Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Science Museum Group
SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUP WRITTEN EVIDENCE TO THE CULTURE MEDIA AND SPORT SELECT COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE FUTURE OF THE SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUP
Executive Summary
1. The Science Museum Group holds the world’s most important collection of scientific and engineering objects in four national museums. We attract over five million visitors every year and reach many more through our outreach work, objects loaned to other museums and our touring exhibitions.
2. Eight of the top ten visitor attractions in the UK are museums.1 They are at the heart of the UK’s tourist industry which is worth £115 billion a year, employs 2.6 million people and accounts for some 9% of the UK economy.2
3. As well as being an integral part of the UK’s cultural heritage and tourist industry, the Science Museum Group is a showcase for industry and research playing a central and trusted role in the engagement between scientists, policymakers and the public. Every year around 600,000 people visit our museums in educational groups, more than any other museum or gallery. We reach nearly 1.8 million children and a further half a million 16–24 year olds every year, and we have a strong focus on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and encouraging both girls and boys to take an interest in science and engineering. In this way we help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers at a time when there is a skills shortage in this sector.3
4. At the same time as the Government has ring fenced science research and substantially increased capital investment in science,4 the Science Museum Group will experience a 25% real terms cut in grant-in aid funding over five years. The Science Museum Group is an important part of the UK science base and we believe that, given its welcome support for science and research, Government should better coordinate its spending plans across departments to ensure that its strong focus on science and technology is not undermined in the longer term.
5. Over the last five years the Science Museum Group has more than trebled its charitable income, but we rely on Government funding to open our doors safely to the public every day and preserve our collections. We welcome the Chancellor’s commitment in the Spending Round 2013 announcement to maintain free entry to our national museums. We also welcome the announcement of new operational freedoms for museums and look forward to their early implementation.
6. The Chancellor’s statement limited further reductions to national museum funding to 5% in 2015–16. However until our capital budget is confirmed, we are unable to make decisions on how we deal with these cuts. Any reduction to our capital allocation, which enables us to undertake essential maintenance and improvements to our estate, will effectively reduce our resource allocation still further. We note that DCMS’s capital settlement for 2015–16 is a reduction of more than 50% on their 2014–15 allocation.
About the Science Museum Group
7. SMG comprises the Science Museum in South Kensington; the Museum of Science & Industry (MOSI) in Manchester; the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York and in Shildon; and the National Media Museum (NMeM) in Bradford. Collections stores are located at Wroughton in Swindon, Blythe House in West Kensington and Brunel Avenue in Salford.
8. SMG was managed directly by Government until 1984 when the Board of Trustees of the Science Museum was established under the National Heritage Act 1983. The recruitment of Trustees takes place in accordance with the procedures defined by DCMS and the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Descriptions of the roles required are advertised, interviews conducted and recommendations made to DCMS for appointment by the Prime Minister.
9. The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum is responsible for the Science Museum Group as a whole. Each Museum also has an Advisory Board chaired by a Trustee. Board of Trustees and Advisory Board members bring a range of skills and expertise and are drawn from diverse backgrounds, half the current membership are based outside London and the South East.
10. As set out in the National Heritage Act 1983 “so far as practicable…the Board shall
Care for, preserve and add to the objects in its collections;
Secure that the objects are exhibited to the public;
Secure that the objects are available to persons seeking to inspect them in connection with study or research; and
Generally promote the public’s enjoyment and understanding of science and technology and of the development of those subjects, both by means of the Board’s collections and by such other means as they consider appropriate”.
Figure 1
OUR COLLECTIONS
The Science Museum has unrivalled collections recording the Industrial Revolution and one of the world’s most comprehensive and wide-ranging collections representing social, cultural and scientific aspects of medicine (on permanent loan from the Wellcome Trust).
The National Media Museum’s collections encompass some of the finest and most compelling visual material to be found anywhere in the world and incorporates the National Photography, National Cinematography, National Television and National New Media Collections. Amongst these collection are three pivotal firsts—the world’s earliest known surviving negative, the earliest television footage and the camera that made the earliest moving pictures in Britain. The BBC recently gifted its collection of almost 1000 historical objects to the Museum as part of its 90th anniversary celebrations.
