Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 19)
TUESDAY 10 OCTOBER 2006
MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION
Chairman: Good morning, everybody. Could
I welcome you to the first session of Culture, Media and Sport
Select Committee's inquiry into Caring for our Collections. This
is a sequel to our previous inquiry into Built Heritage and follows
on a number of the themes that we pursued in that. I would like
to begin by welcoming the Museums Association as our first set
of witnesses, the President, Virginia Tandy; Deputy Director,
Maurice Davies; and Policy Officer, Helen Wilkinson. I am also
delighted to see that that our inquiry has attracted such interest.
I hope we have managed to squeeze everybody in now. I will invite
Philip Davies to start the questions.
Q1 Philip Davies: Last year, the
DCMS published a consultation paper Understanding the Future.
What are the main recommendations that you would like to see as
a result of that consultation?
Ms Wilkinson: The Museums Association
has been involved in a working group taking forward discussions
following on from that consultation paper. That group has contributed
to a DCMS paper to be published shortly. I think the key thing
for the Committee to be aware of is that paper will be a vision
document. DCMS will then be handing on to the MLA (the Museums,
Libraries and Archives Council) to produce an action plan. For
the sector, the key thing is not so much what is in the vision
document as to how well MLA are able to deliver on that in the
action plan. Our key priority for that document is that DCMS should
set out clearly their vision for the whole sector, especially
for museums outside Renaissance in the Regions. I am sure
the Committee over the course of its hearing will be hearing a
lot about the success of the Renaissance in the Regions
programme. It has done much to address the issues facing many
of the most important regional museums but there is a bigger picture
to be filled in and we hope this document will do that.
Q2 Philip Davies: What vision is
it you would like to have?
Ms Wilkinson: Our recent work
has focused very much on the importance of museums making better
use of their collections. I know the Committee has previously
received a copy of our major report Collections of the Future
which we published last year. That really stresses the need for
museums to do more to make better use of the assets which are
their stored collections and we hope that the paper will fully
reflect that and re-state the importance of collections at the
heart of the work of museums.
Q3 Philip Davies: In our previous
inquiry on heritage, we often heard that people were not particularly
happy that DCMS were pulling their weight in Government. I know
that is something that you have also mentioned. How do you think
it needs to change in order to pull its weight more in Government?
How would you like to see it improve its performance?
Ms Tandy: In line with local government
it is increasingly recognising the importance of culture, particularly
in addressing social issues. We would like to see more integration
of DCMS working with other major government departments, particularly
those involved with local authorities and also those involved
with education, because we feel that increasingly we have the
evidence to demonstrate those instrumental values that culture
has, particularly in terms of museums. It is important that work
is built upon and embedded within the work of those departments
and not just seen as something that is the responsibility of DCMS
because it actually will have an impact across the board on things
like educational attainment. I think we are also looking for DCMS
to form an effective relationship with the Museums, Libraries
and Archives Council, particularly given their new structure,
in the delivery of the action plan that will come out of Understanding
the Future. Those are the two key things we would want to
put forward at the moment.
Q4 Chairman: You do not think the
relationship is effective at the moment.
Ms Tandy: I think it has room
for improvement but I think it is getting there. I think there
is a lot of good work that has come out of DCMS in its relationship
with MLA but I think there is more to do.
Q5 Chairman: You also said that the
internal structures make it difficult in the department. What
do you mean by that?
Ms Tandy: I was talking about
the new structure at MLA as opposed to the internal structures
within DCMS.
Ms Wilkinson: The reference in
our written submission is to the fact that museums and arts and
built heritage are dealt with by separate divisions in DCMS and
conversations between those divisions do not always seem to happen
as frequently and as effectively as they might. It will be obvious
to the Committee that there are lots of issues in common between
built heritage and museums, and DCMS does not seem to have the
structures that would help us to take an overview of those issues
where they do overlap the sectors.
Ms Tandy: I would certainly add
that in the case of art galleries often they have a relationship
with MLA but they also have a relationship with the Arts Council
and consequently again that reinforces the issues of those different
disciplines being in silos.
