Buck, R (on the application of) v Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council

Ms Buck lives in Doncaster. She uses one of the public libraries in the town (Scawthorpe library) a great deal. The council’s former executive (which at the relevant time consisted of Peter Davies, a directly elected mayor and his cabinet) wished to change the library services in Doncaster and thereby save public money. I shall refer to the executive as “the mayor”. On 23 November 2011, he decided to make changes which included replacing employed staff with volunteers or self-service facilities in twelve of the Doncaster public libraries and closing two of the libraries altogether. These changes affected Scawthorpe library. The full council wished to retain the existing level of library services.

The full council held its final budget and council tax setting meeting for 2012-13 on 5 March 2012. It passed an amendment to the budget that had been presented for approval by the mayor. The mayor’s proposed budget for library services had been lower than that for 2011/12, principally because of the changes to the service that he had decided to make. The proposed budget amendment was in these terms:

“Create a contingency budget to provide support for 14 community libraries (including reopening Carcroft and Denaby). This will include funding for up to 14 FTE library assistants for community libraries and self-service units at nine of the sites that don’t have one. The total cost for 2012-13 is £382,250 with £306,250 required from 2013-14 onwards. The fund will be available to ensure that no library is allowed to fail and to ensure delivery of the library services within communities. It can be accessed via AD-ICT [and] customer services who will liaise with local ward members and neighbourhood managers to agree priorities in community libraries. (£382k increased expenditure 2012-13, £306k on-going) (Original emphasis)”.

Following the passing of the amendment, the mayor said that he would not spend the £382,250 “as per the amendment”. In other words, he did not intend to use the money to return the fourteen libraries in question to being fully-staffed council library facilities.

In these proceedings, Ms Buck claims a declaration that the mayor has acted unlawfully in refusing to implement the budget amendment determined by the full council. Her case is that the mayor is bound by the full council having resolved to spend the £382,250 on reopening or re-staffing or continuing to staff the libraries in question. The claim raises important issues as to the division of powers between a directly elected executive and the full council of a local authority.

Hickinbottom J rejected the challenge on two grounds. First, he held that, as a matter of construction, the amendment passed by the full council did not purport to be and was not a direction to spend the money allocated by it. Rather, it was in the nature of a contingency fund, and that was how the mayor treated it. Secondly, even if the amendment had been such a direction, the mayor would not have been bound by it. How to run the libraries was a matter for him as the executive. For reasons which he developed in detail (and to which I shall refer) the mayor’s decision remained one for him, because it was neither contrary to the budget nor contrary to a “plan or strategy” within the meaning of the Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities) (England) Regulations 2000 (“the Functions Regulations”).

The litigation is now academic. The financial year to which the amendment relates is at an end. The money was not spent on the library service, since in the mayor’s view, all the twelve community libraries have continued to function successfully without it. No similar provision has been made or attempted to be made in the 2013/14 budget.

Aikens LJ was, however, persuaded that the second ground of decision, concerning the division between executive and non-executive functions, was of sufficient general importance to justify the giving of permission to appeal. Although he also gave permission to appeal on the first ground of decision, it seems to me that no useful purpose is served by construing the wording of the amendment of a budget which relates to a year that has passed. It is not suggested that the wording is in a standard form which is in widespread use. The issue of the meaning of the amendment is entirely academic. The court should not devote its resources to deciding such issues. Accordingly, I do not intend to decide the first ground of appeal which is exclusively concerned with whether the first basis for the judge’s decision was correct.

I turn, therefore, to the second ground of decision which forms the basis of the second ground of appeal.

Prior to the Local Government Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”), the power to make all decisions on behalf of a local authority was vested in the full council, although it could and did delegate much decision-making to committees or officers. Such arrangements were radically changed by the 2000 Act. The purpose of this Act was to replace the previous system in favour of a clear separation between executive and backbench councillors. Section 9Cdescribes three forms of executive. These include an elected mayor with a cabinet of councillors appointed by the mayor. This is the model that was adopted by Doncaster.

Section 9D requires that all functions of a local authority are the responsibility of the executive unless otherwise specified in regulations. At paras 20 to 43 of his judgment, the judge set out in detail the relevant statutory material. There is no need for me to repeat it here. I have reproduced these paragraphs in the Appendix to this judgment. I should point out that section 11(1) of the 2000 Act (mentioned at para 4 of the Appendix) is now the section 9C to which I have just referred.

