Written evidence submitted by The Fitzwilliam
Museum, University of Cambridge (arts 119)
1. What impact recent, and future, spending
cuts from central and local Government will have on the arts and
heritage at a national and local level?
1.1 We are concerned that future reduced
funding may be concentrated in national museums and major conurbations.
This would significantly reduce the cultural entitlement of large
swathes of the population particularly in the east and south west
of England, where the population is predominantly rural.
1.2 We would welcome assurances that the
majority of funding cuts will be restricted to central administration
in order to preserve front-line services. Public funding of core
support for museum collections, buildings, and access to them
provides both a reassurance of continued activity and an endorsement
of their value, which is critical in bidding for funds from other
sources.
1.3 We would stress the importance of preserving
standards such as Accreditation (minimum standard) and Designation
(recognition of national importance of the collection(s)), not
only because this gives confidence to other funders and sponsors
but also because the current standards have gained international
recognition.
The Renaissance programme supporting excellent
work in non-national hub museums in the regions if continued would
provide an efficient means of enabling museums to achieve and
maintain these standards.
1.4 Support for national standards in museums
such as the Collections Trust's Collections Link resources should
be safeguarded and Culture Grid, part of a European digital exchange
platform, also managed by the Collections Trust, must be preserved.
This will play an important part in future economic development
of tourism and business linked to culture and is especially important
to museums among others in the approach to London 2012.
1.5 The investment provided by Renaissance
has enabled regional museums to build capacity and improve and
extend their offer. Together with lottery funding for improvements
to buildings and facilities, this has led to regional museums
playing an increasingly important role in stimulating cultural
tourism and regional regeneration. Any reduction in funding to
front-line services and projects would diminish the regional museum's
sector ability to contribute to tourism in this way.
2. What arts organisations can do to work
more closely together in order to reduce duplication of effort
and to make economies of scale?
2.1 Collaboration and partnership are clearly
the way forward and should be encouraged.
2.2 With the benefit of Renaissance investment,
the museums of the University of Cambridge and non-University
local museums have been able to work together since 2003, and
can demonstrate that this approach results in significantly increased
public engagement and more diverse users, raised standards, the
efficient use of resources and increased their capacity to contribute
to national initiatives.
2.2 In the East of England, Renaissance
funding has enabled the development of a strong working partnership
between the four hub museums with benefits felt well beyond the
partners, both by the visiting public and in the wider museums
sector. Both locally and regionally, Renaissance-funded collaborative
activities have demonstrated that the whole is greater than the
sum of the parts. The East of England Renaissance SHARE project
is a good example here: it is an exchange of professional support,
training and advice among museums, harnessing the capacity built
in the Hub partners and distributing it among the wider museums
community in the region. Renaissance Hubs have become significant
players in their regions and have been able to have much more
impact by working together.
2.3 In our experience, however, dedicated
facilitators are essential to successful and efficient collaborations.
The well-established and trusted Museum Development Officer (MDO)
network has proved an efficient and effective way of delivering
support and connecting museums across regions, and in the East
of England this network is complemented by the Renaissance-funded
Regional Conservation Officers (RCOs). Both MDOs and RCOs contribute
to the SHARE project (2,2 above). The improvement of local museums
that results, impacts in turn on the current users of museums
and the appeal of museums to potential visitors. These museum
development posts and networks should be preserved.
2.4 The University of Cambridge has eight
museums, five of which have designated collections, and its principal
museum, the Fitzwilliam, recorded 335,000 visits in the last year
with very high rates of satisfaction and intention to return (BDRC
survey 2008-09). All the museums are involved in outreach and
contribute to £351 million that tourism brought to Cambridge
in 2008-09.
3. What level of public subsidy for the arts
and heritage is necessary and sustainable?
3.1 We recognise that cuts are unavoidable
but regret very much that they should follow upon a period of
expansion and increased numbers of people using museums. We strongly
support the retention of free admission for UK citizens, and are
planning to look to other sources of funding to make good some
of the shortfall in government funding, including income generating
activities within our museum or group of museums.
