THE long-term future of some of Swindon's part-time libraries is under scrutiny as the town's education and community service must make cutbacks.

The director of the department at Swindon Council, Mike Lusty, has suggested that some of the libraries could be closed or converted into unstaffed reading rooms.

That would then allow the development of seven "centres of excellence" in the borough, which would be fully staffed libraries with top quality facilities.

It is one proposal among a package of savings put to the council's cabinet committee and could affect libraries such as those in Victoria Road in Old Town, Beechcroft Road in Stratton St Margaret and Hughes Street in Even Swindon.

But councillors sitting on the cabinet have insisted such changes will not be made in this financial year and would only be considered following a full review next year.

Another proposal put forward by Dr Lusty as a cost cutting option was to start to charge parents for sending their children to the hugely successful Children's University scheme.

The scheme has been run during the summer at local schools and colleges for the last three years and has attracted increasing numbers of children, who have taken part in a wide variety of educational activities.

Other possible choices for councillors include reducing the overall community grants budget by £185,000 to £1.3 million and removing the council's subsidy for sending pupils to Plas Pencelli adventure centre in Wales.

Coun Garry Perkins (Con, Dorcan), the lead member for education and community, said: "We're desperately trying to find savings in the education budget, because the Ofsted inspection proved we need to spend more cash on schools.

"But these suggestions are not necessarily likely to happen the libraries certainly won't be closing in the near future and if we do consider doing that, it would only be after a long-term investigation.

"Swindon is very well served for libraries and there may be an argument for changing the provision in future, but we won't be looking at that until at least next May."

"And whatever we do, it will be to guarantee a better service at a reduced cost by doing it smarter and more efficiently."