Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
TUESDAY 23 JANUARY 2007
MLA
Q320 Mr Sanders: Witnesses from the
hubs have told us that they have been encouraged to make long-term
plans under the Renaissance programme and that cuts in funding
could put them in a worse position than they were before Renaissance.
Do you agree with their assessment?
Mr Wood: My colleagues will say
a bit more on that. I do absolutely. Renaissance is an infrastructural
investment programme in many ways and it has involved a lot of
new vitally needed posts being created, for example new curatorial
posts. I think a couple of hundred so far have been created. These
are long-term improvements in collections care and in the workings
of museums and in collections development. It is absolutely vital
that the funding continues, it cannot be seen as a one-off programme
where you can just switch the tap off, this would cause enormous
damage to regional museums and to those in the hub teams. That
is not just an MLA view, we have had very, very strong support
from DCMS on this and David Lammy, who you will be speaking to
soon, has been travelling around the country visiting Renaissance
museums and has been an incredibly enthusiastic supporter of the
programme. I think there is recognition all round that this is
an infrastructural investment programme which has long-term impact
but is not a short-term programme. Chris, do you want to say a
bit more on that?
Mr Batt: Just to reinforce that
point, that Renaissance should not be seen as a project that has
an investment and then finishes and everything is different, it
is about maintaining the success it has already delivered long-term.
That is exactly what is going to change the relationships both
regionally between institutions and their users but also nationally,
as Mark and Sue have described, between the national museums and
the regional museums. It is a long-term investment; it has to
be.
Ms Wilkinson: The only thing I
would add to that is from the very early stages any museum that
was going to be in a hub had to have a commitment from its funding
body that they would maintain their core investment in the regions.
We have had feedback from all the hubs that in tight budget rounds
that has been an important consideration for any authority or
funding body. If Renaissance funding does disappear then that
protection will disappear. We know that when Renaissance was commissioned
as a report it was because there was real concern about the state
of regional museums and there was a steady decline in visitor
figures, the Visit Britain figures showed that. I think we would
go back to that situation with a customer base with increased
expectations, because that was what we focused on, now being even
more dissatisfied.
Q321 Mr Sanders: So what can you
do if that situation emerges to ensure that the Renaissance success
story continues?
Mr Wood: We have got to keep making
the arguments that we are doing. Some of the comments we have
had from the Treasury have been very encouraging in that they
see this as one programme which has always delivered measurable
results where we have deliberately established a programme in
a way that measures the outcomes, if you like, the results that
we get in every single part of that investment. It is very important
to keep telling that story. The broader story as well is the role
of museums in the whole UK economy, whether it is the tourist
economy or with education and the role of museums in inspiring
youngsters and really getting teenagers off the streets where
they have a vitally important role to play. Looking forward to
the Olympics, museums really are the most important tourist attractions
in the UK as well as being cultural centres. They have such a
vital role to play that we have to keep making the argument that
it would be so short-sighted to reduce investment, and we still
have not had the full Renaissance investment yet, we are still
short of the full programme, but it is achieving such remarkable
results and having fantastic knock-on effects, including enabling
regional museums to leverage Lottery funding. I think nearly £300
million of extra Lottery funding has come through this programme.
This is really having an impact and we just have to keep making
that argument, and the regional museums do so as well, of course,
the hub museums.
Q322 Mr Sanders: So your message
is "museums, not ASBOs".
Ms Wilkinson: I think we could
take that one and use it.
Mr Wood: It is a good slogan.
Ms Wilkinson: It is a very good
slogan and a lot cheaper.
Q323 Chairman: You have talked of
the support which you have had from DCMS and the minister's personal
enthusiasm but, on the other hand, you have been asked to consider
what will happen if there is a 5 or 7% reduction in funding. Can
I take it from your answer, therefore, that you are not resigned
to that, that you are still fighting to convince Government to
at least exempt the museums sector from any such reduction?