3.2 Core services such as the Collections
Trust's lead on digital services should also be safeguarded for
the good of the cultural sector and the digital economy.
4. Whether the current system, and structure,
of funding distribution is the right one?
4.1 For non-national museums the current
system of plural funding, accompanied by extensive short-term
project funding is deeply unsatisfactory and not efficient or
sustainable. The year-on-year assurance of a sufficient level
of core funding to address recurrent costs and adequate staffing
is essential as this enables museums such as the Fitzwilliam to
secure project funding from a variety of sources, for example
research councils, charitable trusts and foundations, lottery,
corporate private donors. Rolling funding agreements also allow
proper planning and this is always going to be more efficient
than the short-term approach necessitated by one or two year agreements
or project funding.
4.2 Museums are important to overseas business
that can be negotiated through cultural tourism and London 2012
Olympic and Paralympic Games will present an unrivalled opportunity
for exploring new markets, particularly in China.
5. What impact will recent changes to the
distribution of National Lottery funds have on arts and heritage
organisations?
5.1 We welcome the announcement that funding
of the Heritage Lottery fund will be returned to former levels.
We remain concerned that up to 2012 sport will require large injections
of funding and that the Cultural Olympiad raises aspirations and
expectations of museums without the availability of any new funding.
There is a need to ensure that capital and project funding is
adequately supported by revenue funding.
6. Whether the policy guidelines for National
Lottery funding need to be reviewed?
We understand that these are already under review?
In these difficult times, provision for/flexibility towards revenue
funding will be welcome.
7. The impact of recent changes to DCMS arm's-length
bodies—in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council
and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council?
7.1 While the MLA has been a useful strategic
advocate for the museums sector, over the last three years increasing
bureaucracy has laid increasing demands on recipients of Renaissance
funding to an extent that this has interfered with the delivery
of services. We are confident that the much of the sector can
be trusted to work efficiently and effectively and understands
its business in a way that office-bound administrators do not.
We recommend that the Committee looks at the Arts Council's relationship
with its Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) as a model for
supporting museums that are already performing well.
7.2 We oppose the MLA's proposal to wind
down all the Renaissance museum hubs and replace them with "core
museums" and a development fund from 2011-12. Where Hubs
are working successfully and delivering raised standards and value
for money—as in the East of England where there is no obvious
"core museum"—we consider it highly retrograde
to dismantle the benefits of the last seven years' investment.
A development fund which encourages new projects, which cost time
and money to set up and wind down, and many of which will not
be sustainable long term, does not represent the most efficient
and effective use of public funds when compared to using funding
to build on long-term, successful investments.
8. Whether businesses and philanthropists
can play a long-term role in funding arts at a national and local
level?
8.1 Both businesses and philanthropists
should continue to be encouraged to augment core funding for museum
but cannot be expected to provide basic funding for maintaining
the institution; upkeep must remain a central or local government
responsibility. New ideas for public/private support for museums
have yet to emerge.
We are concerned, too, that some collections
such as fine art are intrinsically more attractive to private
donors and that others such as scientific, plant or geological
collections may suffer as a result. Commercial sponsorship opportunities
for regional organisations are limited, as regional and local
companies have little or no funds for sponsorship, and national
companies tend only to be interested in sponsorship opportunities
that have national reach.
9. Whether there need to be more Government
incentives to encourage private donations?
9.1 There can be no doubt that stronger
incentives to donate works of art to museums would greatly encourage
private giving to museums. Tax incentives are needed to encourage
private philanthropic support for both donations and exhibitions.
We refer the Committee to the US tax regime related to works of
art and to the arguments for continued free admission to museums
and zero rated VAT for University museums presented to Parliament
by Sir Denis Mahon and others. However incentives (or the lack
of) are not the only reason for the difference between US and
UK attitudes to philanthropy. The US culture of giving relates
to the long held concept of individual responsibility for building
cities and communities.
September 2010
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