Memorandum submitted by the National Museum
Directors' Conference
1. INTRODUCTION
(a) The National Museum Directors' Conference
(NMDC) is a membership organisation of the leaders of the UK's
national collections. These comprise the national museums in England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the British Library, National
Library of Scotland, and the National Archives. NMDC exists to
represent the interests of the national museums to government
and other stakeholders; to play a key role in the development
of policies and a national agenda for UK museums; to increase
awareness of the work of its members and their contribution to
society and the economy; to discuss and present views on matters
of common interest to its members. The current chairman of NMDC
is Robert Crawford, Director General of the Imperial War Museum.
(b) The role of national museums is to maintain
the nation's heritage through collections and facilitate access
for current and future generations. NMDC is responding to this
inquiry on the basis that museums and galleries are included in
the wider definition of heritage as described by the Heritage
Lottery Fund; "everything we have inherited from the past
and value enough to want to share and sustain for the future."[64]
In this context, we will address the issues highlighted by the
Committee which are of most relevance to national museums: representation
of heritage interests in wider government; access to heritage,
and funding with particular reference to the adequacy of the budget
for museums and galleries and the impact of the changes to Lottery
distribution.
Together, our national museums hold one of the
world's biggest collections of art, science, culture and natural
and social history. But they are much more than repositories:
they are engines of creativity, imagination, exploration and inspiration.
Museums nurture and promote the qualities and skills that are
essential for the sustenance and development of the UK's economy
and society in the 21st Century.
2. THE REMIT
AND EFFECTIVENESS
OF DCMS, ENGLISH
HERITAGE AND
OTHER RELEVANT
ORGANISATIONS IN
REPRESENTING HERITAGE
INTERESTS INSIDE
AND OUTSIDE
GOVERNMENT
National museums' areas of activity relate to
the responsibilities of many different government departments
including the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), Department
for International Development (DfID), Foreign & Commonwealth
Office (FCO), Department of Health (DOH), Department for, Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
(ODPM), Home Office, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
and Office of Science and Technology (OST). For example:
— The Natural History Museum (NHM)
directly contributes to a key objective of DfID, the achievement
of the Millennium Development Goals, which includes combating
malaria and other diseases. The NHM is currently undertaking scientific
work on the prevention of Malaria as well as Leishmaniasis (parasitic
skin ulcers), River Blindness and Schistosomiasis (a parasitic
disease that infects over 200 million people in 74 countries in
the developing world).
— NMSI's Sustainable Development team
works closely with both DCMS and DEFRA. Through this relationship,
it has gone on to host and provide sustainable development training
for personnel across all government departments, including at
ministerial level. It also works with DTI in the field of science
and engagement. It produced a DTI sponsored `Nanotechnology' exhibition
in 2005 and, with OST, is currently exploring ways to increase
public engagement with science issues.
— Tate has been awarded a Public Sector
Research Exploitation award by OST to develop oxygen-free framing.
— V&A used by Office of Science
and Technology as case study of knowledge transfer for it's LiDo
project to develop a light dosimeter for museum objects
— National Museums Liverpool's (NML)
Communities Partnership Unit manages the outreach and social inclusion
work that is as part of the core activity of NML, including pioneering
work with refugees and asylum seekers.
National museums contribution to learning and
skills are well documented. They have placed learning at the core
of their ethos, and developed extensive programmes and learning
opportunities from early years programmes to advanced academic
research. The figures are impressive:
— 10.23 million learners in onsite
and outreach educational programmes a year—an increase of
280% since 1998-99.
— 23% increase in number of children
in on and off site organised educational visits in past two years
(up to 2.78 million in 2004-05).
National Portrait Gallery, Tate, British Library,
Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum and National Maritime
Museum have been awarded Academic Analogue status by the Arts
and Humanities Research Council in recognition of that their research
capability is analogous to Higher Education Institutions.
The joint DfES/DCMS funding to support the education
work of England's museums and galleries is an example of successful
collaboration between these two Departments, delivering impressive
outcomes for museum users.[65]
However, this is still comparatively small scale—in 2006-08,
the funding available for this programme is £4.9 million.
