Adapt or die
Funding cuts are pushing some local authority museums to crisis point, yet many are finding innovative ways to weather the financial storm. Geraldine Kendall finds out more
For several years now, there have been warnings of an impending crisis among local authority museums. As austerity continues to sweep across the UK, councils have seen their spending power fall an unprecedented 40% since 2010.
So it’s not surprising that culture – still seen as a luxury by many politicians – is often one of the first targets when councillors decide where to wield the axe.
At first, there was much talk of “backroom efficiencies”. But in recent years this hackneyed phrase has fallen by the wayside: museums, particularly those smaller services that have less capacity to absorb funding reductions or attract philanthropy, are running out of room for manoeuvre.
It may only be March, but this year alone has seen the announcement that two successful and highly popular local authority museums, Bromley Museum in south-east London and Snibston Discovery Museum in the ex-coalmining town of Coalville in Leicestershire, could shortly close down.
At both institutions, the same pattern has played out: a slow withdrawal of political commitment, with each council dropping a promising Heritage Lottery Fund bid mid-way through, along with a push from councillors to raise short-term capital by selling off public property (in Bromley’s case, the listed 13th-century Orpington Priory building) to private interests.
These cases may grab the headlines, but the Museums Association’s (MA) recent cuts survey has shown that other museums are deteriorating in a more gradual, less eye-catching way.
Cumulative cuts have led to hollowed-out services, tipping some into a vicious circle where they have lost so much income and staff capacity that they can no longer adequately demonstrate their relevance, thus putting them at risk of further cuts.
“The collections will slowly rot because there will be no one left who cares,” wrote one survey respondent from a local authority service in Scotland.
Although each nation has different strategies and priorities for culture, these problems are UK-wide, with council-funded museums at risk from the Scottish Highlands to Cornwall.
The Welsh government is currently running a survey on the impact of spending cuts on the nation’s local authority museums, but it is anticipated that the review will show what many have already reported: that disadvantaged areas are bearing the brunt of the reduction in services.
The MA’s policy officer Alistair Brown agrees. “While all museums are affected, it is often museums in more economically deprived areas that suffer the most.”
So as the scale of staff cuts and closures escalates, is it safe to say that the afore-mentioned crisis has finally arrived? The overall picture is more complex than that, says John Orna-Ornstein, the head of museums at Arts Council England (ACE).
The arts council has just announced who will benefit from the first round of its £30m Museum Resilience Fund, which is aimed at helping smaller museums survive the cuts.
“Local authority funding is going in one direction and there’s a huge challenge there,” says Orna-Ornstein. “But what is interesting is that, while there is a clear downward trend, last year’s figures [for local authority spending on museums in England] were slightly above the previous year’s.”
According to ACE’s research, local government museum spend fell from £220m in 2009-10 to £185m in 2012-13 – but then, unexpectedly, rose to £195m in 2013-14.
“We haven’t picked apart whether that rise is all revenue, or if some of it is capital,” says Orna-Ornstein. “But we believe it could be down to the fact that some local authorities are finding it easier to invest in capital rather than commit to long-term revenue.”
If this is true, it would mean that, while some councils have gone down the predict-able route of budget-cutting, others have been taking a more strategic approach and are investing capital sums upfront to ensure long-term running costs can be reduced.
“It varies enormously from one local authority to another,” Orna-Ornstein says. “All local authorities are having to make reductions, but it’s about how they do that. There are local authorities making decisions just to slash budgets, and others making cuts in a more considered way, working in partnership with the arts council.”
One local authority that has taken a long-term view is North Hertfordshire District Council, which will open a new museum, North Herts Museum, in the market town of Hitchin this autumn. The new facility replaces two museums in the area that have now closed: Hitchin Museum and Letchworth Museum.
Although the development of the new museum predates the economic crash, it is a good example of a council investing capital strategically to reduce costs and ensure resilience.
“People really valued the local museums, but they were kind of past their sell-by date,” says Ros Allwood, the council’s cultural services manager. “Both lacked disability access and Hitchin Museum didn’t even have a public loo.”
Although the public outcry against the closure of the museums at the time was “tremendous”, the council believes that the new development will be a more sustainable community hub, with a cafe, study centre, workshops and larger exhibition spaces that will allow more artefacts to go on display.