The National Railway Museum is the largest and most important railway museum in the world. Its mission is to enable people to explore the story of railways and how they fit into that story
The Museum of Science and Industry uses its preeminent collections to tell the story of where science met industry and the modern world began. This is set against the backdrop of MOSI’s five listed buildings and the oldest surviving passenger railway station in the world. Inside these buildings are the textile machines, mill engines, earliest computers, and scientific equipment used by Dalton and Joule.
11. We are a group of national museums housing world class collections (figure 1) comprising over seven million artefacts. Our collections form an enduring record of scientific, technological and medical change. They are the largest, most comprehensive and most significant in their field anywhere in the world. Our public programme (figure 2) gives the visitor unique opportunities to engage with these collections.
Figure 2
OUR PUBLIC PROGRAMME
The Science Museum is world renowned for its inspirational galleries and exhibitions. Construction is currently underway for Information Age, a ground breaking £16 million new gallery that will be the world’s foremost celebration of information and communication technologies. This autumn we will open Collider (an exhibition on the Large Hadron Collider developed with CERN), next year we will open Cosmonauts (on the Russian space programme) and a climate change exhibition.
In 2012 the National Media Museum opened Life Online, the world’s first permanent gallery dedicated to the internet. The Museum is also home to the annual Bradford International Film Festival and regularly tours its exhibitions to other UK venues. With the Science Museum, it is working on Media Space, a project to showcase its world class photography collection.
MOSI curates and produces the Manchester Science Festival. The 2012 Festival, included MOSI’s first citizen science project, Turing’s Sunflowers, that drew participants from 13 countries and generated the largest-ever data set investigating Alan Turing’s hypothesis about the mathematical patterns in nature. The Festival generated 140 pieces of media coverage reaching an audience of 136 million world-wide.
In October this year NRM will mark the 75th anniversary of Mallard breaking the speed record as the fastest steam locomotive in the world, by reuniting all six surviving A4 locomotives. We are delighted that HRH The Prince of Wales has agreed to be our patron for a series of events to mark this anniversary.
As a Group of Museums we can do more than we can alone. In July, Brains: the Mind as Matter will open at MOSI courtesy of the Wellcome Collection who have specially curated this version of the exhibition for MOSI. This exhibition would not otherwise have been seen outside London.
Our reach
12. We are the largest alliance of science museums in the world. More than five million visits were made to our Museums last year, over 600,000 in education groups alone, and our audience is diverse (figure 3).
Figure 3
OUR AUDIENCE
|
2012–13 |
Science Museum |
Museum of Science & Industry |
National Railway Museum |
National Media Museum |
Science Museum Group |
|
Physical visits |
3,084,000 |
642,000 |
930,000 |
493,000 |
5,149,000 |
|
Visits in education groups |
400,000 |
64,000 |
101,000 |
42,000 |
607,000 |
|
Visits in School groups |
279,000 |
41,000 |
43,000 |
30,000 |
394,000 |
|
Number of visits by children under 16 |
1,078,000 |
249,000 |
276,000 |
146,000 |
1,749,000 |
|
Instances of participation in on-site activities |
741,000 |
222,000 |
451,000 |
132,000 |
1,546,000 |
|
Online visits |
14,943,000 |
466,000 |
2,036,000 |
1,310,000 |
20,494,0005 |
|
Overseas visitors |
1,141,000 |
40,000 |
51,000 |
8,000 |
1,240,000 |
|
% all UK visitors from BAME background6 |
17.4% |
6.2% |
3.4% |
7.5% |
11.3% |
|
% UK education visitors from BAME background |
45% |
22% |
5.6% |
20% |
26% |
|
% all UK visitors from NS-SEC 5–87 |
22.3% |
50.2% |
26.3% |
43.5% |
29.7% |
|
% UK education visitors from NS-SEC 5–8 |
32.8% |
42.1% |
41.6% |
43.7% |
29.8% |
13. Both individually, and as a Group, we are an established national partner with Government, education, science and philanthropic organisations who share our passion for inspiring young people and the wider public about science and strengthening the UK’s science base. Our partners include the Wellcome Trust, Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Teach First, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Royal Society of Chemistry, Prince’s Trust, and STEMNET.
