It’s great to see librarians come out fighting against a plan by Tauranga City Council to put a 50c per book charge on fiction. We’ve heard a lot of complaints in recent days about New Zealand’s shonky infrastructure, with electricity and telephone system failures. But the Tauranga proposal hits at another kind of infrastructure, a more fragile one – our collective intellectual capital. At a time when there is widespread concern about literacy rates and the impact of text-speak on the ability of younger New Zealanders to write well, the idea of putting a levy on reading is just plain bizarre. Not to mention putting New Zealand out of step with the rest of the western world, which recognises libraries as one of the foundations of the educational, information and cultural systems.

Free public libraries are a great public good in New Zealand and we have a proud tradition of excellent public library services. Far from being a “burden on the ratepayer”, they are probably one of the most valued local public services and the most widely-used.

And librarians are not afraid to stand up in defence of these bedrock values. The PSA – which represents most librarians – will be standing with them.

Here we go again.  Obviously John Key and Bill English didn’t make New Year’s resolutions to stop attacking the public service and especially its record on productivity.  The Herald reported Key’s comments that getting “value for money from state services” might mean job cuts as well as state servants working harder.

The PSA approached Bill English back in August and again in September 2009 with specific ideas to improve productivity.  No reply from Bill.  So we have deduced this is an ideological matter for the National government, not a genuine attempt to harness fresh thinking to make real gains.

An interesting post by Tim Watkin on Pundit has pointed out that, far from being bloated, the state sector is “borderline anorexic”.  Watkin’s article and the statistics in it are well worth a read, as are the comments that follow.  Watkin concludes:  “A strong public service remains the foundation stone of a decent society…Any chance we can value its work, rather than constantly maligning it?”

I hope someone puts these comments in front of Key and English.  If Key’s Government is serious about lifting public service productivity, it should focus on making public service employers more flexible and open to new ideas. Much has been said about importance of frontline staff, but little attempt has been made to engage them in day-to-day decision-making and use their valuable experiences and insights to build more responsive organisations.

Endless tinkering to shed jobs here and there will do nothing to build an efficient public sector for the 21st century.