Q6 Paul Farrelly: You mentioned Renaissance
in the Regions and that you wanted the paper to look at other
things apart from Renaissance in the Regions. Is that because
Renaissance in the Regions is working well or has it had
too much of a priority?
Ms Wilkinson: It is because it
is working well rather than because it has had too much of a priority.
We see it as being a resounding success. It is the most important
thing to have happened to the broader museum sector in a generation.
It does not imply any criticism of Renaissance in the Regions;
it just does not solve the problem. There is more work to be done
and there are other issues to be addressed.
Q7 Paul Farrelly: So you are looking
at other priorities. I presume you are not looking for Renaissance
in the Regions to be left behind therefore as a priority.
Ms Wilkinson: No, absolutely not,
but for some of its successes to be extended further.
Q8 Paul Farrelly: If you were to
look at Renaissance in the Regions in particular, where
in the list of priorities that might come out would you say this
particular policy, going forward, should stand, set against, for
example, funding for national acquisitions or designated collections
or support for university and independent museums. How do you
want to see the balance struck when the paper comes out?
Dr Davies: One of the prospects
we are very worried about at the moment is the prospect of reductions
in funding for different reasons for different parts of the museum
sector. There is a lot of nervousness around about the next comprehensive
spending review, with, I believe, all DCMS client bodies asked
to model 7% year-on-year cuts—which is very serious, particularly
for the national museums (which you will hear more about, I am
sure, from the people coming after us), national museums who have
had really quite tight funding settlements for quite a long time
with very high expectations of what they should do. There is still
money that is needed to deliver the full Renaissance package.
Only three out of the nine English regions have the full level
of Renaissance in the Regions funding. A particular concern
that has come up relatively recently—and in a way it is
outside of DCMS's direct remit—is funding for the university
museums. There has been special funding for university museums
for a long time and that comes initially from the Higher Education
Funding Council for England. For about eight to 10 years, they
have asked the Arts and Humanities Research Council to allocate
the money for them, as an agency, which the Arts and Humanities
Research Council has done very well, and changed some historic
funding patterns. It has been bold enough to do that. Now the
Higher Education Funding Council for England has said that from
2009 they intend to take that money back, to no longer ask AHRC
to allocate it. Indeed, there is a question about whether that
money will continue to be identified for university museums. One
of the things we are worried about is the prospect that the Ashmolean,
the Fitzwilliam, Manchester Museum might lose their distinct funding
streams that are distinct from normal university funding. There
is a worry there as well. There is also worry about those museums
that are, in a way, below Renaissance. There is a lot of
instability in local museum funding. Many local authorities are
investing lots more in their museums but others are cutting funding.
The museum in Daventry closed a couple of years ago; one of the
major museums in Bury St Edmonds was closed; there is a threat
hanging over the museum in Berwick. It would be nice if the Renaissance
policy could somehow be extended to embrace all types of museums.
Q9 Rosemary McKenna: We know you
are in the process of developing your policy on disposals. Could
you give us a general idea of the direction the review is taking?
Dr Davies: Hitherto, for about
20 or 30 years, the museum sector has set a strong presumption
against disposal. We are going back to basics in our consultation
and asking whether that should change. There is a growing recognition
that there are lots of things in museum collections that perhaps
should not have been collected in the first place. I think there
is a general acceptance that if that is done with checks and balances
that is a sensible thing to do, to ensure the effective use of
public money on what is cared for. More controversial areas are
really when money starts to get involved and when sales start
to get involved. There is a variety of proposals around at the
moment from museums for different ways of selling things in their
collections and using that money in different ways. One of the
things we are very interested in exploring is whether attitudes
in the sector have changed and see that in some cases as acceptable,
and also, I think for the first time, we are beginning to do some
public attitude research. As far as I know, nobody has ever tried
to do research outside the sector into what people think about
the proposition that museum collections should be there forever.
That will also inform or final position. As far as I understand
it, the consultation responses that we have had in so far are
fairly guarded and fairly anti too much change. There is a particular
issue about fear, which we picked up in our earlier work.