It is not in dispute that library functions are executive functions. Thus, as Mr Giffin QC says, decisions about the provision and operation of libraries, whether at the macro-level (of how many libraries there should be), or at the micro-level (of precise opening hours, stock, staffing etc) are for the executive to take.

There are only two provisions in the Functions Regulations which could lead to a different result. Paras 2 and 3 of Schedule 4 specify two situations in which what would otherwise be a function which is the responsibility of the executive becomes the responsibility of the full Council. These are, in summary, where the executive is minded to determine a matter (i) in a manner “contrary to or not wholly in accordance with the authority’s budget”, or (ii) in terms “contrary to [a] plan or strategy adopted or approved by the authority” unless it is authorised by the authority’s “executive arrangements, financial regulations, standing orders or other rules or procedures to make a determination in those terms”.

Ms Buck seeks to rely on both of these provisions. In a nutshell, she says that, in refusing to implement the budget amendment in relation to library services, the mayor acted (i) contrary to and not wholly in accordance with the budget and (ii) contrary to a plan or strategy adopted or approved by the authority.

The case advanced by Mr Wolfe QC is that, once the £382,250 had been allocated by the full council by its budget amendment, the mayor was obliged to spend the money for the purposes mentioned in the amendment. He relies strongly on the language of section 31A(1) and (2) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (“LGFA”) and in particular on the fact that one of the functions that these provisions require to be discharged by the full council is calculating “the expenditure which the authority estimates it will incur in the year in performing its functions”. He submits that the full council is obliged to estimate the expenditure that the authority will incurin performing its functions: not the expenditure that it “is permitted to incur” or “might incur” or “will incur if the mayor wants to incur it”. A decision as to the expenditure that will be incurred necessarily implies a decision about what the Council will do in performing those functions.

Mr Wolfe finds support for his case at page 18 of Doncaster’s Constitution where there is a definition of “budget” as “the identification and allocation of financial resources for the following financial year(s) by the Full Council including....Revenue Budgets....” (emphasis added). He also says that the “proposals” for “action” in the mayor’s draft/proposed budget were entirely consistent with his case. They were proposals for changing what the Council would do in 2012/13 (including, for example, closing libraries) which thus had financial consequences.

The judge rejected these submissions as would I. At para 57 of his judgment, he made the general observation:

“If, by an appropriately worded budget amendment, the full Council could override executive decisions of the Mayor, and replace those decisions with their own, the ultimate executive decision-making power would not lie with the Mayor, but with the full Council. In terms of the intention of the new governance scheme, as expressed in the 2000 Guidance and elsewhere, such a construction would be disastrous.”

That is a distinctly unpromising start for Mr Wolfe’s submissions. In view of the objective of the relevant provisions of the 2000 Act, it would be extraordinary (and frustrate the evident intention of Parliament) if the full council could direct the mayor whether and, if so, how to spend the money which had been authorised by the budget. It would mean that the full council could take over responsibility for almost any executive matter, simply by writing some sufficiently specific provision about it in the annual budget. If the budget-setting powers of the full council extend to prescribing exactly what expenditure is to be incurred in what specific respects, then it can use those powers to determine exactly what the executive authority will do. Nor is there any limit to the degree of detail into which such prescription could descend. This kind of micro-management by the full council was plainly not intended by the 2000 Act.

Like the judge, I would accept the submission of Mr Giffin that section 31A(2)(a) of the LGFA gave the full council no power to interfere with the executive function of the mayor, except where the mayor proposed to exercise the function in a way that was (i) contrary to, or not wholly in accordance with the authority’s budget, or (ii) contrary to a plan or strategy adopted or approved by the authority. The word “estimates” in the phrase “estimates it will incur in the year in performing its functions” describes what the Council is doing at the budget-setting stage. It is estimating, but not determining, what will happen. As Mr Giffin says, the estimate is merely a means to the end of setting the budget and, therefore the council tax.

None of this is in the least surprising. Setting a budget is not the same as deciding what expenditure will in fact be incurred. To budget for expenditure is to estimate likely expenditure and/or make financial provision for such expenditure. The LGFA requires an authority (through the full council) to calculate the aggregate of various estimated amounts on the credit and debit side of its affairs, in order to find the shortfall to which its council tax base has to be applied. That is how the annual council tax is set. One of these estimated amounts is specified by section 31A(2)(a).