“You have to be pragmatic,” Allwood says. “Everybody really felt we were going to be able to give a better service in a better environment. The council will make a saving from not having to maintain both old buildings. We are in the middle of a restructure but they have kept the curatorial team. We are aware of how fortunate we are. The council have been very supportive.”
The new museum will be focused on financial sustainability from day one, with plans to rent out spaces for events, and work in partnership with other museums to share resources. It has also taken an active approach to funding applications.
“Any funding stream – we’ll have a go,” Allwood says. “If you don’t apply you’re not going to get anything.”
Across the local government sector, there is a growing emphasis on income generation, entrepreneurialism and demonstrating social and economic impact – all seen as vital for justifying public funding to politicians and diversifying revenue in the face of inevitable cuts.
The MA cuts survey showed that some museums have struggled to keep pace with the rate of these changes, but many are proving to be innovative operators in the brave new funding landscape.
“We’ve positioned ourselves by aligning very closely with the economic agenda of the council,” says Lynn Dunning, the arts, museums and heritage manager of Barnsley Museums in Yorkshire, where Barnsley Council has had £60m cut from its budget since 2010.
The museum service has made an active effort to get the public and local businesses on side to advocate for its central role in Barnsley, which is officially classed as a “deprived” town.
“We’ve gone from people thinking the museum was nice to have to realising that it is completely vital to the town’s economy, wellbeing and quality of life,” Dunning says. “We are now at the centre of the town’s community strategy.”
Barnsley Museums has also been restructured to give it a more commercial focus. The service has worked with business partners to develop entrepreneurial knowledge, as well as utilising its own facilities to produce and sell commercial products.
“Worsbrough Mill is a working flour mill that produces organic flour, which we sell commercially to artisan bakers,” Dunning says. “We’ve also got skills that people want to buy into. Our learning service is being set up as a trading model – it will operate as its own business unit selling our services, like learning plans and activities, to other local organisations. The aim is for it to be self-financing after year one.”
This focus on generating income is unlikely to be what many curators got into museum work for. But as Dunning points out, such measures have enabled Barnsley to retain its core focus of learning, collections and engaging with disadvantaged communities.
A fundamental element of Barnsley’s success is having the support and confidence of the council, says Dunning, which has granted the service more freedom to operate externally.
Without that buy-in from councillors, it can be difficult to develop commercially within the confines of a local authority – it’s one of the key reasons behind museums moving to trust status, and is why some council-run museums are still thriving while others are falling into the abyss.
Although smaller services may not have the same facilities at their disposal as Barnsley, they have also been finding inventive ways to build sustainability. For the past year the MA has been running a programme, called Transformers, aimed at
giving museum professionals a safe space to try out experimental ideas for their museums.
As part of the programme, Abergavenny Museum in Wales, which is located in a ruined Norman castle, has been testing out new models of venue hire, where some community groups, charities and companies can offer resources instead of payment.
“We are considering ways of income generation, and the castle grounds are an obvious asset,” says Rachael Rogers, the museum’s curator. “But there is a tension in that we have been working with some community groups for years and it is difficult to suddenly say ‘we want to charge’.”
Instead, Abergavenny has developed a system in which it can swap skills and resources with external partners; in one case, a jazz festival took place in the grounds and, in exchange, the organisers loaned the museum a marquee on three occasions, which saved money for the local authority.
The museum is now looking at setting up a database to keep a record of all the goods and services that are available. “The trick is not making it seem too formal but still keeping track of it, because you need to be able to account for it,” Rogers says.
“We are at the beginning of a journey. We have to face budget cuts but we are being allowed to develop new ideas and think how we can make ourselves more sustainable.”
Rogers believes that, while it isn’t an easy situation, funding cuts represent an opportunity for museums to work “smarter and more collaboratively” together.
“We’ve had a long run of councils doing things for people and being quite patriarchal. We have the chance to develop a healthier, more egalitarian relationship, where councils can be an enabler and facilitator rather than the provider of everything.”
Other services have also taken a positive approach. “Despite the financial challenges facing many local authority museums, the opportunities at this time of great change are undoubtedly huge too,” says Steve Miller, the head of Norfolk Museums Service.