Mr Wood: Absolutely. We are not
resigned to anything. We have very, very strong arguments to make
that this is a sector which has suffered from under-funding for
a very long period and there is cross-party agreement on that
in the background to the Renaissance programme. We are having
a measurable impact at a time when you have in the education sphere
the need to think about how you create a creative economy and
the creative institutions are a vital part of that. What was very
important was that museums engaged much more with schools, which
they have done, the Renaissance programme has been a real motor
for that. The other aspect is how do you establish a UK programme
for the Olympics which engages all the regions. It is not just
visitors coming in to visit North London, the Olympics should
be a national event, and will be a national event I think, and
museums have a vital part to play and, therefore, continuing to
invest in their infrastructure and their work is absolutely vital.
No, we will continue to lobby and argue forcefully that this is
one area where funding should not be cut. I do not get any sense
that DCMS is not behind us on this and the minister very much
because he has been a very, very keen supporter of this.
Q324 Chairman: But at the end of
the day it is not going to be the DCMS that makes that decision.
Are you detecting similar enthusiasm in the Treasury?
Mr Wood: I think inscrutability
is the word that probably applies there. What we have recognised
is there is a lot of appreciation of the Renaissance programme
in the Treasury because it is almost the perfect Treasury programme:
you put the funding in and measure the results coming out. We
can deliver statistics, which we do, which demonstrate what value
has been achieved and created with taxpayers' money and that is
very, very important and I think we should be doing that. From
that point of view the Treasury thinks it is a very good programme
so that gives me hope still.
Ms Wilkinson: We have created
a very robust evidence base. We have conducted surveys of children
and teachers where we have had 26,000 children and 1,600 teachers
talking to us about what they see as the impact of Renaissance
on teaching and learning. As I was saying, we have regular data
returns from the hubs. We conduct an annual exit survey of museums.
We have both robust quantitative data about the programme as well
as a lot of hugely important evidence about people talking about
the impact the programme has had on their lives. Talking about
"museums, not ASBOs", the sorts of comments we are getting
about these programmes could be summed up for me by a 15 year
old boy in Bolton who said, "I didn't know what community
was until I did the Local Treasures project" and at the end
of it he said he had a much greater respect for older people than
he had ever had before, which I personally found very encouraging
because I think I was probably one of his "older people".
Q325 Helen Southworth: We have had
some evidence about the engagement of museums with young people
who are on the margins. I was wondering whether you had any comments
about how the programme has helped to develop that. I have had
evidence about working with Sure Start and young people in care
and I was wondering whether you have got some evidence you can
give us about that.
Ms Wilkinson: Yes. The PSA targets
for the programme have been very much focused on drawing people
into the Renaissance funded institutions—that is the whole
programme, not just the hub museums—which would not normally
go to museums. We have got a huge number of case studies of museums
that have made a particular focus on children and young people
at risk of exclusion. When we did the big survey of 26,000 children
we discovered that 32% of the schools that visit the Renaissance
funded hubs come from 20% of the most deprived wards in the country
using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation. Colchester Museum worked
with 20 families whose children suffer from Aspergers Syndrome.
Norfolk Museum was working with the Norfolk Youth Offending Team
and the Youth Offending Team have reported the impact of this
programme on the young people who were involved in it. They were
talking about increased motivation and the development of skills.
There are examples in every single one of the hubs and in many
of the museums outside the hubs who have been funded through things
like the Museum Development Programme and, of course, the Museums
with Designated Collections about both their commitment to working
with these audiences and their amazement about the impact this
sort of work can have. One of the things that MLA have done is
created an outcomes framework which allows us to analyse what
it is people say about their experiences. We have now got a strong
evidence base which shows the ability of museums to inspire people
and to motivate them so that they want to take their learning
further, so that they want to engage in skills training or learning
or they want to join in some other project or programme.
Q326 Alan Keen: Mark Wood has already
made the point indirectly that the greatest threat to funding
of the arts in the next few years is the Olympics. You made the
point that what you have got to offer is crucial to the Cultural
Olympiad.
Mr Wood: Yes.
Q327 Alan Keen: How did the secondment
of a senior person come about? Did you suggest it? Did it come
from a joint meeting?
