Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER 2002
MR NEIL
MACGREGOR
AND MS
DAWN AUSTWICK,
OBE
20. Obviously you would like more money, but
is there a formula, is there a process for determining what museums
should receive which you would like to see instituted or are you
happy with the present arrangements?
(Mr MacGregor) The present arrangement is, on the
gentlest formulation, opaque but I think what we would like to
see would be to have seriously costed programmes for further educational
activities and especially for the regional activities. We have
a large number of regional partners; we want to negotiate not
just more frequent exhibitions but long-term deposits with other
museums across the country. The cost of that internally is obviously
considerable. We would like a basis where, having agreed this
level of fundamental running costs, these extras are costed and
funded, and the same with education. The work we do with schools—somewhere
in the region of 200,000 children get taught every year; we have
invested very heavily in websites particularly the ancient civilisations
websites; and in adult education. We have invested in those areas
and we would like to be able to put costed packages for specific
funding.
21. Do the different departments of Government
fund you for these separate elements?
(Mr MacGregor) No.
22. It is a straight grant from DCMS approved
by the Treasury?
(Mr MacGregor) Yes.
23. Nothing from the GMTE, for example, for
all that education?
(Mr MacGregor) Not specifically and it is something
that we feel ought to be explored because we are a fundamental
part of lifelong learning. For instance, the two websites on Mesopotamia
and Egypt which have between them over two million visits a year
were funded by the Japanese. We need more funding for that kind
of activity.
24. When you say "funded by the Japanese",
that is external funding/private funding/sponsorship, that sort
of thing?
(Mr MacGregor) Yes and it is not always possible to
repeat that but it is an essential part. Every child in the country
should be able to use the British Museum's collection and that
costs money and that is what we are asking for.
25. If I summarise what you have said, basically
the education aspect of the British Museum is not funded by the
State.
(Mr MacGregor) Not entirely.
26. And you would like it to be.
(Mr MacGregor) Absolutely.
27. We are obviously moving to a system of devolution
in this country; we have Scotland and Wales already and we have
the RDAs operating and funding some museum activities in other
parts of the country. Do you see any scope there? Is there any
money you have raised in Scotland and Wales separately?
(Mr MacGregor) Not at the moment but that probably
will be. We are in discussions, for instance, with Glasgow Museums
regarding long-term operational arrangements involving collections
and I would imagine that some of the funding which will enable
that to proceed would have to come from Scotland.
28. That seems to be a development of the arrangements
you already have with individual museums.
(Mr MacGregor) Yes, but I imagine that some of that
funding would have to come from a devolved government.
29. One final question on funding. You have
raised substantial sums of money privately. What scope do you
have to improve that?
(Mr MacGregor) We have already raised sums. The £65
million raised for the Great Court was the largest sum raised
by any museum in Europe from private sources. We have very ambitious
plans in Britain and around the world. We can certainly improve
it but of course that is crucially dependent on general economic
circumstances and it is always uncertain. We can aim to do better
but, as you know, private funding is inherently and necessarily
unstable.
30. One final parochial question from the North
of Scotland. There is a great deal of pressure on museums these
days to send back artefacts which have been collected from various
parts of the world. What are the chances of the Lewis Chessmen
going back home to Stornoway?
(Mr MacGregor) I would have to question the word "home"!
As you know, they were not actually made in Stornoway as far as
can tell; they were made somewhere but were found in Stornoway.
Many of them are already in the National Museum in Edinburgh,
as you know, and there is a programme of regular visits, not just
to Lewis, which seems to me to be the ideal solution and we would
be very happy to contribute.
31. That sounds like a fudged answer to me.
(Mr MacGregor) No. Some of those Chessmen will be
seen regularly in Stornoway and we will take part in that.
Chairman: One matter that we will need
to raise with the Secretary of State is the fact that of course
the British Museum is not allowed to divest itself of exhibits
that it possesses and, at the end of the last Parliament, the
then Minster for the Arts promised, as a result of one of our
inquiries, to pass legislation to make this possible and it has
not been done yet.
Ms Shipley
32. You have spoken of "memory of mankind",
"collective memory of mankind", "oneness becoming
apparent" and the Assyrian connection as well. Also, 20 years
or so ago, I wrote a book entitled London for Free and
I wrote a book on museums across UK and Northern Ireland. So I
do have views about this. I think our museums are a fantastic
education tool. I have some problems with what you are saying
regarding "memories of mankind" and so on and the way
you are describing it, which I am sure is wrong, is that they
lead to linear history, which is dangerous and I do not like that
at all! I am sure you do not mean that. The regional funding has
been a disappointment for people and the link-up between yourself
and regional museums is an important one. How will this deficit
in expectations—it is not actually a deficit in funding
because the funding is actually compared to what it has had for
a very long time, it is very good funding but it is a deficit
in expectation big time—affect you?
(Mr MacGregor) First of all, the real value of funding
has declined steadily over the last ten years, so I do not think
the funding can be described as "good funding" in that
sense and, no, linear history is not on the agenda, I can assure
you.
33. It is when you say that this leads to this,
leads to this, leads to this that I thought, `Gosh, no'.