The full potential to utilise our national collections and associated
expertise for learning has yet to be unleashed. NMDC are currently
working with City University on a project to explore how we can
better promote the national collections contribution to learning
and raise the profile of what museums can offer within DfES and
education sector.
More needs to be done, both to open up opportunities
for national museums to contribute to initiatives across government,
but also to gain wider recognition of the importance of national
museums work beyond DCMS. There are many examples of opportunities
that have been missed because of the difficulty of ensuring a
joined-up approach. DCMS, NMDC and individual museums need to
be able to articulate clearly the place of museums in society
and in relation to the wider government agenda. A national strategy
for museums, which embraces all our functions and values, and
explains what we can do and what is expected of us, would help
to achieve this.
Effective coordination of cultural policy across
the UK is also an issue. The development of culture and heritage
in the four home nations has been followed by a similar restriction
of bodies such as DCMS and Museums Libraries and Archives: the
last two, for example, restrict their remit to England. As a result,
there is no body or organisation responsible for the development
of cultural policy for the UK as a whole. This has many results.
One is the difficulty of developing the very substantial potential
of cultural diplomacy as a way of facilitating and extending UK
engagement with other countries throughout the world.
3. ACCESS TO
HERITAGE AND
THE POSITION
OF HERITAGE
AS A
CULTURAL ASSET
IN THE
COMMUNITY
(a) Visits
Access to national museums, both physical and
virtual has increased dramatically over the past decade. Visits
to DCMS-sponsored national museums have increased by 50% since
1998-99 due to a combination of new facilities, innovative programming
and the removal of admission charges.
— 36 million visits to DCMS-sponsored
national museums in 2004-05, 12 million more than in 1998-99.
— 8 million child visits— an
increase of 70% since 1998-99.
— 43% of all adults attended a museum
or gallery at least once during the past 12 months.[66]
— Number of international visitors
to national museums up by 57% since 1998-99, to 17.8 million overseas
visitors in 2004-05.
— The National Consumer Council found
that museums and galleries have the highest consumer satisfaction
levels of all public services.[67]
— six out of the top 10 visitor attractions
are national museums. The National Maritime Museum is the most
recent winner of the Visitor Attraction of the Year Award.
(b) Audience Reach
National museums are working hard to increase
the breadth of their reach and are pursuing programmes to increase
audience diversity. Since 1998-99, there has been a 27% increase
in the number of visitors to national museums from C2DE social
economic groups. NMDC believes that diversity in audiences and
participation is inextricably linked to diversity in collections
and public programmes, and to staffing and governance. National
museums are pursuing a programme of activity to increase diversity
in each of these areas.
(c) Virtual users
National museums are also reaching a vast global
audience through the web. The DCMS sponsored national museums
received 60.35 million unique web visits in 2004-05—an increase
on 40% on the year before. Web use is continuing to grow rapidly
and the final figures for 2005-06 will show a further increase.
The DCMS Taking Part Survey revealed that 14% of adults in England
visited a museum/gallery website in the past 12 months.[68]
As well as providing access to collections through catalogues,
data and images, websites provide opportunities to interact including
online conversations opportunities with curators, writing captions
for pictures on the Tate website, and downloading images from
the National Gallery to your mobile phone. National museum websites
also include outstanding learning resources including online exhibitions,
downloadable worksheets on national curriculum themes, teachers'
packs, making a strong contribution to Curriculum Online. For
example, the British Museum's Egyptian Ancient Civilisation website
alone received over 4 million unique visits in 2004-05.
(d) Cultural Assets in the Community
National museums do not act in isolation but
are a vital part of many different communities, including partnerships
with the education, academic, business, scientific sectors, as
well as with community groups. Partnerships and cooperation enables
unprecedented use of and access to national collections across
the UK and around the globe. National museums lent items from
their collection to 2,939 venues in 2004-05. Touring exhibitions
have increased significantly. The V&A now tours up to 15 exhibitions
a year to 15 venues. The British Museum has 15 long-term partners
across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
At the same time, our national cultural institutions
continue to develop strong community programmes. For example,
National Museums Liverpool has an extensive track record of working
with youth and community groups across the city, through the development
of our Future Connection programme, supported by the Heritage
Lottery Fund. The project targeted young people in the 11-18 age
group with the opportunity to get involved in a wide range of
projects. In addition, NML created a core programme of activities
to meet the needs of this audience group.
