Written evidence submitted by the Royal
Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) (arts 63)
SUMMARY:
The impact of central Government cuts combined
with those of local government threatens long term and lasting
damage to a cultural heritage that is central to Britain's national
identity. Cuts made in response to the current crisis will have
long term consequences for museums and more widely an arts and
heritage sector which is the basis of the UK's creative and knowledge
based economies. Cuts made now risk destroying a delicate funding
ecology and undermining achievements made by the museums sector
over the last decade. Whilst recognising the need for financial
stringency, wholesale changes could result in unintended long
term effects and severely restrict Government's strategic reach
across the sector. Through partnerships with museums and other
cultural organisations, Government funding can have disproportionately
large economic and social impact s, directly benefiting the quality
of ordinary people's lives and in difficult times acting as a
key contributor to community resilience.
HEADLINES IN
THIS SUBMISSION
ARE:
1. The distributed nature of our national
heritage
2. National and local government partnerships:
shared responsibility for a shared heritage
3. Fostering regional relationships
4. Making strategy real: maintaining Governments
ability to influence the sector
5. Investment in culture delivers high impact
"returns"
6. A reality check on philanthropy
1. A distributed national heritage
The 2001 Renaissance in the Regions report set
out a powerful new vision for England's Museums and embodied important
principles which remain critical to the discussion of future structures
and funding. These were that:
— a programme should have national "reach";
— it recognised that local authorities
alone should not be solely responsible for cultural assets that
were part of a shared collective heritage or distributed national
collection. Government too, would have a legitimate responsibility
in supporting these collections to deliver the widest public benefit;
— larger regional museums with nationally
important collections (and their "parent" local authorities)
were providing to audiences well beyond their Council Tax funding
base; and
— the huge potential for museums and their
collections to contribute to many areas of public life: education,
learning, social inclusion, community identity, creativity, economic
development.
2. Shared responsibility for a shared heritage
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery
was a classic example of the type of institution defined in the
Renaissance report as a hub museum. Effectively operating as the
County Museum, RAMM was entirely funded by Exeter City Council,
a district council with a Council Tax base of 120,000. Museum
visitor numbers were 250,000 per annum in 2006 (just before its
closure for redevelopment) and audience analysis showed that they
came from right across the region and well beyond. Through its
museum, the district council had and has responsibility for cultural
assets of national significance and a service of events and activities
enjoyed by audiences well beyond Exeter. Though Devon residents
look to RAMM as the most significant museum in the region, its
hosting at district level was effectively an "accident of
fate". The county authority itself runs no museums and in
this area of cultural delivery receives significant support from
RAMM. The inequality of this situation was addressed by the Renaissance
programme which acknowledged for the first time that patterns
of cultural provision and consumption did not necessarily match
government administrative boundaries.
3. Fostering regional relationships
With Renaissance funding behind it, RAMM was
able to build its staffing capacity to support its county role.
For example as a district council service, educational activities
had been minimal but with Renaissance funding the museum has secured
a Sandford Award for Heritage Education, a Learning Outside The
Classroom Quality Badge and has been twice shortlisted twice for
the Guardian's Family Friendly Prize. Audiences have grown: there
has been a 31% increase in numbers since the start of Renaissance
and the Museum has developed strong relationships with the sub
regional sector, with formal agreements in place with two neighbouring
local authorities to provide pastoral care of community and voluntary
run museum in their area.
4. Making strategy real: maintaining Government's
ability to influence the sector
The sub regional relationships established through
Renaissance created a network that linked the sector in England.
This has been particularly important during a period that has
seen an increasing centralisation of the Museums, Libraries and
Archives Council and the bodies that preceded it. With the loss
of the MLA, and most probably the hub network, fragmentation of
the sector is a real risk and the ability of Government to translate
cultural strategy into delivery at a grass roots level will be
severely curtailed. This loss of "reach" is a real concern
when museums are so often a focus of community identity, the shared
values and sense of society that is central to Government policy.