So what does determining a matter in a manner “contrary to or not wholly in accordance with the authority’s budget” mean? In my view, it means determining a matter which will result in incurring expenditure in excess of that for which budget approval has been given by the full council. That does not only mean that the executive may not incur expenditure in excess of the aggregate of the entire budget, although it certainly includes such a restriction on the executive’s spending power. Mr Giffin accepts that it also means that the executive may not incur expenditure in excess of heads of expenditure specified in the budget. It is clear from the language of para 2 of schedule 4 to the Functions Regulations that this concession is correct. Para 2 provides that the determination of a matter is not the responsibility of the executive if “[the executive] is minded to determine the matter contrary to, or not wholly in accordance with (i) the authority’s budget” (emphasis added). But since the present case is not concerned with expenditure by the executive allegedly in excess of the budget set by the authority, it is not necessary to explore the question of what degree of budgetary detail is contemplated by para 2 of schedule 4.

To summarise, the full council may allocate more or less funds than are requested by the mayor in his proposed budget. It is the final arbiter of what goes into the budget. The budgetary process is geared to avoiding any budget deficit by ensuring that the revenue expenditure will not be exceeded. But it does not allow the full council to micro-manage the authority’s functions and interfere with the executive functions of the mayor. The full council cannot require the mayor to expend money in a particular way, or, unless he proposes to act in a way contrary to the plans and strategies reserved to the full council, to expend money on a particular function. As the judge said (para 65), in Doncaster’s case, this is underscored by the fact that the mayor has an unlimited power of virement, ie a power to transfer money from one budget to another (para B17 of the Financial Procedure Rules, which are included in the Constitution). This means that, even if (contrary to the view I have expressed) Mr Wolfe’s argument were otherwise correct, it would have been permissible for the mayor simply to transfer money away from the library service budget head in the course of the financial year and spend it on something else. This would have been consistent with the Functions Regulations, because it would have been “authorised by the authority’s executive arrangements, financial regulations, standing orders or other rules or procedures”. It follows that neither the budget amendment nor the court (by judicial review) could have compelled the result sought by Ms Buck even if her other arguments had succeeded.

In order to succeed in this ground of challenge, Mr Wolfe has to show that (i) there was in existence a “plan or strategy” in relation to the relevant function; (ii) this plan or strategy had been “adopted or approved” by the full council; and (iii) the mayor’s decision to proceed with the library proposals in November 2011 was contrary to that plan or strategy.

Mr Wolfe’s argument proceeds as follows. The report submitted by the mayor to the full council on 23 February 2011 included a proposed “Financial Strategy 2012/13”. The document said in terms: “the budget detailed in this report is based on the following financial strategy”. It then set out between paras 36 and 66 further detail of the strategy using language such as “the overall strategy...” (para 37), “the strategy for future years is based on...” (para 40) and “the proposals contained in this Financial Strategy....The key risks associated with this Financial Strategy...” (para 60). Mr Wolfe submits that the councillors were being presented by the mayor with a “Financial Strategy” which was a “strategy” within the meaning of para 3 of schedule 4 of the Functions Regulations. His case is that, when the full council voted to amend the “Financial Strategy” that was proposed to them by the mayor, it adopted and approved it in its amended form as a plan or strategy within the meaning of the Functions Regulations.

In my view, this argument fails at the first two stages for the reasons given by Mr Giffin, which were in essence accepted by the judge. First, there was no relevant “plan or strategy”. The language of “plan or strategy”, read in the context of the Functions Regulations, denotes something that operates at a general level. It cannot embrace any and every decision that may be taken on an individual issue. If it did, it would undermine the basic distinction between executive and non-executive functions which lies at the heart of the relevant part of the 2000 Act. The basic idea is that the full council may in certain respects set the policy framework for the authority, but its detailed implementation is a matter for the executive (provided that what it does is not contrary to and is wholly in accordance with the budget). The mayor’s budget proposals in relation to the library services (a small part of the overall budget for 2012-13) did not comprise a “plan or strategy” for that budget. At most, the proposals were an expression of a small aspect of the policy which formed the basis of the budget. In any event, the financial strategy referred to in the mayor’s budget report was not intended to be a plan or strategy separate from the budget itself. It was a proposed budget built up in detail as one would expect. It was not a plan or strategy in any ordinary sense of those words. In my view, Mr Wolfe places too much weight on the word “strategy” in the mayor’s report. It follows that his argument fails at the first hurdle.

