Agenda item - Written questions from members of the public.

A list of public questions received by the due date of the 1 October 2009 will be circulated separately as part of an addendum at the meeting.

17.1       The Mayor reported that one written question had been received from a member of the public and invited Mr. Hawtree to come forward and address the council.

17.2       Mr. Hawtree asked the following question:

          “Could Councillor Smith please tell us whether each of Brighton’s Jubilee Library and Hove's Carnegie Library has a designated Music Librarian?”

Councillor Smith replied, “There are no posts dedicated specifically to music in either library.  Instead we have teams of staff in each library who have been trained to answer music enquiries.  We also have some more experienced staff in both libraries who are able to deal with more specialist enquiries.”

17.3       Mr. Hawtree asked the following supplementary question,

“Councillor Smith can we now reverse this decline by ensuring that we adopt the Westminster model of specific Music Librarians?”

17.4       Councillor Smith replied, “We come out nationally as the fifth best library in the whole country, that’s us and in the city and I can tell you this Mr Hawtree, we have got a 91% satisfactory rate with our libraries. 

Can I say through you, Madam Mayor, I don’t mind Mr Hawtree having a go at me but when he picks on our library staff, our dedicated library staff for doing the best of their ability all the time and all the officers’ time it takes for his questions.  Now, if it was 200 years ago, Madam Mayor, we would have sorted all this out by a duel which I would have won but nowadays, Madam Mayor, the democratic way is through the ballot box and I am quite happy for Mr Hawtree to put his name up as a candidate in the Rottingdean Coastal Ward next time and he can take me on there in the election..”

17.5       The Mayor thanked Mr. Hawtree for his questions.