APPENDIX 14
Memorandum submitted by the National Gallery
FREE ADMISSION
THE GALLERY'S
SUPPORT FOR
FREE ADMISSION
The National Gallery firmly supports the policy
of free admission.
Charging would erect barriers (physical and
psychological as well as financial) to access to the Gallery's
collection, which is best appreciated through frequent repeat
visits. The benefits to society of access without such barriers
outweigh the benefits that the extra income would bring: more
people, and from a wider range of social groups, are attracted
to the Gallery, and the quality of the experience when here is
higher. Whatever the strength of such arguments for different
kinds of museums, they apply with particular strength to a collection
like that of the Gallery.
It is clear that charging would dramatically
reduce the number of visits, but less clear what the net effect
on the Gallery's finances would be. Our best guess has been that
it would be likely to bring modest financial gains, but it is
important not to overestimate the effect on the Gallery's economic
structure. Some donors would not have supported the Gallery had
charges been in force. In any case, subsidy would still be necessary,
as it is in comparable institutions worldwide.
Until very recently free admission meant that
it was not possible for the Gallery to recover more than a small
proportion of VAT. This reduced the resources available to the
Gallery, for instance for investment in its air conditioning,
fire containment, and roof safety. The resulting backlog of essential
infrastructure investment remains to be made good.
EFFECT OF
FREE ADMISSION
AT OTHER
NMGS ON
NG VISIT NUMBERS
Visit numbers reflect a wide range of factors:
the nature of our programme, facilities and services; global,
national, and local factors beyond our control (for instance the
quality of transport into and around central London, other factors
affecting tourism, and economic developments); and the impact
of other visitor attractions in the area. The pedestrianisation
of Trafalgar Square is likely to have a positive effect in the
long term, though the disruption caused by the works has a negative
effect in the short term.
Given this wide range of factors, estimates
of the scale of the effect on our visit numbers of free admission
in other national museums and galleries can only be speculative.
We have estimated that the effect in 2002 may have been to reduce
our numbers by about 8 per cent. That would be equivalent to something
around 400,000 visits.
The Gallery plans to commission visitor research
to examine whether the demographic composition of its visitors
appears to have changed. To date budget restrictions mean that
such research has not been possible, but it is now clear that
the effects are substantial enough for it to be essential to go
ahead.
FINANCIAL EFFECTS
OF REDUCED
VISIT NUMBERS
The extra costs of each marginal visitor are
very low (because the bulk of our costs arise from housing and
displaying the Collection safely and well for the public, however
many visit). On the other hand, the average income from each visitor
is about £2. We therefore estimate that the financial effect
of free admission in other national museums and galleries has
been a reduction in our income of about £800,000. This comes
on top of a reduction in income of roughly the same size again
arising from other factors.
This very large reduction in income has forced
us to make savings to balance our budget. We have had to restrict
the opening of our reserve collection; defer essential maintenance
and infrastructure work; reduce expenditure on marketing, IT and
new media; postpone the extension of evening opening hours; and
reduce the amount of DCMS grant-in-aid that we allocate to picture
purchases to zero, compared to an allocation of over £3 million
five years ago. We have had to postpone or forgo a number of exciting
projects in support of education in schools and for adults, of
regional museums, and of disadvantaged children and families.
We hope that the DCMS grant allocations due
to be announced soon will enable us to reverse some of these decisions.
22 October 2002
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