But even if paragraphs 36 to 39 of the mayor’s report (particularly relied on by Mr Wolfe) did contain a strategy separate from the proposed budget, the full council did not adopt or approve that strategy. There is nothing in the resolution passed by the full council which has that effect. The full council never determined that it should take the decision about whether to approve it as a plan or strategy. It simply passed the amendment (or approved the amended budget). That is not surprising because section 3.3 of the Doncaster Constitution is an exhaustive list of plans and strategies which may be adopted by the full council. The list comprises seven plans and strategies prescribed by legislation. The only other plan and strategy which the full council may decide to adopt is the “Corporate plan”. In other words, the full council had no power to adopt the mayor’s budget proposals as a plan or strategy within the meaning of para 3 of schedule 4 of the Functions Regulations. It follows that Mr Wolfe’s argument also fails at the second hurdle.

In these circumstances, I do not find it necessary to decide whether the mayor’s decision to proceed with his library proposals was contrary to a plan or strategy that had been adopted by the full council. To some extent, this argument depends on the true construction of the amendment to the budget, an issue that I have declined to address: see para 7 above.

For all these reasons, which in substance are the same as those given by the judge, I would dismiss this appeal.

I agree.

I also agree.

Doncaster MBC is a local authority and a body corporate constituted under section 2 of the Local Government Act 1972. For ease of reference, as others have done in these proceedings, in this judgment I refer to the body corporate as “the authority”, and I use the term “the full Council” to denote a meeting at which all elected members of the local authority are entitled to attend and vote. The full Council in Doncaster has 64 members.

Prior to the Local Government Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”), the power to make all decisions on behalf of a local authority vested in the full Council; although it could, and of course did, delegate much decision-making to committees or officers, and committees subdelegated to officers or subcommittees. In practice, most important decisions were taken by committees, the constitution of which usually reflected the political balance of the full Council.

That picture of local government governance was radically altered by the 2000 Act, as supplemented by guidance issued under that Act on 26 October 2000 by the Secretary of State, “New Council Constitutions: Guidance to English Authorities” (“the 2000 guidance”). The new statutory provisions replaced “crude universal capping” with the principle of “best value”; and were designed to provide “efficient, transparent and accountable decision making”, through “new constitutions which [would] deliver identifiable, accountable, corporate leadership for a local authority and the community it serves” by removing most decision-making from the full Council altogether, and putting it into the hands of a small executive (paragraphs 1.8 and 1.10 of the 2000 guidance). Those principles are underscored by section 37 of the 2000 Act, the Local Government Act (Constitutions) (England) Direction 2000 and paragraph 4.65 of the 2000 guidance which require to be made publicly available the scheme of delegation of functions which are the responsibility of the executive, including delegations to individual portfolio holders.

Section 11(1) of the Act allows a number of models, the most popular being the “leader and cabinet” model, under which the councillors elect a leader, and the executive comprises that leader and a small number of other councillors appointed by him or by the full Council. However, that was not the model adopted in Doncaster. Following a referendum, the authority there adopted the “mayor and cabinet” model under which there is a directly-elected mayor who, with councillors selected by him, forms the executive. In the case of Doncaster, in addition to the mayor, the executive cabinet must comprise between two and nine councillors.

However the executive is made up, it is responsible (and, subject to a few exceptions to which I shall come, exclusively responsible) for all “executive functions”, which comprise the vast majority of an authority's business. Indeed, a function being executive is the default position: by virtue of a variety of provisions, all of an authority's functions are executive, except where specific provision provides that they are non-executive (see section 9D(2) of the 2000 Act, regulation 2(2) of Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities) (England) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000 No 2853, “the 2000 Regulations”) and paragraph 1.16 of the 2000 guidance).

Non-executive functions remain the preserve of the full Council, exercisable as in the past by the full Council itself, or by a committee, subcommittee or officer as a delegee. Whilst those non-executive functions include a substantial number of functions not relevant to this claim (e.g. those to do with licensing), they also include two important functions (approving the budget and adopting various plans and strategies) central to this judicial review.

