To consider the findings of the Museum Review Group following the Review of the Support for Museums and Heritage Centres.

The Committee considered the findings of the Museum Review Group following the Review of the Support for Museums and Heritage Centres.

The Chairman began by thanking the many witnesses who had met with and hosted the Review Group whilst it had completed its work.  He also expressed his thanks to the Review Group’s two principal support officers Lara Latcham and Craig Goodall.

Ms. Latcham explained to the Committee that the Review Group had considered both independent and local authority operated museums in the County.  She reminded Members that a list of all known museums in the County and a list of the Review Groups witnesses had been circulated separately before the meeting.

She informed Members that the Review Group had visited Kington Museum; Butchers Row Museum, Ledbury; the Painted Room, Ledbury; the Judges Lodgings, Presteigne; Hereford Museum and Art Gallery and the Friar Street Resource Centre.

She then took the Committee through each of the Review Group’s recommendations explaining the rationale behind them.

(a)    It was felt that the service currently known as Heritage Services should change its name to the ‘Museum Service’.  This was to help avoid confusion with members of the public who often did not realise that Heritage Services included Museums.

(b)    Nationally Museums, Libraries and Archives are grouped together.  It was suggested that the three services in Herefordshire Council were grouped together locally in the same Division to enable easier cross-discipline partnership work.  In response to a question it was clarified that the three services had never been grouped together locally.  Museums had been linked with both Archives and Libraries but not at the same time.

(c)    It was recommended that all Herefordshire Council Museums, and those independent museums with the capacity to do so, completed the Museums Association Accreditation process.  This scheme acted as a quality assurance mark for Museums.  Becoming accredited would open up potential funding streams and possibilities of item loans.

(d)    As Heritage Services was a non-statutory service (apart from the preservation of artefacts for future generations) it was potentially more vulnerable to Council budget cuts than other services.  Therefore to ensure the long-term future of the service it was felt that the possibility of Heritage Services at Herefordshire Council converting to a single entity Trust be investigated.  Converting to Trust Status may also open up new revenue streams which a local authority would be ineligible for.

(e)    If the recommendation to convert to a Trust was accepted then the Council should award a long-term funding deal to the Trust.  Therefore they felt it was prudent for Herefordshire Council to plan along the lines of a 25-year deal.

(f)      The appointment of a Museum Development Officer was proving to be a successful project and was set to used as a model for heritage and museum work in Europe.  As the post was externally funded it was hoped that this funding would continue.

(g)    Local independent museums had been hit by the withdrawal of the Voluntary Sector Grants Scheme.  The Review Group had been advised that Community Grant Funding was available to local independent museums.

(h)    To enable greater levels of planning to take place it was thought that Community Grant Funding for museums should be made available for longer than the current 12 month maximum.

(i)      The high cost of insurance was described as prohibitive many times during the Review, especially for smaller independent museums who operated on a tight budget.  It was thought that possibly savings could be made if independent museums in the County formed an insurance co-operative.  It was thought that the Museum Development Officer would be the best person to investigate this possibility.

(j)      It was thought that a small hiring collection should be established along the lines of the Reading Corporate Loans scheme.  This was where local businesses paid a fee of £1,000 a year to support museum work in schools and in return they could loan an artefact from a designated list.  This was seen as a way in which the Museum Service could generate additional income.

(k)    A formula should be developed to establish the value that heritage provides to the local community in social and economic terms.  The Review Group were aware of two formulae currently being developed and suggested that the outcome of each was monitored closely.

(i)      Finally, upon visiting Kington Museum the Review Group were informed that the Museum premises had been struck several times by lorries reversing to a nearby store.  As the Kington Museum premises is owned by the Council it was recommended that preventative measures were put in place to prevent serious damage to the building taking place.

The Chairman stated that as a non-statutory service the Review Group had felt that Heritage Services was more vulnerable than other Council services to suffer budgetary restrictions.  He felt that if this happened it would be a mistake as Heritage Services provided many valuable services to the people of Herefordshire.

The Head of Economic and Community Services reported that the Council operated and supported number of non-statutory services and Trusts including Parks and Countryside, The Courtyard and Halo.  She added that these operations had been expected to share the Council’s current budget restrictions and that it would be unfair if Heritage Services, either as a Council Department or as a Trust was exempt from these measures.

In relation to recommendation (e) it was clarified that by a long term funding deal the Review Group were thinking in terms of a 25-year deal for the Heritage Services Trust.  The Review Group had heard evidence of a Trust in the UK receiving a funding arrangement of the same length.

The Director of Adult and Community Services stated that Herefordshire Council provided funding to a number of Trusts in the County who would like a similar funding arrangement.  He stated that it was unlikely that a Trust would receive anything longer than a three year funding deal from the Council.

The Cabinet Member (Community Services) added that Trust funding was as vulnerable to Council budget cuts as any Council service.

Reservations were expressed about the validity of recommendation (k).  A Member of the Review Group responded by saying that whilst he shared the same reservations about the development of formulae to ascertain the social and economic value of Heritage he felt that it was still worthwhile to try and develop the data, as none was available at the current time.

In relation to paragraph 134 of the report the Head of Economic and Community Services commented that every Council service had an income generation target.  Any money raised was returned to the Service which had earned/received it.  If the income generation target for Heritage Services, which was relatively low anyway, was removed in favour of individual venues retaining all of their on site income then the Service’s overall expenditure would need to be reduced.

A representative of Kington Museum thanked the Review Group for their report and for visiting the museum as part of the Review.

The Chairman thanked everyone who had met the Review Group during the course of the Review and reminded Members that there were many interesting museums out in the County that many people were not aware of.

RECOMMENDED:

That:

(a)   consideration should be given to reverting to the title ‘Museum Services’ to identify the service currently known as Heritage Services;

(b)   as Museums, Libraries and Archives are grouped together nationally, it should be considered that the three services should be grouped in the same Herefordshire Council division to enable easier cross discipline partnership;

(c)   all Herefordshire Council Museums and those independent Museums with the capacity to do so in the County should be encouraged to complete the Museum Associations Accreditation process;

(d)   Herefordshire Heritage Services should research and consider the possibility of converting to single entity trust status;

(e)   if Herefordshire Heritage Services does convert to a single entity trust then any funding agreement with Herefordshire Council should be long-term;

(f)     it is to be hoped that the Museum Development Officer project will continue through the support of the West Midlands Hub and Museums, Libraries and Archives;

(g)   independent museums in the County should be reminded that they can apply for Community Grant Funding;

(h)   it should be made possible for Museums to apply for longer term Community Grant Funding than the one year agreements currently available;

(i)      the possibility of a partnership insurance scheme for the Herefordshire Museums Forum members should be explored.  This could be pursued by the Museum Development Officer on the Forum’s behalf;

(j)      a small hiring collection should be established to loan objects along the lines of the Reading Corporate Loans scheme;

(k)    a formula should be developed to measure Heritage’s impact on both tourism and also to demonstrate its social and economic impact;

(l)       preventative measures should be taken to protect Kington Museum from being struck by reversing lorries to a nearby store;

(m) the Executives response to the Review including an action plan be reported to the first available meeting of the Committee after the Executive has approved its response;

and;

(n)   a further report on progress in response to the Review then be made after six months with consideration then being given to the need for any further reports to be made.