Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-119)
DEPARTMENT FOR
CULTURE, MEDIA
AND SPORT
AND ENGLISH
HERITAGE
9 NOVEMBER 2009
Q100 Mr Mitchell: Yes, I have.
Dr Thurley: I was just checking.
I apologise, Chairman.
Mr Mitchell: You cannot trip me up that
way.
Chairman: We do not want you trying to
embarrass the Members, thank you!
Q101 Mr Mitchell: I will not say
I put on a pair of dark glasses and groped my way around the Abbey.
Dr Thurley: The reason is the
sites that English Heritage looks after were assembled over a
long period from the 1880s. They were essentially sites that for
one reason or another the state felt it had to take into its own
care because they were not going to survive otherwise. I do not
know what conclusion in particular you can draw from the fact
that there are very few in your area but if you look on the map
at page six there are very, very few sites in the North West,
there is a big gap in the middle of the country, it is very hit
and miss.
Q102 Mr Mitchell: Why do you use
so few volunteers? I notice you use fewer volunteers than the
National Trust for instance, why?
Dr Thurley: We directly ourselves
use about 1,000 volunteers, the National Trust, by comparison,
uses something like 52,000, a huge number. The National Trust,
which of course is an independent charity, uses volunteer labour
to open its sites to the public. Ever since English Heritage started
opening its sites in the early 1900s—we were not English
Heritage we were the Office of Works—when the Office of
Works started to open its sites it always used paid employees.
We have had a long tradition of using paid employees.
Q103 Mr Mitchell: What do you use
volunteers for then?
Dr Thurley: For our educational
visits. They are an absolutely crucial part of our educational
programme. The Discovery visits that I was describing earlier
are mostly run by volunteers. We have one country house that was
acquired by us which is entirely manned by volunteers, 70 volunteers
there. Working in the gardens we have volunteers. I think most
importantly we fund a lot of other projects which involve volunteers,
the biggest one of which is heritage open days which every year
attracts about 40,000 volunteers.
Q104 Mr Mitchell: Why have you only
put about half your properties into heritage open days? You said
in effect I think it was because you did not want to lose revenue
on the ones you did not own. That seems pretty mean.
Dr Thurley: The real reason is
the point about heritage open days, the whole reason behind it,
is that it is about opening buildings not normally open to the
public.
Q105 Mr Mitchell: Like in London,
when you have an open day they open everything.
Dr Thurley: We do that across
the country.
Q106 Mr Mitchell: We had folk trooping
around Portcullis House and I sat there with my mouth open and
they put pennies in and had a jolly good time. It sets a better
example if you open them all.
Dr Thurley: It does. Just to give
you an example: if you make, let us say, an English Heritage site
in a small town free that is normally a site which you charge
for, on that heritage open day, which is only one day, the English
Heritage site will be competing with all the volunteer sites which
are never normally opened by volunteers. Therefore, what you are
perhaps doing is sucking visitors away from the volunteer sites
that are not normally open to a big, shiny, state-run site that
is normally charging. We think in some ways it defeats the purpose
of the project.
Q107 Mr Mitchell: I just want to
raise one final issue with you which is parochial. You and I clashed
when you came to Grimsby to talk about the preservation order
on the Ice Factory. I accused you then of being an obstacle to
progress in the sense that you put preservation orders on places
like the Ice Factory, or like the coastal try-works in Grimsby,
they then stultify because nobody can develop them but you do
not help them to raise the money or bring a consortium together
to actually turn them into some useful preservation site like
Salts Mill or Dean Clough or something like that. In effect you
have constipated the docks by slapping a preservation order on
the Ice Works and you have constipated the coastal site by putting
a preservation order on that.
Dr Thurley: As you know, I have
visited the Ice Factory.
Q108 Mr Mitchell: And is it not a
mess?
Dr Thurley: Which is a magnificent
building.
Q109 Mr Mitchell: It is a mess.
Dr Thurley: And unique.
Q110 Mr Mitchell: Yes, but if you
are going to list it you have got to have some idea of how it
can be preserved and the thing is falling apart. Listing simply
means those people who run it, which is ABP in this case, just
let it rot.
Dr Thurley: ABP are letting it
rot and I have to be very careful how I say this but I think they
are neglecting their duties because the Ice Factory is a really—
Q111 Mr Mitchell: They cannot finance
their duties.
Dr Thurley: —important part
of Grimsby's history. Grimsby is famous the world over for its
fish industries and the buildings that are part of that fish industry
are part of what gives Grimsby its character. I must say, I do
think it is a bit irresponsible of the port not to take greater
cognisance of the fact that it is actually the custodian.
Mr Mitchell: It is all right if you picture
these great romantic fishermen of Grimsby's history and turn it
into some kind of fishing theme park and—
Chairman: You have made your point, we
have got that.
Mr Mitchell: Unless you preserve it,
it is useless.
Chairman: We cannot have a local discussion,
this is about widening participation.
Q112 Geraldine Smith: How do you
widen participation in Lancashire, there are no charging properties
to go and visit?
Dr Thurley: That is very true,
there are not. However, our outreach programme only works for
25% of the time in our properties, the other 75% of the time it
works outside our properties. Obviously in an area like Lancashire
we would concentrate particularly because we do not have sites
there, you are quite right.
Q113 Geraldine Smith: Who decides?
You say this heritage has been a collection from the 1880s onwards,
but who decides what is heritage? Maybe that is your problem,
that you seem very specific. You like castles, stately homes,
palaces. There is a lot more to England than that, is there not?
What about working class heritage?
