Katie Childs opened the July UKRG event “Things you never knew you never knew” giving us an overview
of the changes and reviews which are currently happening in the British public museums
and galleries sector.
Since April there have been
many changes in Parliament and the entire museum sector was reviewed in terms
of how museums work together, regional and local provisions.
In her talk Katie focused
mainly on the new Culture White Paper which was
published in March, 51 years after the first version.
The Culture White Paper has
four main targets:
–
Make culture accessible by
everybody no matter people's backgrounds or education.
–
Make communities across the country
benefit of culture through partnerships between national and local
institutions.
–
Use culture to create
international collaborations and to promote UK global reputation.
–
Increase investments and
incentives in the cultural sector through government diversified funds.
In the UK cultural sector
museums and art galleries play a substantial role.
In the past 10 years the number
of visitors has hugely increased and museums have become extremely popular.
People recognise them as important and trustworthy institutions and they enjoy
spending time there.
It has been seen that museums
create prosperity for communities and territory in addition to increase
tourism.
Katie highlighted the
importance for national museums and art galleries to share their skills and
expertise working in partnership with local museums. Partnerships should be
transparent, flexible, mutually beneficial, frequent and numerous. Partnerships
could improve areas such as collection management, loans, storage, training
sessions.
In addition Katie mentioned the
following big changes that have happened since March 2016:
- Including museums and
libraries in the investment portfolio for the first time.
- Lengthening national
portfolio funding agreements for three to four years.
- Opening up grants for arts
programmes to museums and libraries.
1. Finance:
- Significant and rapid
reduction in funding from central government.
- Will be replaced by local
business rates revenue retention by 2020.
- Restriction on Council Tax
rises.
- Growing statutory service
costs.
- Museums are not statutory
services.
2. Devolution:
- Devolution of spending
decisions from central government to city and town halls.
- Secondary devolution.
- Combined authorities and
elected Mayors.
- City deals.
3. Local enterprise
partnership:
- Local economic planning.
- Replace regional development
agencies.
- Limited museum representation.
- Can bring benefit for culture.
4. Place making:
- DCMS policy.
- Major civic institutions.
- Supporting peaceful and
prosperous communities.
- Museums make a place attractive
to live in, work in and visit.
Finally Katie told us it is too
early for DCMS to know the consequences that Brexit will have on the museums
sector. In the meantime she offered some good advice to
avoid panic.
After the sad episodes of
exclusion and racism happened in England straight after the referendum, museums
want to reassure people they are safe and welcoming places of inclusion.
We know museums have a great impact
on society but it has been very nice of Katie to remind us that if the
government and people invest on museums it is thanks to our actions and
expertise.
For further information, Katie
can be contacted at katiechilds@nationalmuseums.org.uk
By Greta Casacci, Project Collections Registrar, National Galleries of Scotland
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