(Mr MacGregor) I was speaking chronologically. The
deficit in achievement will be quite simply our capacity to prepare
material in every way to send it out of London. The requirements
to do that are obviously threefold: we need to have conservation
to make sure materials are in good condition; we need academic
research to prepare the material that goes with it in order that
it can be understood; and we usually provide, if it is wanted,
some kind of teaching support so that the material that is out
of London can speak to whichever local audience is wanted by the
local consumer. There is an absolutely straight equivalence between
the amount we can do and the funding we receive. If, at the moment,
we are having to reduce our staff in the museum, if it is difficult
to keep the galleries open for those who do come to London, then
clearly we have less and less resource to continue with our UK-wide
responsibilities.
34. I think the train of thought that Frank
developed is one that had not occurred to me because I assumed
that you are getting some education funding because you are undertaking
education work very directly in that you are teaching schoolchildren.
There are a number of levels of teaching but the straight way
you are teaching schoolchildren, it seems to me that there is
a big case to be made there for talking to the Secretary of State
for Education about this as a committee because education through
museums and galleries is a massive undertaking and increasingly
so.
(Mr MacGregor) May I just interrupt you for a second.
The school area is one but we also do a great deal of teaching
with universities and that is an area which we would like to expand.
It seems to us that since this Government are hoping to expand
higher education, we are part of that as well. So, in any discussions
with the Departments of Education, that goes through the whole
range of education.
35. As it happens, I lectured the course on
museums as mediators, so, yes, I am on board for that one as well.
Your figures, since the other museums have gone free, have gone
down and their figures have gone massively up with the complaints
that people like myself are only going in for half-an-hour and,
quite frankly, the V&A for half-an-hour is enough for me because
I only actually want to look at one thing for half-an-hour and
go out again. I was really pleased to know that the National Gallery
stayed free because I want to wander through and I enjoy wandering
through and stopping to look at one picture. So, when those galleries
complain that they are getting those short multiple visits, I
do not buy that one at all. In terms of your numbers dropping
off, personally, I am quite pleased that they are dropping off
because, as a regular visitor to your museum, it was getting to
a point of crowd control and it was getting unpleasant—I
do not want to go to the British Museum because it is too full.
Have you any comments to make about that?
(Mr MacGregor) Firstly, I could not agree more. The
only way to use collections as rich as this is by short visits.
The proudest statistic that we had at the National Gallery was
that one-third of our visitors came for just half-an-hour, which
told us that we were doing a good job and I hope that the British
Museum will reach that too, that people will drop in, look at
a few things and then go back. The shift in visitor pattern I
am sure will settle down. Clearly, lots of people went to visit
museums that had charged because they were no longer charging
and there is no doubt also that once people start visiting one
museum, they go on to others. It seems to me that the growth of
visitors to one museum is good news for us all. On certain days,
crowd control is really a problem. We have tried to remedy that
by extending opening hours. We have two late evenings a week and
the access to Great Court is considerably greater than it was
before. We would like to do that even more. It seems to be perfectly
obvious that the way to reach the working population and to spread
the visitors is to open in the evenings.
36. This is a terrible thought from somebody
who is totally in favour of it being free, but is there an argument
for saying that you should open every evening and that you should
charge because they are working people and they can pay?
(Mr MacGregor) We effectively do that already with
our friends one evening a month.
37. That is not a lot.
(Mr MacGregor) I do not know whether one could do
it much more than that. We have already done that and we raise
a great deal from our friends.
38. As a notion, is that viable: free during
the day and then, when you get to the population in the evening,
it is £5?
(Mr MacGregor) It is certainly debatable. The point
of free admission is a strategy to reach right across the public
and I think a lot of the working public would still not come.
Of course, you would get some people, but I think all the arguments
about the short visit and the frequent visitor stumble against
the ideal.
(Ms Austwick) I think there is also the argument there
that for quite a number of working people who have relatively
low wages price is an inhibitor.
Ms Shipley: It would be interesting to
know if there is any research available to back that up. I would
like to think you are right in that argument but I would like
it also to be backed up.
Alan Keen
39. We on this Committee care probably more
than the average MP about things like the British Museum, so we
are on your side. I am sure we would all like to help justify
getting more money. Can I just explore it a little further. Obviously
we have to start from where we are at the moment, but how much
space is there that could be used? You have a lot of collection
which is never shown, do you not? What value is that? Is it worth
paying more for that to be on display because you have a lot of
space available, do you not? How much space do you have without
spending more money on capital?
(Mr MacGregor) I think there are several categories
of collection that need to be distinguished. Firstly, a great
deal of it cannot be permanently on display for conservation reasons:
works on paper, fabrics and whatever. The admission has to be
a rotating display. That is one of the things that we would really
like capital for, to re-use the British Library spaces to do that,
and that could be greatly expanded. That was the great dream of
the Study Centre building in New Oxford Street. There is another
large area of material which is not in any sense any more display
material than archives would be. If we had the finds of particular
excavations with very large numbers of fragments, pottery or whatever,
they must be available for scholars, they are not for public display.
They can appropriately be stored off-site and they are, so that
they are safe and available. The third possibility is those parts
of the collection which are capable of permanent display and the
quality of display which we would like more and more to show outside
London where it does not dilute the study resource of the British
Museum. So, there is a great deal we could so with the spaces
vacated by the British Library if we had the resources to turn
them into the right kind of display.
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