That's nice!

Pavlov's Cat reminds us that the list of the Top Forty Librarian Blogs has been published, yours truly scraped in at 36. I duly downloaded the badge...Obviously, under the Dewey Decimal System, 'forty' and 'fifty' are interchangeable, but I'm sure you knew that.

Good summary

Allister Heath in today's City AM:

The government is right to seek to regain control of the public finances – but its inability to implement austerity properly could yet destroy the coalition. The wrong cuts are happening – and far too little meaningful restructuring of the public sector is taking place...

The result is a looming disaster for the coalition. Take cuts: yesterday, London Ambulance said that it would be cutting 560 frontline positions over the next five years, which is very bad news. Yet at the same time local councils are still recruiting politically correct non-jobs.

One recent investigation revealed that “walking coordinators", “obesity strategy officers”, and “active” workers are still being recruited. One council has just hired an “age friendly communities” manager, a walking and cycling officer, a “community conservation”officer and an “Energy Island” administrator.

Meanwhile, many bureaucrats prefer to shut services such as libraries* rather than seek the help of more efficient private providers to keep them going at a much cheaper cost.

Worth a read in full.

* Brent Council recently announced it was closing six libraries in order to 'save' £500,000 a year; at £80,000 per library per year, they seem like exccellent value to me (sure, that's no reason not to charge for internet use etc, which might get the net cost down to +/- nothing).