The organisation, which is facing a £914,000 cut to its council funding by 2017, has set up an independent charity, the Norfolk Development Foundation Trust, to give it more freedom to explore income streams without moving to full trust status.
Norfolk has also been developing commercial projects, including a Transformers-funded scheme to develop merchandising opportunities from the museum’s collection (see above), which Miller says could have a “catalytic effect” on the whole organisation.
Miller hopes Norfolk’s approach will set an example to other local authority leaders “to remove the shackles of bureaucracy and to let museums develop innovative new partnerships and new ways of working”.
Councils can be driven by short-term thinking and undoubtedly there will be more casualties among local authority museums before the current financial storm is over. But as some organisations are showing, there may yet be ways of turning a crisis into an opportunity.
Norfolk Museums Service has embarked on a Transformers project to explore ways of “sensitively monetising” its textile collections by aligning curatorial skills with business acumen.
“We’ve already dipped our toe in the water with licensing projects and textile patterns – the artist goes in and makes what they want, sells it and a percentage comes back to us,” says project leader Ruth Battersby Tooke, who is the curator of costume and textiles at Norfolk Museums Service. “But I was interested in retaining more control as a curator.”
For the project, Battersby Tooke has commissioned a replica of a 1920s baby’s bib from the collection that she hopes will appeal to the growing public appetite for “time-travel shopping” – handmade, vintage-looking products that are not sold in mainstream shops. The bib will be branded to link it back to the museum’s collection, giving it a sense of prestige.
Rather than getting the product made by a clothes manufacturer, Battersby Tooke hopes to licence the prototype design to local craftspeople, who will make and sell the product to nearby boutiques. “It is almost like a cottage industry,” says Battersby Tooke. “It’s a way of keeping the money within the local economy.”
Battersby Tooke has established a partnership with Norwich University of the Arts, whose fashion students have helped Battersby Tooke select and develop the prototype.
“It’s a really important partnership. Universities are slightly further down the line in commercialising their products and services. It’s a source of inspiration as to how we can get a more robust income stream from the collections themselves.”
A key benefit of the project is that it will create business training opportunities for curators, so they are not “dancing to someone else’s tune” when it comes to developing new ideas.
“This is not something I ever imagined doing,” says Battersby Tooke. “But the idea of a curator is changing.”
Transformers is supported by Arts Council England; Cymal: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales; and Museums Galleries Scotland
So it’s not surprising that culture – still seen as a luxury by many politicians – is often one of the first targets when councillors decide where to wield the axe.
At first, there was much talk of “backroom efficiencies”. But in recent years this hackneyed phrase has fallen by the wayside: museums, particularly those smaller services that have less capacity to absorb funding reductions or attract philanthropy, are running out of room for manoeuvre.
It may only be March, but this year alone has seen the announcement that two successful and highly popular local authority museums, Bromley Museum in south-east London and Snibston Discovery Museum in the ex-coalmining town of Coalville in Leicestershire, could shortly close down.
At both institutions, the same pattern has played out: a slow withdrawal of political commitment, with each council dropping a promising Heritage Lottery Fund bid mid-way through, along with a push from councillors to raise short-term capital by selling off public property (in Bromley’s case, the listed 13th-century Orpington Priory building) to private interests.
These cases may grab the headlines, but the Museums Association’s (MA) recent cuts survey has shown that other museums are deteriorating in a more gradual, less eye-catching way.
Cumulative cuts have led to hollowed-out services, tipping some into a vicious circle where they have lost so much income and staff capacity that they can no longer adequately demonstrate their relevance, thus putting them at risk of further cuts.
“The collections will slowly rot because there will be no one left who cares,” wrote one survey respondent from a local authority service in Scotland.
Although each nation has different strategies and priorities for culture, these problems are UK-wide, with council-funded museums at risk from the Scottish Highlands to Cornwall.
The Welsh government is currently running a survey on the impact of spending cuts on the nation’s local authority museums, but it is anticipated that the review will show what many have already reported: that disadvantaged areas are bearing the brunt of the reduction in services.
The MA’s policy officer Alistair Brown agrees. “While all museums are affected, it is often museums in more economically deprived areas that suffer the most.”
So as the scale of staff cuts and closures escalates, is it safe to say that the afore-mentioned crisis has finally arrived? The overall picture is more complex than that, says John Orna-Ornstein, the head of museums at Arts Council England (ACE).