Dr Thurley: Absolutely. Morecambe
is a very good example of a place where we have been working very
closely with the local authority. We are very keen to see the
Winter Gardens restored, which is a major issue. Just across the
road we have put a significant amount of money into the hotel,
which you will know well. We certainly do not regard heritage
as just being cathedrals and castles. One of the major activities
that we have been involved in since 1970s is industrial heritage,
which is very, very important to us, and, if you want to put a
class tag on to it, industrial heritage is working class heritage.
Q114 Geraldine Smith: You have just
said the magic words, you would like to see the Winter Gardens
restored in Morecambe, so I shall change my tone from hereon in!
The Winter Gardens in Morecambe had 600 young people in the other
week when Most Haunted were filming a television show.
There is something very magical about that building and the heritage
and it can be enjoyed by such a wide range of people. Projects
like that are really important. Bearing in mind there is so little
activity going on in Lancashire, it would be nice with the Winter
Gardens being so close to the Midland Hotel to see them both restored.
I am grateful for your comments on that. Going back to the issue
of targeting, I think it is really difficult. Your heritage open
days are a really good thing to encourage people to go and look
at some of these sites and some of these historic buildings. The
barriers are quite often transportation for people to get out
to see them, because when you look around it would appear that
a lot of these sites are in rural areas and maybe not too easy
to get to. Of course, ethnic minorities quite often can be from
a lower socio-economic group as well, and if you look in areas
of East Lancashire there are a lot of poorer people. They are
working long hours, they do not have as much free time to go and
enjoy some of these buildings. I would like to hear more about
what you are doing with school children because I think that is
really important. You can reach such a wide area there if you
go through schools and you really can widen participation and
make people grow up with a love of history and heritage then.
Dr Thurley: I would like to make
quite an important point which is that this NAO Report is on one
very small and very focused area of English Heritage activity.
We do not believe in any sense that the appreciation of heritage
is about going to visit a site. Appreciation of heritage is walking
down the street in Morecambe and understanding the heritage around
you and those beautiful buildings, like the Midland Hotel, the
Winter Gardens, and the whole of that front looking out onto the
bay captures the history of that town and everything it has been.
Chairman: That is very poetic but we
will take that as read.
Q115 Geraldine Smith: Carry on!
Dr Thurley: My point is that English
Heritage's activities are much wider than trying to drive people
to a small number of sites. Our mission is to help people appreciate
the places where they live, to look after the places where they
live, to make the most of the places where they live to improve
the quality of life of people. It is a little bit harder for us
in some respects if there are not English Heritage sites there
but we can do a very great deal through the planning system, through
listing, whatever you may think of it, to help people appreciate
their heritage regardless of the location of our sites.
Q116 Geraldine Smith: You are quite
right when you say it is government policy but I think they have
been too prescriptive with people about what they should enjoy
or what they should go and see. Basically people will do what
they want and what is relevant to them.
Mr Stephens: Absolutely. It is
not about being prescriptive, it is about making sure that the
opportunity to enjoy heritage is enjoyed by as wide a number of
people as possible. We absolutely agree with Dr Thurley's wide
view of how people engage with the environment, it is far more
than just visiting sites, and English Heritage's activities are
far more than that. All the measures, the numbers of targets in
this area, have significantly reduced since the 2004 Spending
Agreement. We are in tune with a lot of the Committee's comments
in that sort of area but, nonetheless, this is public money being
spent so it is important to be able to demonstrate that public
money is being of benefit to as wide a range of the taxpayers
as possible.
Q117 Geraldine Smith: I am still
not clear about achieving the targets because I do not think you
were very clear earlier about how you actually measure who is
visiting these stately homes, castles or ruins. How do you do
that? You cannot say, "What social class do you come from?"
Mr Stephens: There are two things
here. There is measuring participation across the heritage sector
as a whole, of which English Heritage is a significant but small
part, and we do that by the Taking Part survey, which is a new
survey established by the Department run to National Statistics
standards which interviews something like 12,000 people across
the whole range of our sectors, so not just heritage but culture,
the arts, museums, galleries, sport, et cetera. That is a foundation
stone of evidence for us in understanding who participates, why
and how it is changing over time. Then specifically in respect
of the funding agreement English Heritage has some specific targets,
including their own visitor numbers, which are measured by their
visitor surveys which we were talking about earlier.
Q118 Geraldine Smith: It is just
through those visitor surveys, that is the only real way?
Mr Stephens: The visitor surveys
and the Taking Part survey.
Q119 Geraldine Smith: Because not
everyone will complete a visitors survey, will they?
Dr Thurley: Not everyone will
but obviously we need to make sure we have got a statistically
robust sample and they will continue collecting data until they
think their sample is statistically robust. What we do not have
is some of the more softer information about people's sense of
appreciation of heritage around them, if that is what you are
referring to. I think when you are dealing with people going through
the door, we do know quite a lot about that.
Geraldine Smith: What I have noticed
myself in a change over the years around Lake Windermere and that
area is I think you find a lot of people from ethnic minorities
now are going much more into the Lake District. I think people's
habits change as well. I think sometimes it can be just a bit
of encouragement and something like a heritage open day or a freebie
once in a while, there is nothing like, whatever ethnic minority,
wherever they come from, if you give someone something for free
they are more likely to try it and see what it is like. Sometimes
the simpler solutions are probably the best. You can over-complicate
things and I think sometimes you have to realise that whilst some
people are not interested in stately homes and palaces there may
be other elements of heritage that would interest them. That is
why I think it is so important that old theatres, all sorts of
different buildings play a part in our heritage so the maximum
number of people can enjoy them from all ethnic groups.
Chairman: There are a couple of supplementaries
before we end. Mr Curry wants to return to the charge and Mr Hill.
| 
