Examination of Witnesses (Questions 191-217)
Chair: We turn to the
second session this morning, in which we are concentrating on
heritage. I apologise for keeping you waiting, but welcome to
Dr Simon Thurley, the Chief Executive of English Heritage and
Dame Fiona Reynolds, the Director General of the National Trust.
Q191 Mr Sanders:
Good afternoon—it is just afternoon. What have been the
consequences of the reduction in English Heritage's grant over
the past ten years?
Dr Thurley: You
probably have the figures there of what we have had to deal with.
I'm pleased to say that it hasn't resulted in a significant reduction
in the services that we provide to the public. It hasn't resulted
in a reduction in the services we provide to visitors at our sites.
That is mainly for two reasons. First, we have embarked on an
efficiency programme that has led to us, I think, being among
the most efficient of the bodies in DCMS. We have also been very
busy generating additional income. The income that we generate
from our commercial activities now stands at £48 million
a year, which is substantially more than it was 10 years ago,
so a combination of additional income and efficiencies has meant
that the services we have provided have not had to be cut.
But there have been two other consequences that I
think have had a wider impact. The first is that we haven't been
able to invest in the conservation of the sites that are in our
care, and there is currently a £56 million backlog in conservation.
The second thing is that the grant money that is available for
third parties has effectively been frozen for 10 years, and with
the effects of building conservation costs being quite high—the
inflation costs being quite high—this has meant there has
been quite a lot less money available for us to grant out to third
parties, particularly for heritage at risk but also for other
types of heritage activity.
Q192 Mr Sanders:
I think the figures show your administrative costs have fallen
by 16% in the past three years, which is quite impressive, but
can English Heritage make any further reductions to their administrative
costs?
Dr Thurley: Of
course it is always possible to make further reductions and—no
doubt after Thursday's letter that I'll be receiving from the
Secretary of State—we will have to make further administrative
cuts. Clearly, there comes a point when you reach a stage of efficiency
from which it is difficult to make very substantial improvements.
Some benchmarking work that we have done on things like the cost
of our finance and HR functions does show that if you benchmark
that against commercial companies of a similar size, we are more
or less there in percentage terms. Therefore, the amount of the
saving that we're going to make from efficiencies and from administration
obviously will be smaller than we would like.
Q193 Mr Sanders:
You say that you are expecting a letter from the Government. Have
you had any dialogue with Government in advance of the spending
review?
Dr Thurley: Almost
ceaseless for the last three months.
Q194 Mr Sanders:
Was that fruitful, do you think?
Dr Thurley: I guess
the letter on Thursday will show whether it was fruitful or not.
Q195 Mr Sanders:
Was it a dialogue between two, or a one-way communication?
Dr Thurley: Of
course we have new Ministers. I had the privilege of knowing the
Secretary of State when he was in opposition and I had the opportunity
to show him various heritage sites. The heritage Minister—and
we are very happy to have a heritage Minister, John Penrose—is
someone who is new to the brief and it meant that we had to work
very closely with him to bring him up to speed. I think that we
have had a very fair and professional hearing from him, and I
think that he has gone out of his way to understand the complexities
of not only what English Heritage does, but what happens in the
heritage sector.
Q196 Mr Sanders:
Assuming the letter is the bearer of not particularly great news,
how are you going to prioritise what are essential and non-essential
activities and roles performed by English Heritage?
Dr Thurley: There
are some things that we are required to do by statute. Clearly,
those have to come to the top of the list. There are also some
things that only we do and, therefore, they also must be at the
top of the priority list. Therefore, we will be very careful not
to reduce the planning advice service that we give to local authorities.
We will be very careful not to lose some of the expert technical
expertise and advice we give to, for instance, churches and other
types of specialised heritage. We will do our best to preserve
the area of listing and scheduling heritage protection, which
is at the core of what we do. So it is a question of looking at
the core of our activities and protecting those above everything
else.
Q197 Mr Sanders:
Would it be better to encourage maintenance and preventative measures
for deteriorating buildings rather than grant-aiding them when
they are already in disrepair?
Dr Thurley: Of
course, yes, it would be, and there are a number of things that
could be done. This Committee, in previous existences, will be
familiar with the issue of VAT, and that is obviously a big issue.