Mr Batt: It was an opportunity
that we saw very quickly to second a senior member of staff to
the London Organising Committee, LOCOG, to be at the heart of
the development. This was when some thought had been given at
the very beginning of the process to how culture would play a
role beyond the Opening Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony. By
having someone in at the heart we were able to give quite a degree
of confidence very quickly about the range and opportunity of
the institutions that we represent. It has led us, first of all,
to a very close working relationship with a number of people at
LOCOG but working with the Arts Council also the one element that
was in the original bid, the international exhibition programme,
we are now responsible for managing the committee that is running
that, and Mark chairs that committee. We produced a prospectus
of opportunities for museums, libraries and archives—Setting
the Pace—and then consulted on it. It was not simply
a matter of us being able to have a strong voice at LOCOG but
also to have a strong compelling voice with the sector who, it
is fair to say, at the first meeting we called stakeholders were
cautious about the idea that there was any opportunity to do things
because clearly many people saw the Olympics as a threat rather
than an opportunity. Our engagement has made it possible to encourage
institutions right across the country to see the value in being
a part of it. In the consultation that has just closed we have
had over 100 responses and about 80% of the institutions that
responded indicated they would certainly be actively engaged in
contributing to the Cultural Olympiad that begins next year. We
are on the breaking wave rather than being behind it in terms
of this.
Q328 Alan Keen: Are you really saying,
or are you not, that your involvement has led LOCOG to understand
what it is you have got to give and, therefore, are coming in
on your side on funding rather than thinking, "We need the
funding. We are going to be the ones who are going to get the
criticism if it is not delivered on time"? Do they understand
now that some of the funding has to stay with you instead of being
taken away or increased funding coming in from their side?
Mr Batt: They recognise that nothing
will happen without investment. That is not quite true because
institutions are already thinking about a range of things they
would want to do. There is not guaranteed funding for any of this
activity. We learnt very quickly that there are quite a lot of
constraints about how the money that is in LOCOG's budget can
be used a lot of that is focused on the Opening Ceremony and the
Closing Ceremony, which are big events. There is a relatively
modest budget which covers educational and cultural activities
and it is possible that we could be a part of that. We understand
that we need to consider other funding streams, which could be
sponsorship, and clearly they (LOCOG) have a strong engagement
with that, and could be looking for other funding investment.
For example, the Heritage Lottery Fund has already indicated its
programmes consider Olympics related activity and there is the
Olympics Trust which has been set up. There is a range of opportunities.
The crucial point in all of this is we have been able to make
it very clear that we do not have to talk about huge sums of money
to do this, there is a real opportunity to make a difference to
the whole country before, during and after the Olympics with the
investment in programmes we already have.
Mr Wood: I think I can add to
that. We have helped, and this work has helped people in LOCOG,
and LOCOG has been quite enthusiastic about this, to recognise
the potential for staging activities and events around the country
based around museums. That is one very, very powerful way of involving
the whole of the country in the Olympic experience, if you like,
and contributing to the Olympic event and being caught up in it
and being engaged in it. That was our objective when we began
engaging with LOCOG and I think they have been very receptive.
Q329 Alan Keen: As you know, we have
just completed a report on the Olympics and that was one of the
big issues, particularly for people from other parts of the country.
We were talking earlier about the regions and the MLA quite separate
from the Olympics, so I am pleased to get that answer from you.
It is one of the strongest arguments you have got as well, is
it not, to make sure you get funding and you have got to keep
battling away. Good luck with that.
Mr Wood: Absolutely. It is our
job to get those arguments across. It does not take much to convey
the potential and the enthusiasm and the creativity amongst the
leading regional museums and, indeed, even going down to the local
areas.
Q330 Alan Keen: I am sure you would
be very pleased if we recommended that.
Mr Wood: We would be very pleased
indeed, yes, thank you.
Alan Keen: I am encouraged by those answers,
thank you very much.
Q331 Janet Anderson: Could we move
on to trust status. We have heard some very enthusiastic endorsements
of the benefits of trust status for local authority museums. Has
your report on that encouraged other local authorities to look
into the possibility of improving their services in this way?
What are the benefits and what are the disadvantages in your view
of trust status?
Ms Wilkinson: The report we commissioned
focused in the main on local authority museums, as you have said.
