The V&A museum is proposing the merger of a number of departments based on material specialisms in order to create cross-disciplinary teams organised around chronology or geography. Under the proposal around 20% of curatorial roles and 10% of conservation roles are at risk. This is a similar action to that proposed by the National Trust last year, which was decried by critics as ‘dumbing down’. Some current and former V&A staff have told of their fears of a ‘brain drain’ at the museum. Curatorial staff argue that they are already stretched with the turnaround that the museum has with exhibitions. Inevitably, director Tristan Hunt cited the Covid pandemic as ‘one of the most significant financial challenges in the V&A’s long history’ and hopes that the changes will save £10m per year. But no price can be put on the knowledge and expertise that will be lost if the changes go ahead.
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In addition, the museum is planning to review National Art Library services with a view to merging the library, together with the V&A’s registry and archives, under the V&A Research Institute, to create a single, integrated research and information directorate. Consequently, the library will remain closed until December 2021. Given that these services have already been closed for the best part of a year this action hardly serves the needs of researchers and fails to meet the V&A’s mission aims to create a world class learning experience and to expand its international reach, reputation and impact. 

News earlier this month that the Wallace Collection, London, was consulting on the closure of its library and archive to the public led to an outcry and online petition. A campaign to try and prevent the closure was launched by a group of archive professionals and trade unionists working with the Wallace Collection staff and the Public and Commercial Services trade union. The Wallace Collection’s library contains about 30,000 books and periodicals relating to the museum collection, some of which are not held by other art history libraries, whilst the archive includes the papers of the Wallace Collection’s founders and other records and is designated as a ‘Place of Deposit’ for public records under the 1958 Public Records Act. The closure plans, which were described by the campaign’s organisers as ‘short-sighted and ill thought out’, would have meant redundancies for two full time members of staff. The petition argued that Wallace Collection director, Xavier Bray, ‘wants to orientate the museum to income generation and does not view the library and archive as part of this’. Moreover, questions about archives that were donated on the condition that they were publicly available, and on how curatorial staff would manage the book and archive collections that require specialist skills, have not been answered.
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By the close of consultation on 11 February, the petition had attracted almost 30,000 signatures. On 17 February it was announced that the library and archive of the Wallace Collection would remain open to the public following an internal consultation, although Bray warned that a difficult road lies ahead for the institution as it counts the cost of the pandemic. 

A report just published by Museum Freelance - the organisation that represents freelancers and consultants working in the museum, gallery, archive and heritage sectors - outlines the ‘devastating impact’ of the Covid pandemic on freelancers. Nearly 80% of museum and heritage freelancers responding to the survey stated that their income fell between March and October. More than half of the respondents have had one or more projects or contracts cancelled, whilst many more have had projects or contracts postponed. However, less than half have been able to access the government’s Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), with many having to find alternative sources of income, such as savings, borrowing or receiving a grant. Consequently, the pandemic has had a ‘detrimental impact’ on the mental health of freelancers, with many reporting feelings of stress, anxiety and isolation. As the report notes, freelancing has always been precarious, but the scale, severity and sustained nature of the issues being faced this year are extraordinary. 

To access the full report:
​ https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b448e3b2487fd5fcddd3bbd/t/5fc7605a8f0796361579c25e/1606901851015/Impact+of+Covid-19+on+freelancers+-+Poll+results,+December+2020.pdf

Fascinated to read today that the Unilever business in New Zealand is to give its staff the opportunity to work a four-day week with no loss of pay. The Covid pandemic, which has led many staff to work from home, was the catalyst for this trial. Mental and physical well-being of employees plays a part in the decision, which aims to measure performance on output, not time. The scheme will run throughout 2021 and be monitored by researchers in the Business School at the University of Technology, Sydney.
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Interestingly, William Lever (1851-1925), one of the founders of Unilever, foreshadowed today’s ideas of maintaining a work-life balance. He advocated a six-hour working day, referring to the deadening effect of general factory life and its monotonous round of toil, both in a book he published on the topic and in his role as an MP. He believed in the welfare of his employees, female as well as male, because a healthy worker was an industrious worker, and a six-hour working day gave time to study, leading to an overall improvement in education, and to pursue wholesome pastimes such as gardening. 