A lot of our expenditure and the expenditure of NGOs—the
amenity societies and so on—is increasingly focused on helping
people undertake satisfactory maintenance in the first place rather
than waiting until there is a problem at the end. If you were
to look, for instance, at the substantial amounts of money that
English Heritage puts into helping places of worship, we have
been rebalancing over the last few years the amounts of money
we put into remedial work, to repairs, and the amount of money
we've been putting into supporting congregations to understand
how you maintain properly a 13th century building so that it doesn't
get into the sort of state where it has to come to English Heritage
or the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant.
Q198 Mr Sanders:
A final question: in your dialogue with Government, did you raise
the issue of VAT?
Dr Thurley: We
have raised the issue of VAT many times with the Government. In
the context of the spending review, the conversation we've had
with them has been about the listed places of worship VAT reclaim
scheme, which is a sort of substitute scheme for the big decision
that we would really like, which would reduce the burden of VAT
on repairs to historic buildings.
Q199 Chair: Can
I ask this, Dame Fiona? The National Trust is probably the most
successful body in the country at attracting huge numbers of small
donations from individuals to support cultural heritage activities.
How important do you think it is that we continue to have public
support for heritage through English Heritage?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Thank you very much for that nice compliment. Yes, we do indeed
raise very, very large sums of money through asking millions of
people to give us what individually might be quite small levels
of donation, but which add up to a huge contribution. The acquisition
of Tyntesfield in early 2001-02 and Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland
last year were very good recent examples of that. It's obviously
critical that there is public support for heritage. This is a
country that is enormously rich in both our historic and natural
environment—the treasures that we have. And it's been public
support, literally in our case for over 100 years, and many other
bodies that have been around for a long time too, that have nurtured
that public support so that we have the heritage that we know
and love today. That does not mean, of course, that we do not
need the Government to be critically engaged in a number of areas,
both as regulator and as provider of the statutory framework within
which we all operate. Indeed, in showing that the Government
care about heritage too, that leadership is absolutely vital.
But I see what the National Trust does, alongside many other organisations,
as a very strong part of the picture of heritage in this country.
We value our independence and we value what we can do, but we
do not do it alone.
Q200 Chair: So
you would share Dr Thurley's anxiety if English Heritage was to
suffer another significant cut in its income?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
It's clearly critical that we have strong heritage statutory bodies
in this country. We do an enormous amount with our 3.8 million
members and hundreds of properties and huge landholdings, but
we are not a statutory provider in the same way that English Heritage
is. So we absolutely believe it is important that there are strong
and effective statutory bodies and a strong and effective regulatory
framework for everything that we and others do.
Q201 Chair: We
will come on to the actual ownership, I think, in due course,
but in terms of the grant-giving activities of both English Heritage
and the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Yes, we receive small amounts of grant proportionately to our
overall position. Our turnover is around £400 million a
year, of which a very high proportion is from membership and donations,
with well over half coming directly from the millions of people
who support us. But there are small amounts of grant aid—last
year it was just under £2 million from English Heritage—in
relation to some very specific statutory obligations, which go
back many decades in some cases around particular properties that
were transferred to us with particular relationships and the commitment
to grant aid their long-term maintenance. We get grant aid from
HLF: it provides us, after a very lengthy and detailed application
process, with grants for specific projects that we want to do
and we compete with other bodies for those grants. I think last
year HLF was just under £3 million, but it varies every year,
clearly.
Q202 Chair: We've heard
from Arts & Business about the Government's wish to try and
plug the gap by increasing private philanthropy. As the most successful
organisation in the heritage sector at attracting voluntary donation,
do you think there is further scope?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
There is certainly further scope in the sense that, as I said
earlier, Government provides the framework within which the activities
of the heritage sector take place and also the philanthropic climate.
There are certainly things that could be done. For example, we've
been calling for improvements to Gift Aid, which is a very significant
source of income to us—a top-up of donations—and there
are lots of discussions going on now about how that might be best
achieved. We, for example, support the composite proposal, which
is administratively simpler and certainly plays to the strengths
we have in attracting large amounts of money from large numbers
of people, rather than very small numbers of people and huge donations.