Ms Wilkinson: It occasionally
happens that a local authority decides to sell something valuable
from its collection to plug a hole in its revenue budget. There
is currently a case in Bury, of which I am sure the Committee
is aware, where the council are proposing to sell a Lowry from
its collection. The last time that happened, it was in Derbyshire
in the early 1990s, but the fall out from Derbyshire has lasted
a long time. Derbyshire has cast a very long shadow in the museum
sector. A lot of people who work in local authority museums, particularly
smaller and medium sized museums, where they feel somewhat marginal
to the council's priorities, are very afraid that the council
will decide to do what Bury is currently proposing to do. I think
that fear can sometimes be rather disabling. They do not want
to get rid of fairly useless collections of 1970s ephemera because
they fear that if they do it will be put a light bulb on in the
councils' minds that perhaps they could sell off their pre-Raphaelites.
It will very much depend on what happens in Bury, but we have
to somehow restate that most local authorities are extremely responsible
stewards of their collections and somehow to establish a more
mature relationship between those governing bodies and their museums,
so that the museums can deal in a responsible way which allows
for appropriate disposal without the fear of inappropriate disposal
hanging over them.
Q10 Rosemary McKenna: Do you think
local authority collections should be protected against sale,
using a blanket approach?
Ms Wilkinson: That is an interesting
proposal and I believe there was some work done in the past to
look at the feasibility of new legislation that would allow that.
Dr Davies: About eight or 10 years
ago, the Museums and Galleries Commission (the predecessor body
to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) did quite a lot
of work on looking at different legal frameworks for museum collections.
That petered out and I have to say it does look like a very difficult
area. Certainly we at the Museums Association, when we were working
on our Collections of the Future report, originally thought
we might look at the legal issues but did not. Similarly I know
that DCMS, in the very early discussions about the Understanding
the Future document, thought about it but did not go there.
I think there are real judgments to be made about whether the
problem is large enough to require legislation. I think the countries
of the UK are quite unusual, certainly in Europe, in not having
a legislative framework for their non-national museums. I have
to say I am slightly torn about how valuable that legislation
would be. It would protect things but then also it would be the
kind of legislation that could stay on the statute books for 50
or 100 years. It could be legislation with some kind of regulation
that could be brought up-to-date from time to time. I do not know.
It is a difficult one.
Q11 Rosemary McKenna: I think you
are right, most local authorities are incredibly responsible collectors
but there is just an occasional blip, like the Bury situation,
which has caused a problem. In those circumstances, legislation
would be very, very difficult—to be able to have flexible
legislation that would cover all eventualities.
Ms Tandy: One of the things that
might be worth considering—and certainly collections in
Manchester are protected in this way—is that for anything
that is ever sold from the collection the money has to be used
to reinvest in collections. That is quite a helpful way forward
in terms of giving flexibility but not allowing the assets to
be used in ways that are detrimental to the museum service in
that region.
Q12 Rosemary McKenna: If local authorities
set up trusts and arm's length bodies, do you think that helps
protect the collection or puts it more at risk?
Dr Davies: In most of those cases,
the ownership of the collection remains with the local authority.
It is an interesting question. It probably would not make any
difference. If a local authority decided it wanted to sell something
from its collection, even if it had put the management and its
museums out to trust it probably could still do that. The general
feeling is that to transfer the ownership of the collections to
a trust is very dangerous because that would remove the sense
of long-term ownership and responsibility from the local authority—which
is crucial really, because they are very much public assets. I
think that probably would not help.
Q13 Rosemary McKenna: But it does
allow them to access other funding, which I think is the principle
behind, for example, the Glasgow situation, which was really helpful
to allow them to do the development work at the museum in Glasgow
Ms Tandy: It is possible also
for local authority museums to set up independent charitable trusts
of their own which then enables them still to access charitable
funding.
Dr Davies: The Museums, Libraries
and Archives Council has commissioned a substantial report about
the benefits and problems with moving local authority museums
to trusts. It is a very thorough analysis of cases. It does not
really reach any definite conclusions but it does show that in
many cases it releases a lot of energy in the organisations. So
there are management reasons possibly, but it is not without its
risks as well. It is interesting. The report does not really come
down saying good or bad; it just points out the benefits and the
problems. I think there is some potential there, certainly, but
I think it has to be done in an absolute positive spirit by the
local authority. Certainly the evidence is that it is not a way
of saving money or anything like that. It has to be done out of
a real determination to find new ways of managing the service
to bring more benefit, I think.
