Yet more disturbing news about museum cut backs as a result of the effects of Covid. Bletchley Park has identified that the reduction of one-third of its staff would mitigate the estimated financial loss of 95% of its income due to the closure, leaving a £2m gap in its budget. 85% of the trust’s staff has already been furloughed. Other cost-saving measures being considered include lowering spend on marketing, exhibitions, travel and IT.

Meanwhile, staff at York Museums Trust, where losses of £1.4m have been sustained, have been warned that two-thirds of their jobs are at risk. About 70% of the trust’s income comes from ticket sales and visitor spend. Although it has received an emergency grant from Arts Council England, and has backing from the City Council, the trust’s chief executive, Reyahn Khan, believes it will not be enough to keep the trust afloat.

Matters are no better in Scotland, where Museums Galleries Scotland estimates that two-thirds of the country’s independent museums will not survive another year without additional funding, despite a £4m emergency fund, part of the DCMS cultural rescue package. The situation is compounded by a number of factors. Many small museums would find it difficult to open with social distancing measures in place and are run by volunteers who are unwilling or unable to return. As costs are scrutinised, University museums are also under threat, because they are not seen as core elements of research and teaching.
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With every day that passes during the pandemic we move ever further away from the likelihood that life truly will be able to return to normal.  

DCMS’s announcement of the government rescue package of £1.57 billion for arts and heritage was received with cautious optimism. There was mention of boosting employment prospects for both permanent staff and freelancers with specific funding for projects that had been mothballed due to Covid, but there is still concern that money will not reach quickly enough areas where it is needed most. With grants available from £50,000 up to £3 million, distribution of funds in the GLAM sector has fallen to Arts Council England, Historic England and National Heritage Lottery Fund. Applications are open for the first phase of grants but, whilst eligibility is wide, the window is short.

More details here: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/culture-recovery-fund-grants#section-1

A government taskforce is being set up to help reopen the cultural sector in England. Overseen by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and chaired by a DCMS minister, its responsibilities will include tourism, culture and heritage, libraries, entertainment and sport. The group will be one of five official taskforces helping develop new “Covid-19 secure” guidelines specific to different parts of the economy. The other taskforces will oversee pubs and restaurants, non-essential retail, places of worship and international aviation. Separate sectoral sub-groups will be set up under each taskforce to examine issues specific to that sector. A museums and galleries working group is being set up by the recreation and leisure taskforce. It will work with the museum sector on the possible reopening of institutions in England in stage three of the UK government’s plan for lifting lockdown restrictions. The earliest this could take place is 4 July.

The Cultural Renewal Taskforce panel will be led by Neil Mendoza, the architect of the 2017 Mendoza Review of Museums in England. The other members are:

• Mark Cornell, Ambassador theatre Group
• Lord Grade, former chair of the BBC and ITV
• Baroness Lane-Fox, founder of LastMinute.com
• Edward Mellors, Mellors Group Events
• Tamara Rojo, English national Ballet
• Alex Scott, sports broadcaster
• Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair, Arts Council England

Part of Mendoza’s brief will be to collaborate with Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England and other sectoral bodies to develop and deliver a strategy fit to support organisations large and small. The culture secretary, Oliver Dowden also announced £200 million in new funding which will be made available for small charities “that are at the heart of their communities”, but without any specific detail on how much of this – if any – would be available for cultural organisations.

The Welsh and Northern Irish governments have published recovery plans where open-air museums will open before other institutions. Museums Galleries Scotland is working with the Scottish government on plans to reopen the museum sector.

​Whilst this all sounds very heartening, let’s hope that it’s not too little or too late to help British culture and heritage to rebound from the damaging impacts of the coronavirus lockdown.  

The Wedgwood Collection, which was under threat of sale to meet the pension deficit of its parent company, Waterford Wedgwood, has been saved thanks to thousands of members of the public who responded to an appeal by raising £2.74 million within one month.   Waterford Wedgwood Potteries collapsed in 2009 with a £134 million pension debt and the museum contents, including over 80,000 works of art, ceramics and archives, were threatened with sale at auction to help meet the deficit.   The public donations will be added to the £13 million raised with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund and a number of private trusts and foundations.  The collection will be gifted to the Victoria & Albert Museum but remain on display, as a long-term loan, in the museum at the Wedgwood factory site in Barlaston, near Stoke. 

But why did it have to come to this?  Why aren’t such pre-eminent collections, which are a key part of Britain’s heritage, better protected?   The Wedgwood Collection was held as a trust.  Yet, in December 2011, the High Court ruled that the collection could be sold to pay the company’s creditors.  Nearly two years later the Administrator agreed a value of £15.75 million for the collection and gave the Art Fund one year to raise the amount to keep the collection intact.  Selling the collection would have meant splitting it into lots and being scattered across the globe.  How have archives come to be treated as a commodity to be bought and sold in such a cavalier fashion and to have such high prices put on them?   How vulnerable are other collections that have moved to trust status, believing that this afforded them some protection?  

Last month Arts Council England (ACE) published its revised vision for the Designation Scheme.  In a report entitled Pearls and Wisdom, ACE asserts that it plans to go back to the scheme’s founding principles of “quality and national significance” to celebrate and help safeguard vital collections for current and future generations.  ACE is keen to move away from the perception that Designation is a form of quasi-standard akin to Accreditation, so the revised application criteria will no longer include an assessment of the applying organisation’s performance.  It is due to re-open for applications in spring 2015. 

ACE is also exploring what measures it could take to step in when Designated collections are at risk following several high profile cases in the museums world in recent years, which will be great news if ACE really does have the “clout” to tackle such issues.   This was one of the requests from stakeholders in a consultation last year, as was the desire to put public benefit and engagement at the heart of the scheme. 

Pearls and Wisdom – http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/pearls-and-wisdom-our-vision-future-designation-sc/