House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence

Memorandum submitted by the National Museum Directors' Conference

INTRODUCTION

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 and the Ministry of Defence sponsored national museums. 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. Further information about our activities can be found on our website at www.nationalmuseums.org.uk

NMDC submitted evidence to the previous inquiry on Preserving Our Heritage in January 2006, responding to the questions raised about funding, access, representation inside and outside of government and the Olympics. Our submission also highlighted the achievements of national museums in increasing access; their contribution to the objectives of numerous government departments; and the need for sustained investment in museums to maintain and build on these achievements, particularly investment in capital renewal and acquisitions. This submission updates and replaces our earlier evidence, as well as addressing the specific questions identified for this inquiry.

Together, our national museums hold one of the world's greatest 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.

The national museums continually seek to improve their reach and impact, while fulfilling their stewardship role to the highest standards. Our vision is to be the places and resources to which most people actively and repeatedly turn for information, learning and enjoyment, and through which individuals, communities and society are transformed.

1. Funding, with particular reference to the adequacy of the budget for museums, galleries and archives, and the impact of the London 2012 Olympics on Lottery funding for their sector[20]

KEY POINTS

— National museum performance, particularly in terms of visitor numbers has increased dramatically over the past decade, with associated increases in running costs. Grant-in-aid has not kept pace with this scale of change.

— A large percentage of national museum budgets are spent on fixed costs that are rising above the rate of inflation.

— Sustained investment from Government is needed to maintain and nourish the legacy of what has been achieved in national museums over the last decade.

— National museums have an excellent record of using government income as a lever for other funding sources and income generation. Museums capacity to generate income from other sources depends on sustained funding commitment from government.

— Approximately one third of the public space in national museums is in need of significant refurbishment or renewal. Maintaining a world-class quality of visitor experience and collection care requires sustained strategic investment in the maintenance, renewal and refurbishment of the infrastructure of museums.

— The London Olympic Games in 2012 present an exceptional opportunity: a unique occasion to showcase the very best of our cultural activity to a global audience and to create a lasting cultural legacy will be a defining feature of London 2012. To achieve this legacy there has to be investment in culture in the run-up to the Games and a deep commitment to sustaining the quality and availability of what has already been achieved.

National museum performance, particularly in terms of visitor numbers has increased dramatically over the past decade.

— 35 million visits to national museums in 2005-06—an increase of over 10 million visits since 1998-99.

— Over seven million child visits in 2005-06—an increase of 22% since 2000.

— 27% increase in number of visitors from lower socio-economic groups since 1998-99.

— Over 100 million unique web visits in 2005-06.

National museums are now doing more than ever before without a comparable increase in government funding. Since 1998-99, grant-in-aid has risen by 16% in real terms, considerably less in real terms. Increases in grant-in-aid have varied widely between national museums, for example, the National Gallery and British have had real term increases of less than 3%. The 10 million extra visitors have been accommodated with marginal additional resource causing immense strain on museums.[23]

A large percentage of national museum budgets are spent on fixed costs that are rising above the rate of inflation.

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. Most of grant-in-aid 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 impact of rising fuel prices on museums' expenditure is considerable.

To maintain a world-class quality of visitor experience and collections care requires sustained strategic investment in the maintenance, renewal and refurbishment of the infrastructure of museums.

(a) Buildings and public space

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. Without the investment in their infrastructure national museums are forced to work less effectively and efficiently than they are capable of, because buildings and services constraints hinder achievement of optimum performance, for example in energy efficiency….

The point is exactly the same for schools, hospitals, sports facilities, government offices and science labs, and the argument has been won for them. Higher investment in infrastructure in all those areas in recent years is seen as delivering worthwhile value to the quality of work done and in the services to people.[24]

The museums' case is the same; investment is long overdue, and the longer it is neglected, the greater society's self-imposed brake on museums achieving their full potential. This is an argument about quality of services that has already been demonstrated and won in other sectors. For a fraction of that investment, comparable gains can be achieved by museums.

The national museums' priorities for medium term investment in infrastructure are:

— structural maintenance of old/listed buildings;

— modernising public spaces to meet enhanced expectations;

— improving energy efficiency (front of house, storage and back office areas);

— digitising collections information; and

— supporting partnerships through increasing collections care, skills development.

Capital investment in the buildings to maintain and modernise the structures is overdue and essential, if they are to achieve their potential to meet the government's agenda and realise their own aspirations. Most museums have a maintenance backlog and also need to refit, renew and refurbish galleries.[25] Now that the Lottery and other sources are no longer able to provide sufficient funds, public private finance schemes could be one route to paying for museums' capital development needs.

