The Government is seeking the views of writers and illustrators over its plan to transfer the responsibility for managing the Public Lending Right scheme to another body.

PLR, the organisation that currently looks after the payments, which ensure that writers and illustrators receive remuneration for books lent in libraries, is to be abolished.

The Department for Culture is considering transferring responsibility for the payments to the British Library, Arts Council, or even itself. Many say that current body does the job perfectly well and should be allowed to continue.

Clive Goddard, cartoonist and Procartoonists.org member, who has illustrated many books, including more than 30 for Scholastic’s Horribly Famous, above, the sister series to Horrible Histories, told us: “The PLR system works brilliantly. It has a very simple-to-use online database which I can update myself.

“The whole process involves the minimum amount of fuss and is administered by one small, dedicated office with very few staff. All its recipients, I’m told, like it. Which is probably why the Government wants to change it.

“The result will undoubtedly mean more money spent on admin, redundancy, restructuring, relocation, consulting, retraining, system installation, data-transfer, management, line-management, departmental managers, management co-ordination seminars, office furniture, equipment, motivational artwork and yukka plants. And less money given to illustrators. A perfect vignette of the workings of modern Britain.”

The consultation paper is available on the Department for Culture website here. Procartonists.org says: “Give ‘em hell, Clive.”