14. We welcome the Government’s commitment to science and engineering and the recognition that investment in science and engineering skills and is essential for UK industry and future economic growth. However the UK faces a real science and engineering skills gap. A report by Engineering UK, launched at No 11 Downing Street in December 2012, highlighted the need to double the number of annual recruits into engineering by 2020 to meet projected demand.8 The Science Museum Group plays a vital role in helping to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. Nearly 1.8 million under 16s and half a million 16–24 year olds visit one of our sites every year. We have a strong focus on young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and encouraging both girls and boys to take an interest in science and engineering, for example through our High Performance festival in March 2013 which celebrated extraordinary women in science and technology.
15. The Science Museum Group plays a major part in both formal and informal UK science education (figure 4). Last year alone we reached nearly 400,000 children in school groups and delivered training to nearly 2,000 teachers. Through informal learning opportunities at our Museums and elsewhere we enable people to engage with the complexities of scientific research and we raise the level of scientific literacy in this country (figure 5). The Science Museum in particular is the public face of contemporary science research (figure 6).
Figure 4
OUR WORK WITH SCHOOLS
Over five years our Talk Science education programme has delivered STEM education training to over 2,600 secondary science teachers with the potential to reach over half a million students. It has trained over 250 scientists, including Royal Society scientists, to effectively communicate their research to young people and it has developed an online education game that has reached over 300,000 people to date.
In June 2013 we announced Enterprising Science with Kings and BP. This five year project brings together Talk Science with a research programme conducted by Kings College into children’s science and career aspirations in order to develop techniques that bring science to life for young people, their teachers and families both inside and outside the classroom.
The Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am, the Science Museum and The Prince’s Trust recently launched a scheme in which Museum outreach staff will visit Prince’s Trust xl clubs in schools across the country to inspire 13–19 year olds in STEM subjects
Last year alone we delivered training to nearly 2000 teachers, and worked with 125 scientists from the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineers and Royal College of Pathology, supporting them in their science engagement work.
Figure 5
INFORMAL LEARNING AT OUR MUSEUMS
Last year over 380,000 people enjoyed our free science shows at the Science Museum.
The Science Museum’s monthly Wednesday Lates programme attracted over 35,000 young adults last year. At one, Zombielab, more than 5,000 came to explore the science of consciousness with the help of university researchers. The researchers are currently submitting two academic papers to science journals.
The Great Innovation Vote, a unique partnership of Science Museum Group with the GREAT campaign, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society, Engineering UK and the British Science Association, garnered more than 50,000 votes in two weeks and stimulated a huge amount of interest on twitter (from the PM to Stephen Fry).
Last year, Bradford City held its first Science Festival with the National Media Museum playing an important role.
The well-established Manchester Science Festival is produced by MOSI, and delivered across Greater Manchester. Last year 85,000 took part in 252 activities hosted across 51 venues.
Figure 6
CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE RESEARCH
Last year, our genetics and neuroscience gallery, Who Am I? was visited by over 1 million visitors. Fourteen research teams have taken up residency in this gallery since 2010, providing visitors with the opportunity to take part in real research. In one, Great Ormond Street Hospital took 3D face scans from 13,000 visitors to create a database for use in reconstructive surgery.
700,000 visitors went to atmosphere our gallery about contemporary climate science. This gallery was developed with help from the Met Office, the Grantham Institute at Imperial College, as well as other scientists, engineers and mathematicians.
Our Antenna science news gallery is updated daily. This together with our relationship with Nature and Science academic journals ensures that our visitors have access to the very latest in science research. Content appears in our gallery reaching 750,000 visitors every year and online where it reaches 1.5 million people.
