The issue is whether significant savings can be delivered by sharing services.

The DCMS and LGA research (from Better Stock, Better Libraries to the Library Development Initiative) does indicate that this is true both from merging services and from sharing services. Whether it is the Tri-Borough development, the merged Northern Ireland service and several back-office initiatives such as Libraries West, these have delivered significant savings.

Library users do not benefit from having 151 separately managed library authorities just in England - an increase of 54% over the number that existed before the last major local government re-organisation. In Berkshire a well run library service was replaced by six seperately managed services!  Why can one authority manage and support 99 libraries but another, just five.

There have been a number of initiatives to share back-office functions from technology to purchasing and bibliographical services. And in wider local government there have been many initiatives including sharing management.

Given the scale of cuts in local government funding, it would be irresponsible to ignore any opportunity to make savings by sharing services, standardising processes and making best use of technologies rather than just close or transfer community libraries to volunteer groups.