TO THE MINISTER OF CULTURE, ARTS AND LEISURE

(EDWIN POOTS)

9. Mr Burns asked the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure to outline what arrangements will be put in place to ensure that the proposed libraries authority will have a member, or members, of staff with expertise in sourcing external funding.           (AQO 740/08)

Mr Poots: External funding is additional to public funding and can be valuable in providing targeted provision in particular areas or for pilot projects. Such funding forges useful partnerships that are for the benefit of the funding provider, the library service, and most importantly library customers. A number of existing library staff already have experience in successfully sourcing external funding and will employ that expertise on their transfer to the library authority.

Mr Burns: Will the Minister tell the House about the arrangements that will be put in place to ensure that the proposed library authority will have a member, or member of staff, with the expertise to source external funding?

Mr Poots: Existing library staff already have a degree of knowledge about sourcing external funding. We have been successful in obtaining £300,453 from the EU under the Special EU Programmes Body for the inspiring readers project. In addition, the cross-border mobile library will receive £231,539. For the Bookstart project, Peace III funding has been used to cover salary and subsistence costs for an early-years support worker until June 2008. In the Belfast Central Library, the European information point, which is one of only two in Northern Ireland, has received European funding for staff training costs, including staff time and materials.

As far as lottery funding is concerned, we have received £202,000 for ICT from 2001-04, and the electronic libraries project received £4·5 million. We have also received funding from the British Council, Belfast City Council, Starbucks, W H Smith, Open College Network Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the victims’ strategy implementation fund. Therefore, there is a history of success in sourcing external funding, and the relevant expertise will remain part of the Library Service.