16. The Science Museum is also a trusted voice and venue for engagement between scientists, policymakers and the public and the backdrop for nationally significant moments. In January 2013 the Museum hosted Science Policy in the Real World, a discussion about the experience of being Science Minister between the current incumbent, David Willetts, and two predecessors, Lord David Sainsbury and Lord William Waldegrave. In May this year the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the UK Space Agency chose the Science Museum to announce the first British Astronaut in space for more than twenty years. This month, the Science Museum will be the venue for the Science and Technology Select Committee’s hearing into the public understanding of climate change.
17. We are rapidly increasing the reach and scale of our international work to enable us to be the leading international museum championing the understanding, enjoyment and prestige of science in modern society (see figure 7). We are also increasingly working with organisations such as the British Council and UK Trade and Industry and as part of the GREAT campaign to showcase what Britain has to offer in science and technology.
Figure 7
OVERSEAS TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT
Brazil is a strong focus for the Science Museum, fulfilling the aspiration to co-operate set out in the Letter of Intent signed by the governments of Brazil and UK and the Science Museum in July 2012, in which the museum committed to help establish a new Brazilian science museum in Sao Paulo. This relationship is an opportunity to raise the profile of British companies already working in Brazil. The SMG Director also joined the Prime Minister’s delegation to Brazil in September 2012.
We are currently collaborating with a range of organisations in Russia in the development of our Cosmonauts exhibition which will be a centre piece of the UK-Russia Year of culture 2014 and a foundation for broader collaboration between UK and Russia on space science.
In the past year our Learning teams have worked with institutions in South Korea, Turkey, Malta and Saudi Arabia providing consultancy and training.
NMeM’s summer 2012 Exhibition In the Blink of an Eye will be touring to the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow.
In December 2012, NRM cemented their relationship with the Railway Museum in Saitama, Japan with the signing of a sisterhood agreement between the two museums.
Our Learning teams have delivered science shows to 7,000 people in Hong Kong and Southern China as part of a British Council initiative.
International Interest in our ability to engage people with complex contemporary science continues to grow—for example a delegation of MPs from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka requested a tour of atmosphere, our climate science gallery.
18. Our national and global significance enriches what we bring to the local communities in which we are based. Our Museums are iconic parts of the places in which they are located serving local schools, drawing local visitors to programmes which resonate with and are relevant to local people (see figure 8).
Figure 8
LOCAL ENGAGEMENT
In a partnership between Science Museum, NRM, MOSI, @Bristol and Catalyst we’ve been working with Year 9 students to engage them with climate science. Last year 51 schools took part, and used science journalism skills to research climate change stories in their local area, culminating in the Atmos magazine. This year 60 schools are taking part to develop and deliver climate science events to their peers. Exhibitions documenting their work are currently touring the partner museums.
The Science Museum’s Building Bridges project works with schools and families from five partner London boroughs, providing them with access to scientists, research and our collections.
As part of the Cultural Olympiad, the National Media Museum worked with local communities to document their experiences of moving to and living in Yorkshire. These included Polish and Roma/Gypsy communities. The resulting series of short animated films—“Fragile Stories” have been screened across Yorkshire.
Nearly 60 organisations joined MOSI in creating the museum’s first Mini-Maker Faire in 2012, where individual inventors demonstrated their own innovations in robotics, music, gaming, architecture and art. From a laser harp, to a 3D printer and soldering demonstrations, to robots and giant games made from arduino boards or Raspberry Pi technology, the event encouraged visitors to interact with a wide array of items and learn how to make their own. Many of the hands-on activities were linked to science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). There are plans under way to hold another Mini Maker Faire at MOSI in August 2013.
In March 2013, NRM hosted the regional National Science & Engineering Week working with a range of partners including Institute of Civil Engineering and the National Science Learning Centre to engage families and schools with engineering challenges.