It seems that there were various reasons that were identified
within the report for devolution, some of which were around responding
to funding difficulties or something like a best value review,
others were around wanting to have much more flexibility and freedom
and to give stronger focus. The report in the end did not come
down to say trust status is better than non-trust status. What
it said was there are advantages and disadvantages to both and
the critical thing is about how you go into setting up the trust
but also the management and governance of the institutions. What
we have done in order to facilitate museums that are thinking
of taking up trust status is to commission a further piece of
work that builds on the report that will provide things like model
governance frameworks because we would not see it as our role
to say, "This is how you should be governing your institutions",
we think it is our role to say, "This is the evidence that
will tell you both what you need to consider and what the problems
and issues might be, and here is some support so that if you decide
to go ahead we can draw on the best practice of the 23 museums
that have taken up trust status and assist you in ensuring that
you make the best decisions for you and particularly the people
you are there to serve".
Q332 Janet Anderson: Would you draw
a distinction between those authorities where they have a wider
sort of leisure trust and those that just have trust status for
museums and galleries? What are the benefits and what are the
disadvantages of those two models?
Ms Wilkinson: The report did look
specifically at that issue and I can give you the section of the
report now, if that would be useful, or we could send it to you
afterwards. Broadly what it said was that while the advantage
of a strategic approach to the delivery of culture is self-evident,
there was no evidence to suggest that museums fared better in
those larger trusts and, in fact, there was evidence to suggest
that perhaps they were not necessarily the best solution for the
museum service. That was for museum services which were small
services. Clearly if it was a big service operating within a culture
and leisure trust then that might change. The issue was about
profile, recognition and status within a large culture and leisure
trust not being terribly different from the issues about being
a museum service within a large local authority trying to make
the same case for investment.
Janet Anderson: Thank you very much.
Q333 Philip Davies: Could I ask you
about the Goodison Review and its recommendation that it made
on liberalising the tax regime to encourage philanthropic donations.
A couple of weeks ago when Sir Nicholas came to the Committee
he told us that despite being set up by the Treasury four years
ago he had not even spoken to anybody from the Treasury apart
from a phone call the night before our Committee hearing, I think.
I just wonder what you have been doing in order to press for a
more liberal tax regime to encourage this?
Mr Wood: We were very enthusiastic
about the Goodison Review and some of those aspects which have
been implemented have involved the MLA, for example passing over
some responsibility from DCMS in export licensing and so on. Indeed,
it should not be forgotten that Sir Nicholas' recommendation one
was that the Renaissance programme should be carried out and funded
in full, which he said was the framework for everything else,
which I thought was slightly overlooked but is quite an important
part of the report. In general, we wish there had been more progress.
I think it is a very important report. If you look at the sector,
the big problem in the museums sector right now is funding for
collections development and for acquisitions. It is not the only
problem but it is a major problem, a lack of adequate funding
for collections development. It is clear that we are in a situation
now where the Government is not going to suddenly find extra money
to give to museums to add to their collections so where do we
find alternative revenue streams. Of course, there are other revenue
streams, national museums have been very good at commercial development
and so on, but if you look around at other developed countries
most of them have a more developed infrastructure and system for
philanthropy, both private and corporate. As Sir Nicholas Goodison
did, so we looked at different models. France is an interesting
one, Australia is another interesting one. You do not have to
go all the way down the route to the American model, although
that is also quite instructive. A more liberal regime on tax treatment
of philanthropy and donation would open up private investment,
private funding, which could help the museums sector as it has
in other countries. The Goodison Review was a very important first
step which we have not even taken in some areas.
Q334 Philip Davies: Given your success
in persuading DCMS to implement the Goodison recommendations that
related to them, does this mean that you have come up against
a brick wall at the Treasury as well on this or have you not pressed
as well on this as you have on those other issues?
Mr Wood: We have tried arguing
the case. We need to keep regrouping and arguing the case again.
