Derbyshire County Council

A 12-week consultation on the future management of some of Derbyshire County Council's libraries ends today.

The authority has been asking the public for their views on handing over 20 libraries to community groups - a move aimed at saving £1.6m a year.

Almost 3,000 people have signed a petition calling on the council to ditch the plans and keep control of all 45 libraries.

BBC

Derbyshire County Council fell millions of pounds short of its savings target for last year, a cabinet meeting has heard.

The authority needs to cut £53m from its budget by 2022. Last year it aimed to make £22m savings but missed its target by £3.7m.

The shortfall was largely blamed on the severe winter, with the council's highways department forced to spend more on gritting and fixing potholes than usual.

The meeting heard the saving targets for the current year was £12m.

BBC

Almost 3,000 people have signed an online petition calling on Derbyshire County Council to scrap plans for volunteer-run libraries.

The authority is currently consulting on proposals to hand over 20 libraries to community groups, which will save £1.6m a year.

The petition calls on the council to ditch the plans and keep control of all 45 libraries.

BBC

The leader of Derbyshire County Council, Barry Lewis, has said he is concerned about the plans for job losses at Rolls-Royce.

"It’s a worrying time for people in Derby and Derbyshire who work at Rolls-Royce," he said.

"The company, which employs around 14,000 people at its Derby site, announced today that it is to shed 4,600 jobs in the UK.

"It’s not yet clear how many staff at the Derby site will be affected but the county council will be working closely with Rolls-Royce and its partner agencies to do all we can to support staff facing redundancy."

The chief executive of Derbyshire County Council, who was made redundant last year, was given a pay off of £124,694.

Derbyshire County Council

Ian Stephenson was let go in August last year as part of changes to the authority's management.

The county council said Mr Stephenson's payment is in line with policy and is made up of a redundancy payment and three months' pay in lieu of notice.

The Conservative-led authority believes its shake-up of senior management has saved £300,000 a year.

However, Labour argue it has not saved any money at all and has left the council "rudderless".

More than £1m is set to be spent on exercise programmes for children, the elderly, and inactive in Derbyshire.

The county council is set to dish out grant funding for several exercise schemes in a bid to tackle physical inactivity - a "global public health problem", according to its officers.

Jog Derbyshire, which runs 137 sessions each week and has more than 6,500 members, is due to receive £100,000 over the next two years.

Money will also be given to a scheme that helps children in council care to get fit and a group that promotes family-friendly walking routes.

John Leigh

Here are some of the things we learned from Derbyshire County Council's meeting at County Hall in Matlock today.

The schools' library service has been cut. The Derbyshire and Derby City schools library service will be officially cut on 31 July, with "decommissioning" complete by 31 March next year.

jondaniel, via Wikimedia Commons

The lowest-paid council employees are getting a pay rise - but not as much as they hoped. The lowest-paid council employees will get a 50p per hour pay rise next year, but will have to cope with just 5p this year.

A former railway line will become a greenway. About 7km of the former Clowne Branch line is set to become a multi-user greenway fit for cyclists, walkers and horse-riders. It will receive £587,730 in funding from the European Regional Development Fund, which will be match-funded by the county council.

A scheme that loans books and learning material to schools in Derby and Derbyshire is set to be axed due to a lack of demand.

A report due to go before Derbyshire County Council's cabinet next week recommends the Derbyshire and Derby City Schools Library Service ends on 31 July and is completely decommissioned by 31 March.

The authority said only a third of eligible schools currently borrowed material.

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The service offers a range of loanable educational resources, including books, artefacts, framed paintings, prints and posters, DVDs, CDs, textiles and resource packs.

These would be shared out permanently between schools in the area and any resources deemed not suitable offered to museums or auctioned off.

Four jobs would be lost as part of the closure.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called in a consultation on the future of Derbyshire's libraries for closer scrutiny - a move which the council's Tory leader has said is "wasting taxpayers money".

Derbyshire County Council is proposing to hand 20 of its least-used libraries over to volunteers to save £1.6m.

The public consultation was set to start on 7 May but it has been delayed after a move from opposition leaders to further question the proposals.

BBC