The arts council has just announced who will benefit from the first round of its £30m Museum Resilience Fund, which is aimed at helping smaller museums survive the cuts.
“Local authority funding is going in one direction and there’s a huge challenge there,” says Orna-Ornstein. “But what is interesting is that, while there is a clear downward trend, last year’s figures [for local authority spending on museums in England] were slightly above the previous year’s.”
According to ACE’s research, local government museum spend fell from £220m in 2009-10 to £185m in 2012-13 – but then, unexpectedly, rose to £195m in 2013-14.
“We haven’t picked apart whether that rise is all revenue, or if some of it is capital,” says Orna-Ornstein. “But we believe it could be down to the fact that some local authorities are finding it easier to invest in capital rather than commit to long-term revenue.”
If this is true, it would mean that, while some councils have gone down the predict-able route of budget-cutting, others have been taking a more strategic approach and are investing capital sums upfront to ensure long-term running costs can be reduced.
“It varies enormously from one local authority to another,” Orna-Ornstein says. “All local authorities are having to make reductions, but it’s about how they do that. There are local authorities making decisions just to slash budgets, and others making cuts in a more considered way, working in partnership with the arts council.”
One local authority that has taken a long-term view is North Hertfordshire District Council, which will open a new museum, North Herts Museum, in the market town of Hitchin this autumn. The new facility replaces two museums in the area that have now closed: Hitchin Museum and Letchworth Museum.
Although the development of the new museum predates the economic crash, it is a good example of a council investing capital strategically to reduce costs and ensure resilience.
“People really valued the local museums, but they were kind of past their sell-by date,” says Ros Allwood, the council’s cultural services manager. “Both lacked disability access and Hitchin Museum didn’t even have a public loo.”
Although the public outcry against the closure of the museums at the time was “tremendous”, the council believes that the new development will be a more sustainable community hub, with a cafe, study centre, workshops and larger exhibition spaces that will allow more artefacts to go on display.
“You have to be pragmatic,” Allwood says. “Everybody really felt we were going to be able to give a better service in a better environment. The council will make a saving from not having to maintain both old buildings. We are in the middle of a restructure but they have kept the curatorial team. We are aware of how fortunate we are. The council have been very supportive.”
The new museum will be focused on financial sustainability from day one, with plans to rent out spaces for events, and work in partnership with other museums to share resources. It has also taken an active approach to funding applications.
“Any funding stream – we’ll have a go,” Allwood says. “If you don’t apply you’re not going to get anything.”
Across the local government sector, there is a growing emphasis on income generation, entrepreneurialism and demonstrating social and economic impact – all seen as vital for justifying public funding to politicians and diversifying revenue in the face of inevitable cuts.
The MA cuts survey showed that some museums have struggled to keep pace with the rate of these changes, but many are proving to be innovative operators in the brave new funding landscape.
“We’ve positioned ourselves by aligning very closely with the economic agenda of the council,” says Lynn Dunning, the arts, museums and heritage manager of Barnsley Museums in Yorkshire, where Barnsley Council has had £60m cut from its budget since 2010.
The museum service has made an active effort to get the public and local businesses on side to advocate for its central role in Barnsley, which is officially classed as a “deprived” town.
“We’ve gone from people thinking the museum was nice to have to realising that it is completely vital to the town’s economy, wellbeing and quality of life,” Dunning says. “We are now at the centre of the town’s community strategy.”
Barnsley Museums has also been restructured to give it a more commercial focus. The service has worked with business partners to develop entrepreneurial knowledge, as well as utilising its own facilities to produce and sell commercial products.
“Worsbrough Mill is a working flour mill that produces organic flour, which we sell commercially to artisan bakers,” Dunning says. “We’ve also got skills that people want to buy into. Our learning service is being set up as a trading model – it will operate as its own business unit selling our services, like learning plans and activities, to other local organisations. The aim is for it to be self-financing after year one.”
This focus on generating income is unlikely to be what many curators got into museum work for. But as Dunning points out, such measures have enabled Barnsley to retain its core focus of learning, collections and engaging with disadvantaged communities.
A fundamental element of Barnsley’s success is having the support and confidence of the council, says Dunning, which has granted the service more freedom to operate externally.