The Art Fund put forward a very good paper on lifetime giving,
which we supported, which put forward the arguments very coherently
which was rejected by the Treasury. We just have to keep rethinking
how we advance the arguments because they are very sound. Of course
it is a difficult one for any government, for any Treasury, because
you are giving up potential tax revenue, so it is not straightforward,
but we are looking at systems which have worked very well in other
countries and have helped open up additional funding streams which
really do make a big difference to the institutions. Sir Nicholas
Goodison's recommendations were very well thought through, very
thorough and were not that radical. We just need to keep pressing
that argument, and we will do so. No, we have not been given much
encouragement so far from the Treasury but there is a logic to
these arguments which is persuasive. If we cannot see any other
sources of funding for collections development in particular,
and other things, then I think we have got to keep banging on
the door. You know as well as I do if you go into any American
museum you will see a wall of donors. The fund raising which is
going on in the States, for example, from the private sector and
the corporate sector is so much more dynamic than it is here because
there is that tax framework. We need to learn from that because
it helps everybody. People are willing to give if there is some
encouragement and some incentive. Sir Nicholas' recommendations
only covered a small area of that, I think we could go a lot further.
Q335 Chairman: Indeed, we were told
that if you go to a British museum you will see a wall of American
donors! Several of our witnesses have pointed at the considerable
disruption that the MLA has undergone in terms of reconfiguration,
reviews and the uncertainty that has inevitably created. Are you
confident that you are now in a state where you can move forward
and implement the considerable tasks that have been given to you
and there will be no more of this restructuring?
Mr Wood: Absolutely. There has
been a restructuring in as far as far as we have integrated the
nine regional MLA agencies into the national agency. Before that
we had a peer review process, which was actually quite effective.
Overall it has created a much more effective organisation and
a more dynamic organisation to have a national/regional MLA as
opposed to having separate semi-autonomous regions. We have a
shared agenda now and we can work together much more effectively.
Another effect is we have been able to make efficiency savings,
particularly in back office work. We have taken out costs, we
have reduced staffing. One of the objectives of this organisation
is to be as lean and mean as possible and to make sure the money
goes to the frontline, it does not go into administration, bureaucracies
and needless posts and roles. By this integration we have achieved
a much more focused organisation which is much more effective
in the regions as well. I do not think we missed a step along
the way. We had a short, sharp debate, relatively speaking, we
created the new structure, we have a new board where all the regional
chairs sit on it, it is not that dissimilar to the path the Arts
Council took, but we now have very, very enthusiastic commitment
from across all the regions for a national MLA. I think Chris,
who carried out this work laboriously over many months of the
integration work, might want to say a few words.
Mr Batt: Just to reinforce that
we believe what we have done has created a much stronger and robust
organisation. We have not lost any speed on any of the programmes
we had in place before the review started. Indeed, I believe in
doing that it helped us in some areas to see the way forward.
I just want to stress that it is not simply about doing more efficiently
what we were doing before. We recognise that the sector needs
a strong and powerful voice nationally to speak up in a consistent
way for it. That is what we are doing today, hopefully, and what
we will do much more of in the future. To do that we need to have
a much more compelling research and evidence base so that rather
than simply telling an interesting story about what is happening
we can demonstrate that there are significant impacts to be delivered
by our institutions, and Renaissance is a good precursor of what
we want to do more of. We need to ensure that our reputation is
heard and understood. We have delivered in a whole range of areas
from the People's Network to Renaissance in the Regions, the Inspiring
the Learning for All programme, but we need to make it very clear
that we are now exactly what we have agreed with DCMS, the lead
strategic body for museums, libraries and archives. Now it is
much more about focusing on future development, the development
of policy options for government, and that is why it is so important
that we are now leading on the action plan for Understanding
the Future. We are just about to launch a new policy framework
for libraries and on archives we want to look again at all of
the recommendations of the Archives Task Force and ensure that
where we have not already done something we can review those to
make sure there is a policy framework with DCMS.
Q336 Helen Southworth: You have touched
there on the significance of developing a long-term policy for
archives and you said in your evidence that a long-term strategy
for publicly funded archives needs to be developed to bring them
into line with museums and libraries. Can you give us a progress
report about how close you are to achieving that?