Physical environments need upgrading to meet modern temperature, humidity and other control and efficiency standards. This applies to display and other public areas and well as the stores, workshops and staff offices. Museums would achieve worthwhile long-term savings on fuel bills through investment in environmental improvements. The benefits would not only be directly financial: better conditions would also improve the attractiveness of the spaces to visitors, and provide the collections with better protection.

(b) Maintaining and expanding collections

Public programmes, exhibitions and learning opportunities are intrinsically linked to and underpinned by developing and maintaining collections, research and scholarship, and workforce development. The UK's national museum, library and archive collections[26] represent unique and valuable national assets; furthermore, the collections are worth far more than their material cost. These collections are irreplaceable and invaluable and their future care must be secure. The existing collections could yield more benefits than they do. With greater levels of investment, the inheritance could be used more fully, by more of the people. Advances in collections management have enabled sharing and exploration of collections on an unprecedented level. The phenomenon of international exhibitions has enabled unprecedented access to the culture of the world. UK national museums are responding to the challenge of enabling our collections to be seen and explored in different contexts here and around the world.

The national museums' collections are organic entities with life and vigour, which thrive with suitable care, interest and support. The collections need to develop and grow all the time, otherwise they will become irrelevant, uninteresting and less than the sum of their parts. This means that sufficient funds are needed to purchase additional items. The amount of funding provided by Government for acquisitions has shrunk dramatically over recent years, while prices for art and antiquities in international markets have risen dramatically.[27] This state of affairs is now demonstrably impairing the quality and reputation of the national collections, with potentially enormous negative implications for their longer term reputation and profile.[28] . . . Although on occasions it is possible to mount successful acquisition campaigns[29] there are a number of national collections that have responsibilities that include on-going collecting of things from the world as it moves forward: Tate, V&A, British Museum, National Portrait Gallery, and the IWM particularly.

Our public collections make a significant contribution to our sense of local, regional and national identity. They tell us who we are and where we have come from. Museums, as stewards of public collections, emphasise and certify the value of the objects they display. Yet, the majority of our collections, certainly the most valuable and high status objects in our collections, were acquired in the period up to the 1970s. We need to continue to invest in and develop our collections to represent the diversity of our society and reflect contemporary experience. Our collections will lose their relevance and pre-eminence if the major changes in the make up of this country's population and the major developments of recent decades are represented in our collections, if at all, by inexpensive objects acquired on a shoestring.

The Heritage Lottery Fund and National Heritage Memorial Fund are a vital resource for acquisition funding. 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. 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. We would like to see the implementation of the Goodison Review recommendations to assist private donations of objects to public museums and galleries, and similar incentives to preserve the UK literary heritage.[30]

The national museums want to do all they can to share the national collections across the UK, and to develop and distribute the necessary skills. National museums lent items from their collection to 2,939 venues in 2004-05. The number of touring exhibitions has 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. National Museums Wales has a comprehensive Partnerships Programme involving other learning institutions, the tourism industry, commercial enterprises and, of course, the Museum's collections.

Renaissance in the Regions is having considerable impact on the national museums' collaborative activities. However, greater investment would ensure a larger volume of objects was in a fit state to travel and to be handled and displayed safely, and would therefore enable more equitable national access to our collections, ensuring that objects can be displayed and studied around the country so that audiences get access to their full potential. This requires investment in conservation, handling and transport services and skills across the museum sector. The Renaissance partnership[31] is a natural focus for such skills development activity. Secondments between national and regional museums are a useful means to develop skills and experience, both in national and regional museums. Successful museum partnerships create public value, but require resources. The nationals themselves should be financed to support this kind of work.

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.[32]

Over recent years the National Archives, along with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and others have done a great deal to improve support for the archives sector, disseminate good practice and make more material available to the public, with some considerable success. The National Archives is championing the campaign for inclusion of performance indicators for archives in local authorities under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, such as has now been achieved for local authorities and libraries and museums. It is hoped this will raise the profile and importance of archives to local authorities, and therefore help support their development.

(d) Digital Technology

The momentum for digitising collections has strengthened as more of the benefits of online access become apparent. The internet generation expects to control their media, to decide what they want, when they want it and how they want it. Museums are responding by encouraging debate and enabling participation in content development. They are developing from their traditional role as creator and expert to host and aggregator, using their skills and knowledge of collections, interpretation and user needs to develop intelligent, mediated access to the richness of our collections and expertise. Museums need to be able to invest now in development of digital access to our collections and knowledge to meet the demands and expectations of current and future users.

(e) Workforce

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. 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.

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.

National museums have been very successful in using Lottery funding to lever in additional investment. Amgueddfa Cymru—National Museum Wales' Industrial Strategy would not have been possible without the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. Here—an investment of £7 million from Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales brought in a further £42 million to enable the complete refurbishment of three existing museums and the creation of a new Collections Centre and a brand new flagship museum in Swansea.