There are other views on that subject, but that's our view.
The other thing that would enormously strengthen
the position is to enable people to give gifts during their lifetime.
At the moment you can give money tax efficiently on your death
through the AIL system (Acceptance in Lieu) and that's enormously
important, but you can't—as you can in the States—give
money tax efficiently during your life on either a capital or
revenue basis. There's lots of evidence that that would improve
things, not only for us but for many other charities. So, that
wouldn't be a substitute for statutory activity that takes place,
for example by English Heritage, but it certainly would help things.
The final area, of course, is support for volunteering.
We have an enormous contribution through gifts of time from our
61,000 volunteers. Again, the Government could make it easier
for people to give time—for example by volunteering during
work time. There's a very small amount of support for that at
the moment and it could easily be expanded. But I think there's
a risk that the Government sees the voluntary sector as simply
able to pick up all the issues that may fall out—we don't
yet know—of the Spending rReview. And I think there has
to be a word of caution about that because all of us in the voluntary
sector are very clear about our obligations and our responsibilities,
and we cannot simply take over things that were Government funded
without some very, very careful thought.
Q203 Alan Keen:
Could I come to built heritage? I've lived in or close to the
London borough of Hounslow—I now represent the western half—for
47 years. Luckily, from a political point of view, I represent
not the posh end, so it is a virtual desert for built heritage.
But we've got Osterley House, Syon House, Chiswick House, Gunnersbury
House, which we share with Ealing, and Hogarth's House. There's
been a very steep decline in conservation specialists in local
authorities over the last so many years. It is very worrying and
it is going to get worse with the cuts, presumably. What will
be the consequences of that?
Dr Thurley: Well,
this is a matter of extreme concern. A very important point I'd
like to make to the Committee is that while English Heritage obviously
plays an important role in channelling some parts of the Government's
expenditure towards heritage, the Government's investment in heritage
is much wider than the current £130 million that is the English
Heritage grant-in-aid. An absolutely vital part of that, as you
rightly point out, is the money that is spent on heritage by local
government, particularly through the employment of conservation
officers, who are the front-line troops in protecting heritage.
They don't spend the majority of their time protecting Syon House,
Gunnersbury House or Chiswick House. It is the conservation areas;
it is the pub on the corner; it is the listed telephone box; it
is the milestone by the Western Avenue. It's those things—the
things that mean a lot to local people—in which local conservation
officers are mainly engaged. What we know from our figures—from
our surveys—is that since 2007 there's been a 14% decrease
in the number of conservation officers. What is undoubtedly happening,
and is going to happen more, is that conservation officers are
not being replaced when they leave and the type of specialist
resource that has previously existed in planning departments is
no longer there.
Now, the second part of your question is "what
does that mean?" Well, it means that the danger is that when
planning decisions are made that affect conservation, the local
councillors who sit on the planning committees do not have the
appropriate advice that will enable them to make sound decisions.
That gives us all a problem. It gives local people a problem because
heritage is one of the things that winds people up more than almost
anything else in terms of planning. So, there is a looming issue
and it is one of the issues that English Heritage is very much
committed to addressing in partnership with not only local authorities
but NGOs, the amenity societies and others.
Q204 Alan Keen:
Have you got a scheme possibly for educating councillors, because
they're going to be under pressure? Their main aim is to look
after the less well-off people and that's got to be their priority.
Traditionally, in Hounslow, we've got the aeroplanes coming over
the top of us, so we've got plenty to worry about, and councillors
tend not to be focused on the things that I care about and that
you both especially care about. Have you got any scheme for educating
local authority councillors?
Dr Thurley: Yes,
we have two schemes. We have one for elected members which we
call "Heritage Champions", and our objective is to have
as many heritage champions across the country as possible. We
want one in each local authority. Ideally, we would like a cabinet
member to be a heritage champion, so that's an elected member
who holds particularly the brief for keeping an eye on heritage
and keeping an eye on the other side of what we do, which is supporting
the necessary expertise at officer level. We have a very extensive
training programme that we call "Helm", which works
across the country with the officers. So, we recognise that a
really important part of dealing with the potential skills gap
in local authorities is getting commitment from elected members
and then working with possibly officers who don't have a title
"conservation officer", but are in other parts of the
planning department, to make sure that they have the necessary
skills to provide the right advice to the planning committees
when they consider heritage matters.