Approving the budget is effectively made a non-executive function by the Local Government Finance Act 1992. By section 1, each “billing authority” (which includes a District Council such as Doncaster MBC) has a duty to levy and collect council tax. Section 67(1) and (2) requires that certain functions of a billing authority must be discharged by the full Council. By virtue of section 31A(1), one such function is making particular calculations, including, by section 31A(2), the calculation of the aggregate of a number of items including:  

“(a)

the expenditure which the authority estimates it will incur in the year in performing its functions and will charge to the revenue account… for the year in accordance with proper practices, [and]

(b)

such allowance as the authority estimates will be appropriate for contingencies in relation to amounts to be charged or credited to a revenue account for the year in accordance with proper practices…”.

Under regulation 4(9)-(11) of the 2000 Regulations, the executive must prepare and submit to the full Council estimates of the amounts to be aggregated for the purposes of those calculations, and to undertake any reconsideration of those estimates that the full Council require; but, as a consequence of section 67, the function of making or approving the required calculations – and, in that sense, approving the budget – remains one for the full Council itself. That function is non-delegable.

The approval of certain plans and strategies is also reserved to the full Council, by the 2000 Regulations which generally define the line between executive and non-executive functions. Regulation 4 and schedule 3 provide that adoption of specific listed plans and strategies must be by the full Council, including “the Annual Library Plan” which furnishes such information as the Secretary of State requires for the purposes of performing his duty to superintend the public library service under section 1 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. The Annual Library Plan (or, as it is called in Doncaster's constitution, “the Library Position Statement”) has no relevance to this claim.

Where a plan or strategy does not fall within the scope of schedule 3, under regulation 5 and schedule 4(1) the adoption of it shall still be a non-executive function where “the [full Council] determines that a decision whether the plan or strategy should be adopted or approved should be taken by them” – in other words, the full Council may determine that it should itself be responsible for adopting or approving a particular plan or strategy that does not appear on the list. If it does not positively determine to do so, then the approval or adoption of those plans and strategies is a matter for the executive, under the default provision. The intent of the scheme is that the full Council do not seek to reserve for themselves the approval of plans and strategies other than those that form the “policy framework” (see, e.g., paragraphs 2.7, 2.9 and 2.18 of the 2000 guidance). Where there is a directly-elected mayor, he has a direct political mandate; and a – indeed, in many ways, the – substantial policy-making role in the authority, which includes preparing the draft policy framework and, within the framework that is eventually approved by the full Council, developing lower level policies, plans and strategies to implement that framework.

The respective powers of the executive and the full Council are thus divided and demarcated. The line between their respective decision-making bailiwicks may at times be difficult to identify; but a firm line there is.

The 2000 Regulations also seek to ensure that, in performing the gamut of functions within its scope, the executive does not infringe the boundary of those functions reserved to the full Council. Regulation 5 and schedule 4, to which I have referred, go on to identify circumstances in which functions that would otherwise be those of the executive are taken away from the executive and put into the hands of the full Council.

Paragraph 2 of schedule 4 provides that those circumstances include the following:

“The determination of any matter in the discharge of a function which

(a)

is the responsibility of the executive; and

(b)

is concerned with the authority's budget, or their borrowing or capital expenditure…”

shall not be the responsibility of the executive if

“[the executive] is minded to determine the matter contrary to, or not wholly in accordance with

(i)

the authority's budget; …”.

Similarly, paragraph 3 provides that such circumstances also include the following:

“The determination of any matter in the discharge of a function

(a)

which is the responsibility of the executive; and

(b)

in relation to which a plan or strategy (whether statutory or non-statutory) has been adopted or approved by the authority …”

shall not be the responsibility of the executive if

“[the executive] is minded to determine the matter in terms contrary to the plan or, as the case may be, the strategy adopted or approved by the authority.”

Those provisions seek to ensure that the executive does not undermine the proper functions of the full Council to adopt and approve the budget, and the relevant plans and strategies, by taking what would otherwise be executive decisions properly within its scope but which have that effect.

