Projected Costs of the Somerset Library Service Judicial Review

 Ownership of mobile library vehicles

o        4 of the mobile library vehicles are owned by Somerset County Council, including the 2 vehicles presently in operation, providing the much reduced service.

o        2 vehicles are leased.  1 is currently used as a spare as need arises, and 1 is off the road.  The leases expire respectively in December 2012 and March 2013.

Costs of mothballing

o        3 vehicles have been mothballed.  There are no associated costs other than some administrative time from the County Fleet Management team and the County Fleet engineer for off-road signage and key security.  Savings on maintenance and fuel for the 3 vehicles have been about £4,700 to date.

Costs of reinstating the mobile library service

o        The immediate cost of putting the 3 vehicles back on the road in maintenance terms is estimated to be between £450 and £700.

o        There will be standard recruitment costs associated with recruiting 4 new mobile library drivers. There may be legal costs involved with making staff redundant that did not need to be made redundant. We cannot quantify the redundancy costs incurred unnecessarily.

o        The annual cost of running each mobile library, inclusive of staff costs, is about £30,000.  Thus, the annual cost of reinstating 4 mobiles to full operation will be about £120,000.

o        On an ongoing basis, therefore the annual cost of operating 4 reinstated mobile libraries will be about £120,000.

The cost of reinstating the ordinary Library service.

 o        The annual cost of reinstating the reduced opening hours in all libraries where they have been closed half days and early afternoon will be approximately £205,000.

o        There will be standard recruitment costs associated with recruiting new library staff who were made redundant or who accepted voluntary redundancy to reduce hours. There may be legal costs involved with making staff redundant that did not need to be made redundant.

o        The annual cost of maintaining services in those 11 libraries where funding was planned to be withdrawn will be about £240,000 per annum.

There are the costs of redundancy, either voluntary or compulsory and early retirement of staff that should have been kept on the payroll. The loss of experience and goodwill within the library service cannot be quantified.