Q205 Alan Keen:
So you fear, I suppose, that there won't be any conservation?
Well, maybe not, but if you take my own borough, you fear that
we'll end up with no experts and, therefore, you're hoping you
can get through to other council employees as well as councillors
and give training. It's not so much training as to make sure they've
got the culture?
Dr Thurley: I doubt
if we'll ever get to a situation where there are no experts—I
sincerely hope not. I think the question is making the argument
that making good conservation decisions makes good places. Good
places are places where people want to live. Good places are economically
successful places. Therefore, the argument that we would put to
local authorities is that this is a skill you need among your
officers if you are going to create an environment where people
are happy, where people are prosperous, where people are stable,
where you have low levels of crime, where you have high levels
of tourism. This is a core skill that you need, and that is the
argument that we have to make and win.
Alan Keen: Another issue,
of course, which helps attract local people to heritage issues
is that—you had to sit through the previous session and
be kept waiting—lots of those sites that I mentioned in
Hounslow are used frequently for films and TV dramas. We link
those together and help attract people to it. But you tend to
get active groups for one house and an active group for another
house. We don't want to rely just on those people who do that.
Thank you, that sounds encouraging.
Q206 Paul Farrelly:
I'm very well aware of the gaps around the country just from my
own experience of my own borough council—Newcastle-under-Lyme—in
conservation expertise. Quite often you realise the value of something
only when it has either fallen down, when it's become uneconomic
to repair and people say, "What a shame," or when somebody
has been stupid enough to allow something to be demolished because
of a lack of expertise. I will declare this now: I'm the founding
patron of an architectural design centre called Urban Vision in
Staffordshire, which in part tries to fill the gap. It's one of
20-plus of these regional centres around the country. The Regional
Development Agencies have now been abolished. Local government
grants are coming under cuts, and all these bodies receive funding
and are supported by the Commission for Architecture and the Built
Environment—CABE—but there's a question mark over
the future of that organisation.
Just before we move on from English Heritage, I just
wanted to ask about the situation with CABE and the discussions
that you've had, because this is an area where you may be asked,
if more quangos, as they call them, are merged, to be taking on
more responsibilities. The core responsibility of CABE is in design
review, which is not something that English Heritage does at the
moment.
Dr Thurley: Well,
obviously, it would be completely inappropriate for me to comment
to the Committee on the future of another body, so I won't do
that. But what I can do is to say that there were discussions
during the progress of the debates about the Public Bodies Bill
about whether English Heritage and CABE could be appropriately
merged. There were serious discussions about it on a philosophical
level and I should say that not only I and Richard Simmons, the
chief executive of CABE, but also our respective chairmen and
commissions, felt that there was a fundamental conflict of interest
in such a merger being pursued because the two bodies represent
two very distinct constituencies. Those constituencies on occasions—not
always but on occasions—do come into conflict, and it seemed
to us and I think subsequently, seeing as we haven't been merged
so far, to Ministers that those conflicts perhaps should be resolved
in public in a democratic forum rather than being resolved by
a quango behind closed doors. Obviously what I mean is the balance
between the quality of new design and preserving old buildings,
and if there is a conflict between those they should be resolved
by local elected councillors and not by two quangos sitting in
London.
Q207 Paul Farrelly:
One of the importances of design review as carried out by the
local body, which also gives some conservation expertise as well,
is that it tries to reconcile these sometimes conflicting differences.
It's a peer review process to improve the quality of design of
new buildings in areas such as mine, like others around the country,
where people have not really looked at the importance of design
in the past. But again, it's not something that you do. As well
as the conflicts, do you have the expertise to do it if CABE was
simply abolished and you were asked to take on the task?
Dr Thurley: Well,
the core expertise that English Heritage has is in identifying
what is significant—historically, architecturally, aesthetically—from
our past and advising local councillors, owners and others on
the best way to give that a sustainable use for the future. Now,
that might involve, on occasion, making adaptations to buildings,
sites or monuments that gives them a new and viable use, in which
case we would advise on aspects of new design. But we really do
not have the skills and expertise to comment on an entirely new
building in a new setting that has no heritage aspect involved
at all, and I think it would be inappropriate for us to do so.