19. We also reach a massive digital audience. Last year traffic to our websites reached 20 million, a four million increase on the previous year. The Science Museum alone has more than a quarter of a million twitter followers. Our YouTube video of the National Media Museum’s discovery of the world’s oldest colour film has been viewed by more than 430,000 people. We have developed award winning educational computer games and, working with the University of York, the NRM has developed an App to explore its collection.
Achieving financial sustainability
20. Grant-in-Aid represents approximately 60% of the Group’s total incoming resources each year. The chart below shows our total incoming resources in 2012–13. We have developed and diversified our income streams significantly in recent years, building both commercial and charitable income to mitigate, as far as possible, year-on-year reductions in public funding.
Figure 9
TOTAL INCOMING RESOURCES 2012–13 (MILLIONS)
21. Our operating expenditure is relatively fixed because of our statutory obligations to maintain and secure our collections and ensure they are available to the public, both now and for future generations.
22. We manage substantial estates across five museum sites, which include grade 1 listed buildings, in addition to our two storage sites at Wroughton and Blythe House. In order to open our doors safely to the public every day and preserve our collections, we have to maintain our estates. We also have to provide security and visitor services to ensure our public and our collections are kept safe. Maintaining this level of infrastructure carries unavoidable back office costs, which, together with the direct costs of storage, estates, security and visitor services mean that our fixed costs represent around 70% of our total operating costs.
23. Cuts in our funding therefore tend to have a disproportionate impact on our public offer, as it is only our exhibitions, programming and educational activities that are truly discretionary. They are also the activities that are of greatest appeal to our sponsors and funders. These activities are broadly represented by the section of the pie chart below entitled “science education and communication”.
Figure 10
TOTAL EXPENDITURE 2012–13 (MILLIONS)
24. As a group of museums, a proportion of our fixed costs are services which are delivered on a group-wide basis. This includes estates management, and back office functions such as finance, HR and ICT, an operating structure which makes it difficult for us to fully disaggregate our budgets by museum. Expenditure in relation to each Museum is, however, broadly commensurate with the level of visitor numbers. The Science Museum in London accounts for about 60% of visits, the NRM in York and Shildon 18%, MOSI in Manchester 12% and NMeM in Bradford 10%. Grant-in-Aid for 2013–14 broken down in proportion to visitor numbers is as follows: Science Museum £23.8 million; NRM £7.1 million; NMeM £4.0 million; MOSI £4.8 million.
25. In real terms, the cuts we have experienced since 2010–11 represent a real terms reduction of 25% in our total Grant-in-Aid over five years. In 2010–11 our original total Grant in Aid settlement (resource and capital) as announced in the 2007 CSR was £46.5 million.9 In 2014–15 the total Grant in Aid settlement for the Group as a whole10 will be £39.3 million. This is a cash reduction of £7.2 million. Figure 11 shows our Grant in Aid settlement compared with what we would have received with an inflation-only increase each year. The cumulative impact is equivalent to £11.5 million or 25% of the original total settlement in 2010–11.11
Figure 11
REDUCTIONS IN GRANT-IN-AID SINCE 2010–11
|
Grant-in Aid (£000) |
Resource |
Capital |
Total |
Cumulative cash cut |
Inflation-only increase |
Cumulative real-terms cut |
|
2010–11 original |
41,000 |
5,510 |
46,510 |
46,510 |
||
|
2010–11 revised |
40,570 |
4,510 |
45,080 |
1,430 |
46,510 |
1,430 |
|
2011–12 |
39,296 |
2,284 |
41,580 |
4,930 |
47,501 |
6,550 |
|
2012–13 |
38,618 |
2,385 |
41,003 |
5,507 |
48,688 |
7,810 |
|
2013–14 |
37,199 |
2,486 |
39,685 |
6,825 |
49,662 |
10,102 |
|
2014–15 |
36,716 |
2,587 |
39,303 |
7,207 |
50,655 |
11,477 |
26. Any further cuts imposed by the spending review for 2015–16 will therefore come on top of an already significant reduction in our public funding. Figure 12 below shows the cumulative impact of the cuts to date for the group as a whole (including MOSI throughout for comparative purposes).