A project that exemplifies both partnership
and community programming is NMSI's National Railway Museum (NRM)
work with Sedgefield Borough Council to set up a sister museum
in Shildon, Co. Durham in 2004. This museum, which houses objects
from the NRM's world class collections, provides skills training
workshops for the local community using equipment from the Science
Museum and NRM. It attracted over 200,000 visitors in its first
year of operation, (smashing its target of 60,000) and consequently
has done much to boost both the local economy and the sense of
civic pride of the Sedgefield constituency.
4. FUNDING FOR
MUSEUMS AND
GALLERIES
Sustainability is the key issue. National museums
are now doing more than ever before, without a comparable increase
in government funding. The visitor figures alone, demonstrate
this increasing output. For example, the vital work to attract
new audiences, such as building up sustained links and programmes
with community groups, is resource intensive. In addition, national
museums need to invest in renewing and developing their services
to respond to the rising expectations of their visitors, fuelled
by technological advances, high-profile capital projects and ever-increasing
competition for leisure time. National museums are responding
to these challenges through partnerships, levering of funds from
a variety of sources. For example, the V&A has been working
in collaboration with Play Station (PSP) to develop an exploration
of the collections using interactive technologies including Playstation
PSP consoles.
Public programmes, exhibitions and learning
opportunities are intrinsically linked to and underpinned by developing
and maintaining collections, research and scholarship, and workforce
development. Most collections are at some kind of risk and this
will require capital and revenue funding to put right. Sustained
investment in the modernisation and development of the core functions
of museums is essential to enable museums to continue to develop
and deliver greater public outcomes and first-class experiences
for users.
In addition to the increase in activity, core
running costs for national museums— staff, buildings and
utilities are increasing above inflation in the Consumer Prices
Index. Grant-in-Aid for national museums has failed to keep track
with the rate of inflation of the core costs. Most of GIA goes
on salaries, building and maintenance, utilities, and rent and
rates. These core costs have risen by an average of more than
40% since 1997-98.
The gravity of the position has been masked
by considerable increases in productivity, but it is clear the
combination of the declining value of resources and rising productivity
cannot be maintained indefinitely. If the situation is not to
deteriorate further our national museums, need core GIA to rise
at the same rate as the rise in its core costs. Our museums need
investment in continuing renewal and sustainability, to embed
the success of recent years and continue to meet the needs of
society.
Areas of particular concern include:
(a) Capital Renewal
National museum buildings are often important
historic cultural items in their own right, as well as vehicles
for the delivery of public services. Like any responsible business,
national museums need to be able to budget for the periodic renewal
and modernisation of their assets, yet building maintenance is
an increasingly pressing problem. For example, the V&A has
36,000 sq. metres of display space. For this to be renewed on
a 20 year cycle at a cost of £7,500 per sq metre the annual
spend should be £13.5 million pa. At the moment the V&A
is able to budget £1 million pa for this purpose. Assuming
two thirds of the total amount needed can be raised privately
the V&A should be spending £4.5 million per annum. So,
the accumulating deficit is £3.5 million pa. The cost of
the accumulated backlog at the V&A is estimated at a minimum
of £20 million. We need a strategic programme of investment
in capital renewal to maintain this asset.
(b) Acquisitions
There is inadequate funding for acquisitions
to build and develop the national collection. This is especially
acute in respect of contemporary art and design. The legacy of
future generations depends on what is collected today and that
legacy is likely to be meagre unless there is more focus on, and
more money for, acquisition. It is increasingly difficult to obtain
the funding that would prevent the export from the UK of even
highly important works. The Reviewing Committee on the Export
of Works of Art raised concern about this in their 2004-05 report.[69]
In her response, the Secretary of State recognises the concern
and promises to give consideration to the establishment of a National
Acquisition Fund. We would welcome such a fund.