Mr Batt: Yes. In advance of coming
to talk to you we looked again at the recommendations of the Archives
Task Force and it still presents us with the framework that we
need to move forward. It was a really fundamental review. For
us at MLA it seems a long time ago but it is only just coming
up to three years now. Of those eight recommendations, we have
addressed seven of them with The National Archive and others,
and shown they are the right kinds of things to do. We have used
our own core funding to replace what would have been about £2
million of investment in that particular area but it has demonstrated
that the basis for a development framework for archives is there
covering things that we are doing elsewhere: positioning archives
as part of national policy more broadly in terms of education,
the economy, social development in communities and things like
that; looking at particular areas like film and audiovisual archives
where there is not any kind of organised framework available;
and looking at the workforce because developing the workforce
is critical. We have started to do things in all of those areas,
it has not been that nothing has been happening. The key element
of the recommendations which it has not been possible to deliver
is, of course, Recommendation One which was the creation of the
archives gateway which proposed expenditure of around £10
million over five years. We have worked with The National Archive
and other strategic partners to put a bid into Heritage Lottery
Fund. My interpretation of the situation is that when that gateway
proposal was made it was at the end of a period when there were
quite a lot of grands projets in IT development, the People's
Network, the National Grid for Learning, the University for Industry,
and there was a developing view at that point that in the future
those projects should look more at outcomes and the impact on
communities and to see how far one could take existing frameworks
and build on them rather than starting from scratch. Having talked
to the Heritage Lottery Fund I am convinced that their view was
the proposal did not take that view enough, and that is understandable.
We want to revisit that in terms of our new policy framework and
find ways in which we can work in partnership to find ways of
moving forward the archives gateway as well. There is a really
strong commitment now to take the success of the elements that
have been achieved in the past three years and use that as a foundation
for moving forward. We have already had some conversations with
DCMS about this who are extremely supportive of, first of all,
agreeing the relationships that there are between us and The National
Archive to ensure there is no duplication, that we are working
as one to deliver, but then to find ways of moving forward on
that broad front of eight recommendations.
Q337 Helen Southworth: The archives
sector has some very pressing challenges currently. What needs
to be done in order to address those challenges but also set the
sector into the 21st Century as well as doing incredibly valuable
work to record the previous centuries?
Mr Batt: The caveat I normally
say at this stage is we cannot solve everybody's problems for
them. It is great when we have got budgets that we can actually
enable change to happen, and even sometimes a relatively small
investment can make a big difference, I am not dismissing that.
We have to help organisations to change themselves quite often.
Archives are as heterodox as the rest of our sector. It is quite
a complicated sector, but even within the public sector, from
record offices that at least fall within a framework of inspection
from The National Archive, through local history collections in
libraries that form a part of the normal collection of a community's
identity through to a whole range of specialist archives, for
example the film archives, those are areas where we can help to
identify urgent need, we can lobby, support and argue for investment
from governing bodies where we can. A very good example is with
The National Archive we make a relatively modest investment in
the National Council for Archives. Our contribution is about £75,000
a year. We pay 50% of a Lottery advisory officer, which for us
is probably around £20,000 of that £75,000. In three
years that person has brought in £37.5 million worth of Lottery
investment to support archives. It is not necessarily about large
scale investment to bring about change, it is getting the money
in the right place to do it. That is the sort of thing that we
are going to be much stronger on in the future, to find the points
where you can really make a difference and work on those.
Q338 Helen Southworth: Following
your restructure, how many staff do you have? What sort of expertise
do you have on archives?
Mr Batt: We have a head of archives
policy now and also an archives manager within the national agency.
There are staff working in our regional agencies as well. We do
not have large teams of people, even running the Renaissance programme
there is a relatively small team of people at the national agency,
but they have a responsibility both to advocate but also to develop
policy, to make connections with partners to ensure that we are
getting maximum benefit from the investment.
Q339 Helen Southworth: Do you think
it would be helpful to clarify what proper arrangements local
authorities should be making in terms of care of their records?
Should it be a statutory function?
Mr Batt: Our view is that trying
to do this through legislation is probably not going to be an
effective way of raising standards where standards need to be
raised.
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