Q208 Damian Collins:
A question to both of you, really. Do you think there will be
merit in asking English Heritage to concentrate on some of the
preservation issues that have been discussed so that the visitor
attractions that English Heritage runs could be run by the National
Trust? In my area I think there are—I represent a constituency
in the south-east—70 visitor attractions run by English
Heritage. Do you think it would be better—I'm not saying
you're not doing a good job running them at all—in terms
of simplifying the role that English Heritage, and do you think
it might make sense to say the National Trust could run those
sorts of visitor attractions, which are more like the sorts of
attractions the National Trust runs already, meaning that English
Heritage could focus on some of the conservation advice and protecting
heritage sites that aren't visitor attractions and for which there
aren't the amenities there to make them such?
Dr Thurley: I can—
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Yes, go on.
Dr Thurley: I will
kick off and then hand over to Fiona. It might just be worth very
briefly just setting out the background of why English Heritage
runs visitor attractions as well. In the 1880s, the Government
started collecting the most important ancient monuments in the
country to form a national collection of ancient monuments. It
started off collecting prehistoric monuments until about the 1920s.
Through the 1920s, 1930s and up until the war, it collected a
large number of mediaeval buildings, including ruined abbeys and
castles. By 1945, the Ministry of Works—which basically
was carrying out the functions that English Heritage now carries
out, although, of course, there were fewer of them—already
had in its care over 250 sites it had opened to the public.
After the war, it was realised that a huge number
of country houses would fall vacant and that there was going to
be a terrible problem with them, and the legislation that we all
understand that set up the arrangements that allowed the National
Trust to take on houses came into being. And with the exception
of one country house, which was the one that the Government took,
which is Audley End—which is the thing that frightened it—it
then passed the legislation which allowed Blickling Hall, which
was the first one the National Trust had, and the National Trust
took on the houses. So, the Government's legislation passed after
the war was deliberately passed to prevent the situation of the
state taking on all these country houses, which was obviously
a genius idea and created the fabulous organisation that we know
the National Trust is.
So, the buildings that English Heritage looks after
are a carefully and deliberately constructed collection of buildings,
just like the paintings in the National Gallery, that were collected
by the state to illustrate British civilisation, because it obviously
included buildings in Scotland and Wales at the time—they
are now run by Historic Scotland and Cadw. So, there is a coherence
with the collection there and, of course, that collection belongs
to the public.
Now, the question about who manages them is quite
easily answered, which is this is obviously a matter for Government
and it is for the Government to decide who manages that national
collection of sites. The national collection of sites does not
belong in a freehold sense to the Government, with a very small
number of exceptions. Most of them are in what is called guardianship,
which means that the freehold is retained by a private member
of the public, and the guardianship is vested in the Secretary
of State. The Secretary of State could decide, if he so wished,
to transfer the responsibility for running the national collection
of ancient monuments to another body—to the National Trust.
The Government could set up a new quango to do it and there could
be various other arrangements. My understanding of the situation
at the moment is that the Government believe that the current
arrangements seem to be satisfactory, but I don't know whether
Fiona wants to add to that.
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Yes. Well, I think there's a philosophical answer to the question
and a practical one. The philosophical one is very much about
this national collection, which was established as the responsibility
of the Government—the Government will decide how they want
that best managed. I think as we look at public bodies lists and
all the rest of it, they do not seem to have made any dramatically
different decisions, but it's within their gift, ultimately, to
make that decision. We accept that. That's a philosophical view.
The practical one is does the National Trust want
to run lots and lots of sites that are not at risk and are collected
for a particular purpose? We have our own liabilities coming out
of our ears, I should say, and our own responsibilities. We were
set up as a charity to safeguard—and in many cases to rescue—places
at risk. As Simon has described, there's been a succession of
those. Back in 1895, it was vernacular buildings and tiny patches
of green space—Octavia Hill called them open-air sitting
rooms for the poor—and then the country houses, then the
coastline in the 1960s, and then, in the 1980s, great tracts of
countryside, with Snowdon and Kinder Scout, and then more recently
more what we call rather quaintly "social acquisitions":
the Workhouse, or more domestic buildings such as the Beatles'
houses. That's our view as a charity of what we set out to do
and I think the two are quite different propositions.