Of course, similarly, the full Council cannot seek to stray into the province of executive decision-making by going outside the limited scope of the powers expressly allocated to them. That is inherent in the scheme: there is no need for express provision as there is the other way, because the default position is that functions are executive and the scheme needs only expressly to set out when functions that would otherwise be executive revert to the full Council, and not vice versa.

It is immediately apparent that conflicts might arise between an executive such as a mayor and cabinet on the one hand, and the full Council on the other. Where such conflicts arise in setting the budget and policy framework, there is a resolution procedure set out in a section from paragraph 2.34 onwards, headed, “Conflict resolution in setting the budget and policy framework”. In relation to those two areas (setting the budget and policy framework), there are provisions for reflection by both parties (paragraph 2.34), but the full Council may ultimately carry the day by a two-thirds majority (paragraph 2.36).

However, the 2000 guidance emphasises the limited scope for such a procedure, given that the foundation of the entire governance scheme is that the directly-elected mayor is responsible for all executive functions, as a result of his electoral mandate. Paragraph 2.37 of the 2000 guidance therefore says:

“Such conflict resolution mechanism would apply only to approval or adoption of the budget and policy framework. It could not be employed in respect of functions which are the sole responsibility of the executive where the legislation requires that, under normal circumstances, only the executive can take the decisions (or delegate them). In this case, overview and scrutiny committees have specific powers to challenge the executive and to require the decision maker reconsiders any decision which has been made but not implemented.”

Therefore, the scope of the conflict resolution procedure is restricted to conflicts between executive and full Council in relation to the budget or policy framework. Otherwise, the executive may be required to reconsider by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, but it has the final word. It was under that latter procedure, in October and November 2011, that the mayor was required to reconsider his executive proposal with regard to library services, and, having done so, decided on 23 November 2011 to proceed with their proposal.

That division of functions between the mayor and executive cabinet on the one hand, and the full Council on the other, is reflected in the Constitution of Doncaster MBC prepared under section 37 of the 2000 Act.

The mayor and cabinet are expressly responsible for “most of the day to day decisions” (Part 1, Paragraph 4), subject to (e.g.) publicity for “key” decisions and overview and scrutiny by the eponymous committee which has the right to “call-in” decisions and ask the mayor and cabinet to reconsider them. However, in line with the Act, neither the full Council nor the Overview and Scrutiny Committee can direct the mayor as to how executive functions ought to be exercised except in the following limited circumstances.

Article 3.01(d) and (e) provides that only the full Council can exercise the function of approving or adopting the Budget and the Policy Framework, or of “making decisions about any executive function which is covered by the Budget or Policy Framework where the decision is wholly or partly contrary to the Budget or Policy Framework…”.

“Budget” is defined in paragraph 1 of the Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rules , set out in Part 1 of Doncaster's Constitution, as follows:

“(i)

The identification and allocation of financial resources for the following financial year(s) by the Full Council including:

• Revenue Budgets;

• Capital Budgets;

• The Council Tax Base;

• The Council Tax Level;

• Borrowing Requirements;

• Prudential Indicators;

• The Medium-Term Financial Strategy; and

• The Level of Uncommitted Reserves.

(ii)

Any resolution of Full Council identified as a budgetary decision causing the total expenditure financed from Council Tax, grants and corporately held reserves to increase above that stated in the approved budget.”

“Policy framework” is defined by reference to the statutory provisions, i.e. in terms of schedule 4 to the 2000 Regulations.

Responsibilities which lie with the full Council are set out in paragraph 3.3 of part 3 of the Constitution. They include, of course, adopting the plans and strategies listed in schedule 3 of the 2000 Regulations, which must be exercised by them as a result of the provisions in the Regulations to which I have referred. The only plan or strategy that is noted as having otherwise been reserved, because the full Council has determined that the decision to adopt it will be theirs, is the “Corporate Plan”. That is defined in part 1 of the Constitution as providing “a high level summary of the Council's current priorities”; and paragraph 1b of part 1 indicates that:

“[The full] Council has agreed a Corporate Plan which summarises the Council's key priorities to be achieved through operating this Constitution.”

The Corporate Plan, so defined, certainly chimes with the concept of a policy framework. Doncaster's Corporate Plan is not in evidence before me, but it seems to be common ground that it does not specifically refer to library provision, nor does it otherwise contain anything of assistance to the Claimant's case.