Figure 12
CUMULATIVE IMPACT OF GRANT-IN-AID CUTS TO DATE (£000)
27. To manage the impact of this real terms 25% cut, we have implemented a range of efficiency measures across the Group and we have actively increased our income from a range of sources.
28. The efficiency savings we have made over this period include procurement efficiencies, storage rationalisation, sharing services (most notably through the out-sourcing of security services through a joint contract with NHM and V&A worth in aggregate c. £8 million per year over five years) and a change programme which has resulted in a reduction of 8% in headcount through redundancies since April 2011 and a further 10% of staff redeployed to different roles. These measures, together with significant increases in the level of our self-generated income, have enabled us to balance our budgets, despite the growing cost of utilities (our budget for utilities in 2013–14 is 35% higher than 2012–13).
29. During this period of financial restraint, we have brought another museum into our group structure and begun to invest in areas of historic under-funding; we have fundamentally re-shaped our senior management team in order to deliver to an ambitious and far-sighted strategic agenda; we have undertaken a major master-planning exercise and we will, this year, not only open a major new gallery in Media Space but also launch the first in a series of world-class ground-breaking exhibitions with Collider.
30. Despite the success of the efficiency measures undertaken to date, it is hard to see how our museums can continue to maintain business as usual with further funding cuts. The level of additional cuts being advanced in the spending review represent a tipping point, at which we need to reduce activity and deliverables to create a sustainable cost base. Whilst continuing to build self-generated income over the medium term will form a central part of our financial strategy, we cannot plan with any certainty on increasing income to meet the immediate shortfall we will experience with further funding cuts.
31. We regularly discuss our financial position with DCMS and have also been actively discussing the financial challenges we face with our partners in Bradford (see Appendix 1). Our 2015–16 Spending Review submission to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport set out the actions we would need to take to withstand additional cuts of 10% to Grant-in-Aid. These are
Implement a charge for school groups visiting our museums. This would reduce the number of school groups able to visit and compromise our ability to raise corporate support for our learning programme.
Cut interpretation in our museums. We are sector-leading in our approach to interpreting our collections and engaging the public in science. Further cuts would necessitate a fundamental restructure of interpretation services in our museums.
Reduce our exhibition and contemporary science programmes. Future exhibitions already in development would have to be abandoned and we would reduce our thriving contemporary science agenda.
Implement a site closure.
32. Our Grant-in Aid includes a capital grant which has fallen from over £4.5 million in 2010–11 to £2.6 million in 2014–15. This grant is critical to enabling us to perform essential capital works: to replace lifts, refurbish and restore roofs, replace damaged flooring and to ensure we are able to safely open the doors of our museums. The extensive site at MOSI includes grade I listed buildings of great historic significance and is in need of substantial investment. The merger with MOSI has resulted in additional capital Grant-in-Aid of just £208k each year towards the upkeep of this estate.
33. To realise our longer term plans for new gallery and building developments requires capital investment of a different magnitude. Our recent success in funding both Media Space and Information Age demonstrate that we are able to raise significant amounts of capital investment from the corporate sector. However, it is vital that we are able to invest up-front in these high profile projects and we have to be able to commit capital funding of our own to approach potential donors with credibility.
34. Our charitable income has more than trebled over the past five years from £3.1 million in 2008–09 to £9.8 million in 2012–13. Funders have confidence in our ambitions and want to be part of our future. We continue to enjoy support from our long standing supporters such as Wellcome Trust, BP, Shell, Accenture, Bank of America, Wolfson Foundation and more recently, we have attracted new organisations to invest in our future: Google, BT, Sony, Fidelity UK Foundation, ARM Holdings, Virgin Media, BG Group and Hyundai.
35. Recent examples of the charitable income we have raised include:
£4.8 million towards the Science Museum atmosphere gallery.
£11.6 million towards Information Age at the Science Museum.
£2.1 million to support delivery of Media Space.
£430,000 for the refurbishment of Station Hall at NRM.