Without that buy-in from councillors, it can be difficult to develop commercially within the confines of a local authority – it’s one of the key reasons behind museums moving to trust status, and is why some council-run museums are still thriving while others are falling into the abyss.
Although smaller services may not have the same facilities at their disposal as Barnsley, they have also been finding inventive ways to build sustainability. For the past year the MA has been running a programme, called Transformers, aimed at
giving museum professionals a safe space to try out experimental ideas for their museums.
As part of the programme, Abergavenny Museum in Wales, which is located in a ruined Norman castle, has been testing out new models of venue hire, where some community groups, charities and companies can offer resources instead of payment.
“We are considering ways of income generation, and the castle grounds are an obvious asset,” says Rachael Rogers, the museum’s curator. “But there is a tension in that we have been working with some community groups for years and it is difficult to suddenly say ‘we want to charge’.”
Instead, Abergavenny has developed a system in which it can swap skills and resources with external partners; in one case, a jazz festival took place in the grounds and, in exchange, the organisers loaned the museum a marquee on three occasions, which saved money for the local authority.
The museum is now looking at setting up a database to keep a record of all the goods and services that are available. “The trick is not making it seem too formal but still keeping track of it, because you need to be able to account for it,” Rogers says.
“We are at the beginning of a journey. We have to face budget cuts but we are being allowed to develop new ideas and think how we can make ourselves more sustainable.”
Rogers believes that, while it isn’t an easy situation, funding cuts represent an opportunity for museums to work “smarter and more collaboratively” together.
“We’ve had a long run of councils doing things for people and being quite patriarchal. We have the chance to develop a healthier, more egalitarian relationship, where councils can be an enabler and facilitator rather than the provider of everything.”
Other services have also taken a positive approach. “Despite the financial challenges facing many local authority museums, the opportunities at this time of great change are undoubtedly huge too,” says Steve Miller, the head of Norfolk Museums Service.
The organisation, which is facing a £914,000 cut to its council funding by 2017, has set up an independent charity, the Norfolk Development Foundation Trust, to give it more freedom to explore income streams without moving to full trust status.
Norfolk has also been developing commercial projects, including a Transformers-funded scheme to develop merchandising opportunities from the museum’s collection (see above), which Miller says could have a “catalytic effect” on the whole organisation.
Miller hopes Norfolk’s approach will set an example to other local authority leaders “to remove the shackles of bureaucracy and to let museums develop innovative new partnerships and new ways of working”.
Councils can be driven by short-term thinking and undoubtedly there will be more casualties among local authority museums before the current financial storm is over. But as some organisations are showing, there may yet be ways of turning a crisis into an opportunity.
Material gain
Norfolk Museums Service has embarked on a Transformers project to explore ways of “sensitively monetising” its textile collections by aligning curatorial skills with business acumen.
“We’ve already dipped our toe in the water with licensing projects and textile patterns – the artist goes in and makes what they want, sells it and a percentage comes back to us,” says project leader Ruth Battersby Tooke, who is the curator of costume and textiles at Norfolk Museums Service. “But I was interested in retaining more control as a curator.”
For the project, Battersby Tooke has commissioned a replica of a 1920s baby’s bib from the collection that she hopes will appeal to the growing public appetite for “time-travel shopping” – handmade, vintage-looking products that are not sold in mainstream shops. The bib will be branded to link it back to the museum’s collection, giving it a sense of prestige.
Rather than getting the product made by a clothes manufacturer, Battersby Tooke hopes to licence the prototype design to local craftspeople, who will make and sell the product to nearby boutiques. “It is almost like a cottage industry,” says Battersby Tooke. “It’s a way of keeping the money within the local economy.”
Battersby Tooke has established a partnership with Norwich University of the Arts, whose fashion students have helped Battersby Tooke select and develop the prototype.
“It’s a really important partnership. Universities are slightly further down the line in commercialising their products and services. It’s a source of inspiration as to how we can get a more robust income stream from the collections themselves.”
A key benefit of the project is that it will create business training opportunities for curators, so they are not “dancing to someone else’s tune” when it comes to developing new ideas.
“This is not something I ever imagined doing,” says Battersby Tooke. “But the idea of a curator is changing.”
Transformers is supported by Arts Council England; Cymal: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales; and Museums Galleries Scotland