We are concerned that the Heritage Lottery Fund
has been able to support fewer and fewer art acquisitions. In
2004-05, the HLF gave grants totalling £1.6 million for museum
acquisitions, down from more than £10 million in previous
years. The MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund was cut from £1.5
million to £1 million in 1995 and has remained at this level
ever since— effectively a substantial cut in real terms.
It is always over-subscribed. We welcome the increase in funding
for the National Heritage Memorial Fund to £10 million in
2007-08, which returns its income to 1980 levels.
(c) Pay
Low pay is an important issue for the sector.
There are notable recruitment problems in some roles while others
suffer retention issues. National museums cannot address this
issue without additional support from government. The Museums
Association has conducted further research in this area, which
was published in draft in May 2005. The sector needs to compare
itself with other competing public and private sectors especially
those in visitor services and hospitality, to be able to recruit
and retain a strong workforce.
(d) Renaissance in the Regions
NMDC fully supports the Renaissance in the Regions
programme. Funding for the third phase is essential to strengthen
the whole sector and enable audiences in each English region to
benefit from the outcomes of the programme. National museums have
extensive partnerships with museums throughout the UK, including
the Renaissance Hub partners, and are committed to collaborative
initiatives such as the Subject Specialist Networks.[70]
5. NATIONAL LOTTERY
FUNDING
Investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund, with
funding levered from many sources, has enabled a transformation
of museums in the UK. Iconic buildings have transformed public
perceptions of museums and attracted vast new audiences. Less
visible, but no less important have been the improvements in collections
care and exhibitions spaces in many national and non-national
museums which mean that items from the national collections can
be loaned to museums all over the country.
The transformation of museums is by no means
complete. There are areas of our national museums that have been
largely unchanged for half a century, and the need for capital
investment in regional museums is just as serious. After the initial
wave of investment in the 1990s, funding for capital projects
in national museums has fallen dramatically. National museums
received £334.2 million of Lottery funding for capital projects
in 1995-2000, compared to £59 million in 2000-05.
The HLF's own estimates of the decline in the
amount it can distribute by 2008 are a great concern. It is essential
that the HLF retains at least the same share of funds for good
causes in the forthcoming review.
6. LONDON 2012
OLYMPICS
The 2012 Olympics provide a unique opportunity.
National museums will play a vital part in showcasing London to
the world. They are actively involved in preparations for the
Cultural Olympiad, and in plans to secure the legacy of the Games.
In the run up to the London 2012 Games, national
museums will face severe restrictions in their ability to raise
income from sources other than Grant-in-Aid. There will be increased
competition for corporate sponsorship. Experience from Sydney
suggests that tourism is likely to fall in the period immediately
preceding the Games, and there is also the potential cut to Lottery
funding. In addition, museums will be hit by rising building costs
in the run up to 2012. Sustained government investment is therefore
vital throughout this period to maintain a thriving national museums
sector, meeting the needs of users, and helping to maximise the
benefits to the UK of staging the Games up to 2012 and beyond.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the achievements of national
museums in recent years are impressive, but there is still a great
deal more to be done to realise the vast potential of our national
collections to contribute to society. Our collections, public
spaces, programmes and expertise are truly world class but often
only in parts: there is much more to be done to make the rest
as good as the best. There are examples of innovative and successful
projects, but we have only scratched the surface of what is possible.
Sustained investment from government is essential to maintain
museums that meet and exceed the rising needs and expectation
of our users.
20 January 2006
64 Our Heritage, Our Future, Your Say', Heritage
Lottery Fund, November 2005 Back
65
Inspiration, Identity, Learning: The Value of Museums. The evaluation
of the impact of DCMS/DfES strategic commissioning 2003-04: National/Regional
Museum Education Partnerships (DCMS 2004) Back
66
DCMS "Taking Part" household survey, Dec 2005 Back
67
Playlist for Public Services, National Consumer Council, September
2005 Back
68
58 DCMS "Taking Part", Dec 2005 Back
69
Export of Objects of Cultural Interest 2004-5' Department for
Culture, Media and Sport Back
70
Further details of collaboration between national and regional
museums, can be found in National Dimensions (NMDC 2004
-www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/publications.html) Back
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