The Royal College of Physicians’ has proposed to sell its antiquarian book collection.  The college, which was founded in 1518, finds itself in financial difficulties as many younger practitioners are, apparently, unwilling to pay the high subscription fees to join the professional body. The situation has been compounded this year by Covid, as the college’s income stream from hosting events has dried up. The archive is a valuable resource for researchers and the sale of any part of it would be contrary to the wishes of its past benefactors, whilst also potentially imperilling future bequests. Amongst its treasures are a fifteenth century manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, more than 100 volumes from the Elizabethan magician, John Dee, and mediaeval Islamic medical manuscripts. 
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The president of the college defended the proposal, saying that the sale would be of non-medical works, but this ignores the historic integrity of the library and the cultural role of the college. Sale would be in breach of the Museums Association code of ethics to prevent dispersal of collections to generate short term revenue. Moreover, the collection is accredited by the Arts Council and the Accreditation would be removed if a sale took place. More than 600 of the college’s fellows and members have written in protest about the proposal. The college has not, seemingly, sought to find alternative measures, such as applying to the culture recovery fund or even making a financial appeal to its members. 

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.  

It was fascinating to hear that the British Museum is missing its visitors in more ways than one. It seems that the exhalations of the 17,000 visitors that the museum received daily prior to lock-down were essential for keeping precious exhibits at the correct humidity levels. The museum has not been closed for more than three days at a time (over Christmas) since World War II. Since the closure in March the relative humidity levels have fallen dangerously below 40%, which means that objects made from wood and bone have been drying out and are prone to cracking and fracture. Museum staff have been monitoring the situation closely and moving the most sensitive objects to their environmentally controlled strongrooms. The re-opening of the museum is eagerly awaited by all! 

​I was appalled to hear that the National Trust plans to ‘dial down’ its role as a cultural institution and focus on the open spaces in its portfolio instead, claiming that the Covid pandemic has merely accelerated an already difficult situation. Even though the Trust has £1.3 billion in reserves, it proposes to keep only 20 of its 500+ historic homes and castles open to the public, to put its collections into storage and to make properties available to people who are prepared to pay more for ‘specialised experiences’. Furthermore, it plans to make 1,200 redundancies, which would include dozens of its specialist curators in areas such as textiles, furniture and libraries, as well as conservation. As Bendor Grosvenor, the art historian, observes, ‘the Trust’s senior management have been making a mess of their historic properties for some time, dumbing down presentation and moving away from knowledge and expertise’, adding that it was reckless to abandon expertise built up over generations as ‘once gone, it will be impossible to retrieve’.  The Trust has been accused in the past of ‘Disneyfying’ its properties and this latest news will do nothing to dispel alarm. The running of the properties should be handed to an organisation willing to run them according to the founding principles of the Trust. In the meantime I, and probably many others, will not be renewing my membership. 

​It’s becoming ever clearer that the culture and heritage sectors will pay a high price as a result of the pandemic. As more than 300 redundancies are announced in Tate’s commercial arm, Tate Enterprises, about 400 at London’s Southbank Centre and also at museum trusts in York and Birmingham, together with the National Trust, it seems that the government’s Culture Recovery Fund is clearly too little, too late. Tate’s director, Maria Balshaw, has actually stated that the bailout funding will not stem job losses because it will have to be used to offset substantial losses elsewhere in the galleries. Little wonder that trade unions are threatening strike action. 

Museums Sheffield, which manages the Graves Art Gallery, Millennium Galleries and Weston Park Museum, is to merge with Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust (SIMT), which runs Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, Kelham Island Museum and Shepherd Wheel. The new charitable trust will reunite collections that were previously managed by Sheffield City Council. The merger, which will come into effect in April 2021, has been in the pipeline for three years and is not, reportedly, a reaction to Covid-19. Instead, the primary focus is on closer working ties and identification of shared opportunities following several shared ventures over the last few years that will create one of the UK’s largest combined museums services.
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This could be the start of a growing trend that sees strength in numbers, as the Mary Rose and National Museum of the Royal Navy announced last week their commitment to working more closely together with the aim of boosting the post-Covid offer of Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard. Both venues open on 24 August and will be offering an ‘ultimate explorer’ joint ticket that also allows entry to HMS Victory and HMS Warrior, for up to a year. The initiative includes closer collaboration on marketing and operations and a brand refresh for Portsmouth Historic Dockyard as well. 
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