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[33] 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.

LONDON 2012 OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPIC GAMES

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. As well as the decrease in Lottery funding there will be increased competition for corporate sponsorship. In addition, museums will be hit by rising building costs in the run up to 2012. Experience from Sydney suggests that tourism is likely to fall in the period immediately preceding the Games. Six out of the top 10 visitor attractions are national museums and our institutions will play a vital role in maintaining tourism in the years preceding 2012 and afterwards. 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.

2. Acquisition and disposal policies with particular reference to due diligence obligations on acquisition and legal restrictions on disposal of objects

— NMDC supports need for legislation to enable museums to return objects lost as direct result of actions by Nazis and their allies in Europe in 1933-45.

— NMDC welcomes DCMS guidelines on due diligence, published in October 2005, and efforts to combat illicit trade in antiquities.

— Acquisition policies should remain a matter for individual Boards of Trustees.

NMDC has led work on 1933-45 provenance research on public collections in the UK. NMDC supports need for legislation to enable museums to return objects lost as direct result of actions by Nazis and their allies in Europe in 1933-45.

NMDC welcomes DCMS guidelines on due diligence, published in October 2005, and efforts to combat the illicit trade in antiquities. National museums believe it is also essential to make reasonable efforts to ensure that they are not lending to exhibitions containing objects without satisfactory provenance. To that end, several national museums now have clauses in their standard loan agreements to ensure they do not lend to exhibitions containing items with unsatisfactory provenance.

NMDC believes that acquisition policies should remain a matter for individual Boards of Trustees.

3. The remit and effectiveness of DCMS, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and other relevant organisations in representing cultural interests inside and outside Government

KEY POINTS

— National museums work with partners in research, business and the third sector and make a substantial and innovative contribution to the work of many government departments. There is still great potential, both to open up opportunities for national museums to contribute to initiatives across government at all levels and throughout the four nations, but also to gain wider recognition of the importance of national museums work beyond DCMS.

— NMDC supports DCMS's efforts to make the case for sustained investment in national museums in Spending Review negotiations.

— NMDC welcomes the Roberts Review on Nurturing Creativity in Young People and DCMS's efforts to gain further recognition from DfES of the value of learning in museums; however there is more to be done.

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' 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), Ministry of Defence (MOD), Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Home Office, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Office of Science and Innovation (OSI), as well as the Welsh Assembly Government, Scottish Executive and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland. 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 OSI, is currently exploring ways to increase public engagement with science issues.

— Tate has been awarded a Public Sector Research Exploitation award by OSI to develop oxygen-free framing.

— V&A has been used by the Office of Science and Innovation as a case study of knowledge transfer for its 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.

— Museums contribute to the public's understanding of Defence, the Military and the science and technology associated with subjects like flight. The Royal Air Force Museum's two sites are considered, by the RAF itself, to be "The Shop Window of the Royal Air Force". Service Museums also contribute to the training of service men and women and to the promotion of esprit de corps. Regimental Museums promote local history and provide local links to the past.

Museums are places where individuals and the whole community can learn, improve and share. This matters all the more since such places are now rare. Museum education work is a central and defining characteristic of their overall purpose and focus, and a central benefit that they offer as public institutions. Museum education contributes to enlivening learning for all; expanding teacher training and curriculum development and long term strengthening of communities and citizenship.

Schools and communities have long seen museums as a resource for education and learning, and civil servants and ministers are now increasingly acknowledging this. The national museums make a strong contribution to delivering the agenda of the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and run programmes which deliver the objectives of numerous policy initiatives including Sure Start, Extended Schools and support for subject specialism and adult basic skills. National museums provide a rich menu of activities for schools, supporting subjects across the curriculum as well as encouraging cross-curricula learning. For example, the National Maritime Museum provides national curriculum links for KS1, 2 and 5, for subjects including Art & Design, Citizenship, English, Geography, History, Literacy, Maths, Numeracy and Science. It is a participant in GNVQ, AVCE and new applied A-level leisure, recreation, travel, tourism and business studies.

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.

National museums also run innovative and inspirational programmes for young people, including those at risk of exclusion, and work in partnership with national organisations such as NCH and Barnardo's as well as community organisations. National museums offer safe, neutral spaces where young people are treated as young adults. They encourage young people to become involved in designing their own activities, giving them a greater sense of ownership of projects as well as enthusiasm and dedication. Through such active participation, young people experience growth in their own levels of confidence, knowledge and skills and build new relationships and networks.

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.[34] However, this is still comparatively small scale—in 2006-08, the funding available for this programme is £4.9 million. This funding from the joint DCMS/DfES Strategic Commissioning scheme has been welcome, but very uncertain, and with definite continuity in its approach—to build really good national/regional partnerships to help support community and education delivery locally we need to know longer term who we can work with and with definite resources.

