Terence Blacker is musing in the London Independent (August 20th) on the idea of privatising the library service.

It’s not his idea, mind you, more that of the British culture minister, Ed Vaizey, who last week launched “The Future Libraries Programme”. “At first glance,” Blacker writes, “it seems a sensible pre-emptive initiative at a time when the library service is under severe and growing pressure – there are predictions that up to 1,000 libraries are likely to close over the next year.”

The programme nominates ten areas where “new governance models” will be tested. “In Suffolk, the running of libraries will be transferred to local community groups. In Hereford, they will be run on the same basis as charity shops. Supermarkets will be involved in Bradford. Vaizey particularly recommends the example of Hounslow, where a private company now runs the library service. In North Yorkshire, a pub called The George and Dragon is ‘delivering a library service and a pint’ to the community.”

But Blacker smells the beginnings of privatisation, “the sound of a back door being quietly opened”.

“Beyond the warm message (‘Libraries are natural partners and are delivering across a whole range of different areas at national and local level’), the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act is being dismantled by stealth. Under that act, the library service is under the superintendence of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It is the responsibility of central government to take action if a local library authority defaults on its statutory obligations to the public.

“All of that will become utterly irrelevant if those services are allowed to slip out of the public sector into the hands of private companies, voluntary or community bodies, or supermarkets. The Government, while claiming to be empowering local groups, will in fact be wriggling out of its own responsibilities.”