Rosemary McKenna: Thank you.
Q14 Helen Southworth: First of all,
could I declare a non-registrable interest, in that my husband
is head of a council museum service. You have touched on HEFCE
and the university museums, but what is the relationship like
with other government departments, particularly DfES and local
government communities through the Renaissance in the Regions?
What kind of role do you think they need to play in the future?
Who should be the lead in making that happen?
Dr Davies: DfES has potentially
a huge role in supporting the learning and education aspects of
museums. It does that fairly intermittently. It has had some funding
streams with DCMS and MLA that have been very effective but so
often it seems to be something that happens in a rather small
corner of a bit of the huge department that is DfES. I think so
often it is down to individual civil servants almost or passionate
individual ministers and then that civil servant or minister moves
on and the relationships can very quickly break down. One of the
things that DCMS struggles to do is to build structural relationships
with other departments rather than personal relationships. There
are ideas—as there often are in these situations—that
have been around for a cross-government committee which looks
at museums issues or something. But it is very difficult for DCMS
as a very small department, and, inevitably, aspects of what DCMS
is passionate about and we are passionate about will never be
enormous on those departments' agendas.
Ms Tandy: Could I come in there
in terms of regional development agencies. I think that is a very
interesting question. Given the responsibility of development
agencies around economic development, I think one of the things
that DCMS still needs to do is to continue to make the case for
the importance of the cultural sector in the economic regeneration
of major cities and regions. Certainly in the North West we are
slowly making positive progress with the development agencies
in the areas of tourism and also creative industries. But it is
about museums being able to articulate their position in the way
that makes special educational needs to that body and it would
be helpful for the DCMS to be more energetic in putting forward
those arguments. Particularly now, through Renaissance in the
Regions, we do have proof around educational attainment, and
there are starting to be more investigations into areas of economic
regeneration and the impact museums can have. But I think there
is a role to play there; that we need to make that case.
Ms Wilkinson: As you may know,
DfES are about to launch a manifesto for education outside the
classroom which aims to do for our sector and for field studies
and organisations like RSPB and nature conservancy what the music
manifesto did for the music sector. The early indications are
that the amount of funding behind it will be very small, nowhere
near the scale of the funding that backed the music manifesto,
so, although it is very welcome that DfES are formulating policy
in this area, we are very concerned that there will not be enough
money to make a difference.
Q15 Chairman: Going back to Renaissance,
a lot of the success of that has been in attracting educational
visits into museums and broadening the appeal of museums. To what
extent do you think DfES should be putting more resources directly
into museums?
Ms Tandy: I certainly think there
is an argument for that to be considered. Certainly if you look
at it at a local government level, with initiatives like Every
Child Matters, you are finding that you are able to get the
support of your education department in delivering what are actually
their outcomes through the museum service. I think there are arguments
for DfES to be challenged around that whole agenda.
Q16 Chairman: You have flagged up
your concern that we are going into a public spending round where
it is anticipated that the amount of funding for museums may be
reduced. But there is a slight contradiction. You say the Renaissance
programme has only been partly funded and has not been delivered
in full, yet at the same time you say it has been a huge success
and has had a great impact. If I were sitting in the Treasury,
I would say: "Clearly it has been a success on the amount
of money that we have been able to put into it, so why should
we put any more in?"
Ms Tandy: If you look at the success,
the majority of the success has been delivered by the three Phase
I hubs which had full funding. If you look, for example, at the
increases in attendances used by schoolchildren, you will see
a 120% increases at Phase I hubs but in Phase II you will see
about 20%. I think that demonstrates full funding has great impact,
and for those in phase II there is still a lot of work to be done.
But what is encouraging is that independent evaluation of that
work is now demonstrating genuine and actual contributions to
educational attainment, particularly in primary schools and particularly
in areas of literacy. That is something that I am sure everyone
would want to see developed and spread across the country.
Q17 Chairman: We have talked a little
bit about whether or not there should be additional legislation
to protect collections against disposal, for instance as is proposed
in Bury, but at the same time there is a debate about whether
legislation is necessary to allow museums to de-accession. There
seems to be some argument within the sector about whether or not
that is desirable. Perhaps you could say what your view is.