Q209 Damian Collins:
My constituency is in Kent, and if you look at somewhere like
Dover Castle in my next-door constituency—I hasten to add
I have not discussed this with the MP for Dover so I've no idea
what his view is—that is a site you could see could be run
by the National Trust probably just as easily as English Heritage.
I suppose I wonder what other advantages there are, because are
there things you can do as a charity and a trust that, given the
way in which you are successfully commercially selffunding,
could actually mean there might be some merit in saying some of
the larger, more popular sites that English Heritage runs could
sit quite well within the National Trust?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
At the margins I'm sure that's right and I'm sure there will be
a discussion over the years about whether there are those kinds
of options. But I suppose what I was trying to emphasise is that
we're a very self-motivated organisation. We know what we are
trying to achieve; we have a very clear strategy for the next
10 years. There are plenty of other things that would probably
come higher on our list of priorities of things that we needed
to do than taking on responsibilities that are already being very
well looked after—and are very successful in their own terms—by
Government agencies.
Q210 Damian Collins:
A slight change of subject: do you think, looking at the way the
National Trust runs and your experience of fundraising and attracting
bequests, that there are lessons for the arts sector as a whole
in the way you've gone about that work?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Gosh, that's a big question. It would be rather presumptive of
me, I think, to say so. All I would say, though, is that there
is something very special about being a charity, which I love.
I've worked in the NGO sector for nearly all my career, and I
think this ability to involve people through membership and subscriptions,
and actually also through volunteering, is a very special characteristic
of this country. I certainly believe that it's one of the things
that distinguishes us, and any Government need to ensure that
charities thrive in a regulatory environment that is created by
the Government. That can apply in any sector. It applies in the
health sector as well as the arts and the heritage. It's a very
broad and successful part of what makes us as a country feel good
about ourselves, I think. So, the lessons that we've learnt are
possibly translatable in many other ways and, indeed, other charities
do very interesting things, too, but I don't think it's a matter
of just taking one proposition and plonking it down somewhere
else. I think the reason why the Trust is as successful as it
is today is partly that long history, that record of delivery
and the ability to inspire people, which I have to say I think
is as important in the 21st century as it was back in 1895 when
we were established.
Q211 Damian Collins:
Do you think demographics are on your side—a growing ageing
population with spare money and the time to go to Sissinghurst
and Chartwell and everywhere else?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Well, I certainly hope so. I'm not sure about the spare money.
We're all waiting to see what impact the Spending Review has on
the very large number of supporters of the charitable sector.
Actually, we've spent a lot of time in the last 10 years attracting
young families as supporters, and very successfully, too. I think
our aim is, frankly, to reach everyone. The charitable trust was
established for the benefit of the nation, not just for one segment
of society. So, we have a big challenge still in reaching more
people.
Q212 Damian Collins:
One final question on money: is it a recession-proof business?
Have you found income steady through the recession?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Well, so far, yes. The last financial year was our best year ever
both in membership, in visits and in commercial profit from our
shops and restaurants. This year is proving tougher and it's a
whole range of factors including the weather, which I have to
say is a big factor in our business, but also I think that we're
definitely seeing belts tightening again at the moment; not in
terms of people coming, because the National Trust membership
subscription is fantastic value so people do come, but whether
they spend or they bring picnics, which, of course, we encourage
them to do. So I think we are seeing things hardening a bit. I
think we have shown ourselves to be relatively recession-proof
but the next couple of years I think we're going to have to watch
things very carefully.
Q213 Paul Farrelly:
Just on that point, not much is asked about English Heritage's
membership side, but last week a couple of long-standing donations
and subscriptions went in my latest—it was not a bonfire;
it was a small funeral pyre of the debits. When Mrs Farrelly swings
a less sentimental axe, I'm not sure that the National Trust family
membership will survive, quite frankly. So, are there any concerns
about the future of membership?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Yes, very much so for exactly that reason. When people do take
a good, hard look at their direct debits, they are bound to question.
