“Some local services are also supported by local taxation. Public Libraries in England had a total income revenue of ￡1.9 million in 2004/5. Core funding for libraries is provided un-ringfenced as part of the Local Government financial settlement. There have been good capital and revenue settlements for authorities in recent years, more freedom on how the money should be spent and greater flexibility on borrowing. The Government is committed to restricting the level of ring-fencing. Local authorities are best placed to make their own budget decisions in the light of their statutory duties and local priorities. Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient library service’ under the terms of the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act. Beyond this, local authorities are best placed to decide the level of funding appropriate for this responsibility. Government policy has been to increase local authorities’ discretion in their use of the funding they receive from ‘Whitehall’ in line with their knowledge of the needs of the communities they serve. There is no evidence to suggest an intervention is necessary by the Secretary of State in any of the 149 library authorities at this time. It is for library authorities to make judgments about provision of library services with the responsibility of providing a comprehensive and efficient to the community which they serve.”

None of the respondents from the voluntary, public library and education sectors felt that funding was adequate.

“Funding is very poor”

“Public funding for publicly funded libraries has increased until recently but is now under pressure and it is not possible to determine the potential effect on services for visually impaired people”.

“It would not need a massive injection of public funding to make a massive step change. ￡20-30 million devoted to a carefully devised national plan would make a considerable difference.”

It was also felt that rationalization and re-organisation would yield benefits:

“No sane person with an understanding of management and the economies of scale would refuse to consider developing a national programme for the production and distribution of alternative format materials for the 7460 visually impaired children distributed across England preferring instead to delegate budget provision to individual schools. In the meantime funding of £100-150,000 p.a. to maintain and develop Revealweb which is the cornerstone of any attempt to enhance the provision of these services from whatever sources has not been secured.”

Since these comments were made, a plan has been formulated to solve the problem of continued funding for Revealweb by incorporating it into a mainstream bibliographic database, Unity-UK.