This is a particularly pertinent issue in rural
areas where limited access to cultural services gives museums
like RAMM a much higher profile and local significance than might
be expected in urban areas offering more cultural choices. Proposals
which see the loss of a national network risks creating a few
cultural "hot spots" across England and many cool spots
where the public access to equivalent services will be hugely
diminished. With the hot spots located in the "usual places"
many people will be culturally disenfranchised by the loss of
locally accessible provision.
5. Investment in culture deliveries high
impact returns
Renaissance has been enormously successful,
touching the lives of countless people, transforming their perception
of and engagement with museums. A new generation of visitors has
begun to understand the power of collections to spark thought;
inspire creativity, create shared experiences and a sense of belonging.
Important at the best of times, their significance is magnified
when communities are facing huge challenges as a result of a difficult
economic climate. Museums have a huge amount to contribute to
"community resilience" at a time when everyone's horizons
and choices seem narrowed by organisations' and personal exigencies.
Through Renaissance museums have demonstrated
that investment delivers big impacts and as such represents very
good value for money. Visitor numbers at this museum are up 31%
since the start of Renaissance; 98,000 children have attended
schools workshops, 35,000 families have enjoyed museum family
resources. A key statistic shows that 53% of visiting family groups
with school children were visiting RAMM because the children wanted
to come back following their school trip (compared with 41% nationally).
We are particularly proud of this figure because it represents
the positive participation of a generation of young people in
the cultural life of their community.
It is ironic that at the very moment public
expectations have been raised, museums' ability to meet these
needs could be severely restricted. Through Renaissance RAMM has
secured a whole series of awards relating to customer service;
volunteering; education, and community engagement. The Museum
has attracted significant external investment, embraced digital
media and delivered innovative audience development initiatives.
This public facing work is highly valued by users but with Renaissance
and local authority budgets under threat there is a serious risk
to all that has been achieved over the past eight years. Savings
made in Government funding to arts and heritage will have a disproportionately
large impact on quality of life for ordinary people and ordinary
communities.
6. A reality check on philanthropy
Whilst understanding the value and entirely
supportive of a mixed funding ecology, we believe from our regional
perspective, that Government hopes for increased benefactor/philanthropist
involvement in the arts and heritage is misplaced. In our predominantly
rural region, sponsorship and endowments have always been illusive
and in the present economic circumstances this is likely to become
more difficult, not less. A whiff of desperation, questions around
future sustainability and the promise of backfilling core posts
fail (understandably) to attract external funders. It is for this
reason that for many years some charitable grant giving trusts
and foundations have been reluctant to receive applications from
local authorities. They do not want to subsidise public services.
Instead philanthropist's interests tend to be around the more
visible and exciting deliverables, the very things which could
well be in short supply in the future.
The situation may well be different in metropolitan
areas but for the regions especially rural areas such as our own,
the recession has meant individual and corporate giving is scarce.
Exeter's business community is dominated by the services and government
sectors both of which have been hit hard by the recession. Sadly
reductions in local authority and central government budgets are
unlikely to be mitigated by philanthropy. Perhaps this is an argument
for special and differentiated support to hard pressed rural regions?
Museums recognise their need to become more
entrepreneurial and to identify alternative income streams but
to do this they need stable, not project or initiative based core
funding for their essential services. It is on these services
that other activities whether publicly or privately funded rest.
However the depth of proposed cuts is putting these core activities
at risk. This is not a matter of selling the family silver; it
involves losing the table on which it sits. With philanthropists
and sponsors wary of funding core costs, museums have little alternative
but to look to the public purse and a shared government responsibility
for a shared national heritage.
Losing the principle of shared responsibility
for a nationally distributed heritage, combined with simultaneous
central and local government cuts to arts and heritage provision,
risks creating long term and lasting damage to a cultural life
that is part of Britain's national identity. For this reason we
welcome the opportunity to make this submission to the Committee.
September 2010
| 