We just hope, and there is some evidence at the moment that this
is still absolutely clear, that we represent such good value—£82
for a family membership for a year, which allows you free access
to more than 300 sites scattered throughout the country, so there's
always somewhere near you. People do want to spend their leisure
time in beautiful surroundings. There does seem to still be a
real hunger for access to these beautiful places, so we're just
hoping that we can continue to provide that. But you're right,
this is a very difficult time we're facing and we're all going
to be watching very carefully to see the impacts.
Q214 Paul Farrelly:
And English Heritage, how important is your membership aspect?
Dr Thurley: Well,
we're about a million members calculated on the same basis as
the National Trust does that, which is obviously a quarter of
what it has. We've had a very rapid increase in membership. Over
the last eight years, it has increased by 62%, which is a very
steep increase. We are very keen on it because obviously it is
a way of getting secure income. Most people who sign up remain
members for at least three years and that is guaranteed income
for us. It is really the backbone of what we do. Three years ago,
for the first time, we made more money through membership than
we did through admissions at the gate, which was an important
turning point in terms of the structuring of our business.
Q215 Paul Farrelly:
Finally, how are subscriptions faring at the moment?
Dr Thurley: Well,
I think Fiona has really covered the ground. We are still doing
very well. Last year was also the best year we've ever had. This
year has been extremely good. Membership recruitment is still
very high. People think that it is very good value. No doubt there
are people who are having a sort out of their direct debits, but
we haven't noticed it. Membership is growing still very, very
rapidly.
Q216 Chair: You
heard the evidence, or the tail end of it, that we took from the
film industry, where the reduction in the amount of Government
money available has led to a complete reconfiguration—there
is still uncertainty about how it will emerge—of the way
in which the Government support film. Yet, in the case of heritage,
it appears that despite some debate about separation of functions
within English Heritage and whether or not the Heritage Lottery
Fund and English Heritage might come together, it looks as if
there isn't going to be great change in the structure. Do you
think that's a good thing or a bad thing?
Dr Thurley: Well,
I think that one has to organise the tools that you have in government
in such a way that they are appropriate to meet the problems out
there. I don't think that there are new circumstances that really
call for a major structural change to the way the Government organise
their various bodies. Certainly, if you were to start with a clean
sheet of paper now, you might not have English Heritage, the Heritage
Lottery Fund, the Churches Conservation Trust, and various other
bodies that happen to be in DCMS—you might not have it like
that. But what was certainly revealed during the extensive discussions
which led to the publication of the public bodies review was that
structural change is extremely expensive and extremely time consuming.
Fragmenting English Heritage—taking off the properties—would
cost £27 million because, of course, all the services are
shared within English Heritage. You would have to create two new
bodies. It's a very expensive activity. Merging English Heritage
and National Trust? Again, a lot of costs; relatively small savings.
So, what I think very sensibly the Government have
focused on is saying, "Look, what you should be doing is
doing some rationalisation of who does what." If you draw
the Venn diagram between the various organisations, there are
areas of overlap and you should concentrate on getting those areas
of overlap eliminated and strengthening the unique aspects of
the individual organisations. I must say that I do think not going
for expensive and timeconsuming structural change right
now is the right decision. That does not mean that when the economy
is doing better—when there is more money around and there
are fewer heritage problems out there—that might not be
something that you might want to return to.
Q217 Chair: Is
that the view of the National Trust as well?
Dame Fiona Reynolds:
Well, yes, in the sense that we were obviously not in the mix
because, gloriously independent as we are, we could watch from
the sidelines on that. But again, I think the point is to what
end would restructuring take place. We have pointed out in the
past that there are somewhat anomalous structures at the moment
in terms of the composition of the various bodies, but at this
moment, in a very severe spending climate or real financial difficulty,
to what end would any restructuring be? And I think the worry
there is massive cost for little benefit at a time of great upheaval.
So, in a sense, we watch from the sidelines but we have no great
hunger ourselves to see a massive rearrangement of the deckchairs.
As I said, it is in our interests that there are some very strong
and effective heritage bodies delivering for the Government and
providing the framework within which the rest of us work.
Chair: I think that is
all we have for you. Thank you very much.
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