Dr Davies: I think there are differences
of opinion between different kinds of museums. I think some museums
feel that everything in their collection they want, and therefore
they do not have things that they feel they do not need and that
would be better off elsewhere. Or some museums have more powers
than others anyway to share things around more, certainly with
other museums, and to get rid of certain categories of things
where others do not. That is a factor. I think the biggest area
of controversy/dispute at the moment is the area of deliberately
setting out to raise funds through disposal. There are a few proposals
around—Bury is the most extreme—to sell to raise money
to fund the general costs of the local authority. At the other
end of the scale, Tate has started talking about selling things
from its collection in order to raise money for future acquisition,
and then there are varieties in between that. In the American
model it is normal for museums to sell things in order to reinvest
in the collection. That is what the arguments are about. I think
different people in the sector think different things. Some people
do really think that nothing should ever be disposed of; others
see that there are reasons for doing it and that to upgrade your
holding of a particular artist's work, getting rid of two not
so good ones for one very good one, is a sensible thing to do.
I think it will always be controversial. The other thing, when
you look back, is that a lot more disposal went on in the 50s
and 60s in Britain. When you look back, you see that lots of mistakes
were made. I think it is inevitable that, with hindsight, there
will be risks. I think it partly depends how risk-averse people
are. It is definitely a controversial and risky area because of
what those collections symbolise really: the nation's memory and
patrimony. To start hacking away at that has all sorts of implications
really. It is certainly not easy and I would not image any museum
considering disposal as an easy option because of all the concerns
around it.
Q18 Chairman: Could I ask you, finally,
what your attitude is towards the Olympics. As we heard in our
Built Heritage Inquiry, there is no question that the Olympics
is going to divert resources away from HLF and other Lottery good
causes and have a financial impact on other beneficiaries of the
Lottery. At the same time, it is an opportunity to attract a huge
number of visitors to this country who may not want only to watch
sport. To what extent do you think we are taking advantage of
the Olympics to obtain that wider benefit? Are you looking upon
the Olympics with optimism or with some degree of concern?
Ms Tandy: Coming from a city that
delivered the Commonwealth Games in 2002, I have to say that I
see the Olympics as an opportunity, particularly for the cultural
sector, because we had some of our highest visitor figures while
the Commonwealth Games was taking place—because people cannot
attend the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games for all of the time
they are visiting. They have a lot of free time, and organisations
with free entry that do not have time constraints on them, like
theatre attendances, are very popular for people who are working
out what to do between the events that they have paid for. The
big challenge really, if this is going to be a true wedding between
culture and sport, is that there has to be some consideration
given to how the cultural programme is funded. It cannot be set
in opposition to the sports' programme because the country needs
to present itself, not only to the visitors but also to its own
population, as being in celebratory mood and offering really high
quality cultural facilities to recognise what is a once-in-a-lifetime
event. I really believe that. Bill Morris is currently doing a
regional tour. He was in Manchester yesterday, talking to people
from the North West about how we would respond to the Olympics,
and there was huge ambition, and within the museum sector. Obviously
this concept of the Five Rings Exhibition, which brings together
the multi-disciplines but also attempts to forge even stronger
relationships between the national and regional museums, is a
fantastic opportunity. But we cannot do it without any money.
We cannot do a cultural Olympiad on a shoestring and a sporting
Olympiad on significant funds. It will not work. The people will
be able to see the gap. I think there is a challenge there. If
we genuinely want to do this and we genuinely want the whole country
to celebrate, we will have to find a way of funding the totality,
not just the sporting activity.
Q19 Chairman: You are optimistic
that those people who find that they are not watching sport may
not just want to go and visit museums in London but might be persuaded
to go to further parts of the country?
Ms Tandy: I think, with the improvements
in public transport, that there are good possibilities, that people
will explore other parts of Britain. Certainly our experience
in Manchester was that people did make their way up to the Lake
District, and that was part of the package in the bid in the first
place. But I also think there is an issue about the people of
the country actually having a celebratory event for themselves
that recognises what is happening in the capital. I think that
is the other part of this.
Chairman: Could I thank you very much.
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