LIBRARIES across Wirral could be closed down as part of a massive review of the council’s overspent cultural services department.

The long overdue report is to be presented to the authority’s cabinet committee next week, and has been tied into a review of all the council’s assets.

About £10m a year must be saved from the cultural services department’s £360m budget and cabinet member responsible, Cllr Bob Moon, warned earlier this year it would be “quite a radical review – it has to be”.

In 2007 the council approved the appointment of consultants Strategic Leisure at a cost of £100,000.

Last night chairman of the corporate services scrutiny committee, Cllr Leah Fraser, said they should “spend less on consultants telling us what we already know, and focus on what they need”.

She said: “If they spent less money on professional consultants telling us what to do and more on investment for the people of Wirral, we would all be better off.”

The report concludes that “the vision, strategy and direction for cultural services has not been fully articulated leading to ad hoc opportunistic development of services” and that there are “too many built facilities in poor condition, some in the wrong place, not fit for purpose and not to modern standards”.

A strategic development plan, which accompanies the report, said although the libraries service “needs to be comprehensive, [...] it is not necessary to provide all elements of the service in every library facility”.

It continued: “The concept for the future of the service is to change the focus from buildings to community provision, based on fewer, better quality, and more accessible services and facilities.”