36. We, like other cultural institutions, find fundraising in London more lucrative compared to fundraising at our other museums. Over the last three years we have raised five times as much for the Science Museum than for our other sites combined.
37. Over the last three years we have developed strategies to grow our unrestricted income and have seen an increase from £1.58 million in 2011–12 to £2.35 million in 2012–13. This includes corporate membership at all sites, which has seen an income growth of 116% over the past two years. Our Patron programmes at the Science Museum and National Railway Museum have seen a 106% uplift in membership numbers from 2011–12 to 2012–13.
38. Our engagement with donors at all levels has dramatically increased with significant growth in income from our visitors. Three years ago we introduced a proactive visitor giving scheme, and we have seen income grow over this period from £100,000 to £1.6 million. This equates to a 32p donation per head average across all our Museums in 2012–13.
39. We are planning to continue to invest further in our development team to enable us to generate more charitable and sponsorship income. This includes a greater focus on individual philanthropic giving, further building our corporate fundraising activity and working to develop international fundraising streams.
40. Our commercial activities currently bring in £16.3m per annum from on-site and off-site operations. £6.8 million comes from our retail and catering operations, £5.7 million from our on-site interactives, including our IMAX cinemas and simulators, £2.9 million from corporate hire and £0.9 million from our licensing and picture library. Our profits are gift-aided back to the museum which in the prior financial year, excluding sponsorship, totalled £2.9 million
41. We have plans in place to deliver growth in profit from our commercial activities with a target of £1 million growth in the bottom line over the next two financial years. In particular we will be investing in creating additional dedicated corporate hire facilities as this is an area of significant potential interest.
42. We are actively exploring options with a number of commercial cinema operators with a view to forming a partnership that will deliver a better and more cost effective cinema offer for Bradford from the NMeM. To-date these conversations have been very positive and we are confident that we will have a viable agreement in place before the end of this financial year.
June 2013
APPENDIX 1
TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS
This is not intended to be comprehensive
5 December 2012
Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement. Cuts of 1% in 2013–14 and 2% in 2014–15 announced.
20 March 2013
Budget statement. Further cuts of 1% in 2013–14 and 1% in 2014–15 announced.
Timetable for SR 2015–16 with likelihood of 10% budget reductions also announced.
8 April 2013
DCMS outlines timetable for SR 2015–16 and emphasises severity of cuts in meeting with ALBs.
11 April 2013
SR 2015–16 commissioning letter issued. SMG requested to model the impact of cuts at 5%, 10% and 15% for return by 18 April 2013.
18 April 2013
SMG submit Spending Review submission to Culture Secretary.
23 April 2013
SMG Director meets Culture Minister to discuss National Media Museum.
May and June 2013
On-going dialogue between SMG, Bradford, York and Manchester Councils.
3 June 2013
Mirror runs story about threat of NMeM closure
5 June 2013
SMG Director speaks at Science Media Centre Press Briefing
17 Jun 2013
Culture Minister meets Bradford MPs and SMG Director.
Select Committee Inquiry confirmed.
26 June 2012
Chancellor of the Exchequer’s SR 2013 Announcement limits reductions to funding to 5%, maintains the Government’s commitment to free entry and announces pilot of operational freedoms. There is no indication given of SMG’s capital settlement.
End Notes
1 Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, 2012 Visitor Figures
2 Visit Britain
3 Engineering UK, The state of engineering 2013
4 Spending Round 2013, HM-Treasury
5 Includes pan-SMG websites
6 MOSI and NRM figures are partly based on estimates
7 National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification. MOSI and NRM figures are partly based on estimates
8 Engineering UK, The state of engineering 2013
9 Includes SMG (£41.6 million) and MOSI (£4.9 million) for comparative purposes
10 This excludes the National Coal Mining Museum, for which Grant in Aid has been received by the Science Museum Group since 2012-13.
11 Inflationary increase has been calculated using the GDP deflator at 2.13% for 2011–12; 2.5% for 2012–13 and 2% for subsequent years