The full potential to utilise our national collections and associated expertise for learning has yet to be unleashed. For example, China's growing importance in the world economy is creating the need to equip school children to understand China's culture, history and economy. The curriculum could be greatly enhanced and updated by reference to the national Chinese collections held at the V&A, British Museum, British Library and at local museums. By providing school-age children with ways of learning outside the classroom, museums can increase access to learning by attracting and interesting those children who do not necessarily learn best in the classroom setting.

The links between pre-school, school, and further and higher education are not yet well developed. As a result, museums' contribution across the whole spectrum of education, from learning and teaching to research, is not fully understood. Museums could have much greater impact on research policy and delivery in future, but this requires a more joined-up approach.

The NMDC is working to ensure DfES and DCMS ministers are more informed and active about these issues. NMDC welcomes the Roberts Review on Nurturing Creativity in Young People and DCMS's efforts to gain further recognition from DfES of the value of learning in museums; however, there is more to be done.

CONCLUSION

Museums create public value through facilitating and stimulating engagement with their collections which enrich individual lives, support education and knowledge transfer, and preserve an invaluable inheritance for future generations. Investment in national museums over the past decade has led to an unprecedented increase in the breadth, depth and reach of access to our national collections. These achievements 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 part. And while there are many examples of innovative and successful projects, we have only scratched the surface of what is possible.

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.

The gravity of the financial position of national museums 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 grant-in-aid to rise at the same rate as the rise in 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.

The total annual amounts needed by culture are much less than education and health require.[35] But the argument is the same: chronic shortage of resources saps the ability of a service to perform well and efficiently; thereafter, restoring its ability to achieve its full potential takes much longer and costs more that it otherwise would have, and meanwhile generations of the public have to go without the service or have only limited access to inferior quality. A good CSR settlement for museums and the cultural sector would not harm health or education or the other big services. The amount is relatively tiny; therefore the opportunity cost for government is relatively low.

Culture is an essential contributor to the quality of people's lives, so the DCMS should be treated generously in the CSR. Sustained investment from government is essential to maintain museums that meet and exceed the rising needs and expectation of our users.

September 2006

20 NMDC and MLA will shortly be publishing Museums and Galleries in Britain: Economic, Social and Creative Impacts, which provides details of funding, expenditure and outputs over the past decade. We will forward the final draft to the Committee as soon as it is finished (expected to be mid-October). Back

21 DCMS Taking Part household survey, December 2005. Back

22 DCMS "Taking Part", December 2005. Back

23 As the Select Committee recognised in their 2002 report, National Museums and Galleries: Funding and Free Admission. Back

24 Building Better Performance: An Empirical Assessment of the Learning and other Impacts of Schools Capital Investment PricewaterhouseCoopers, Brief No 407, March 2006. Back

25 Research reveals that 35% of public space in national museums is in need of significant refurbishment. The total area renovated since 1995 is 220,978 square metres, with an estimated 326,940 square metres still in need of renovation. Source: Museums and Galleries in Britain: Economic, Social and Creative Impacts, Tony Travers (2006). Back

26 As well as the collections of The National Archives, British Library and National Library of Scotland, many individual national museums can be classified as museums, libraries and archives, holding unique specialist libraries and extensive, well-used archive collections. Back

27 In 1980 the V&A Purchase Grant Fund received £1.6 million. In 2005-06 the Purchase Grant Fund received £1 million. According to the Art Market Report the price of Old Master paintings rose by 413% over this period and the top 2% rose by 2,276%. Back

28 The argument is often couched in terms of treasures lost to the nation. It has proved impossible to acquire for public collections works of great quality and of central importance to the cultural history of this country, like the Newby Venus, the Mantuan Roundel, the Badminton Cabinet or Clive of India's Jewelled Jade Flask - objects which were identified as "starred items" by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art. Back

29 Such as the National Portrait Gallery's fund-raising for the John Donne portrait.
The growth of a market for historical and literary manuscripts in recent years has also not been matched by an increase in resources available. The rising number and value of sales means there is an increasing risk that archive collections of major significance may leave the country or be permanently lost through dispersal at auction.
Military museums are increasingly finding they are unable to purchase important medals or medal groups, being out-bid by private collectors at auction. An example of this is the recent sale of the Victoria Cross and medal group of Flt Sgt Norman Jackson, a flight engineer in Bomber Command during World War II. The RAF Museum was outbid by a single collector, as they were unable to attract partnership funding and were limited to the amount of resource in their purchase fund. Back

30 UK Literary Heritage Working Group to the Chancellor of the Exchequer has advocated wider take breaks and incentives to preserve our cultural heritage. Back