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Strikes at National Gallery to protest cuts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/09/national-gallery-da-vinci-strike/print

Sheffield Traditional Heritage Museum shuts: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-15173891

Wellingborough Council discusses future of museum: http://www.wellingborough.gov.uk/news/article/754/funding_of_towns_museum_to_be_discussed

Gloucester council approves sale of collections: http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Debate-sale-Gloucester-City-Council-s-art/story-13365290-detail/story.html

British Postal Museum Archive under threat due to privatisation plans: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/27/british-postal-museum-archive-under-threat

British Postal Museum Archive under threat due to privatisation plans: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/27/british-postal-museum-archive-under-threat

Canterbury Museum makes cuts: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/5674018/Extensive-cuts-at-Canterbury-Museum

Wellingborough Museum under threat as council debates whether or not to slash its funding: http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/will_museum_become_history_1_3083077

I was made redundant at the end of 2010 from my post of Curator and Scotland's oldest independant museum. The reason I was told was the fact that they 'the volunteer management' could not afford my salary, although they recieved £20K per annum from the local council to 'help' pay for the professional services of a Curator. I had even offered to take a reduction in earnings... But no, 'they' had decided. What worries me with all the cuts to museum spending and staff reductions is that museums are now being run by retired doctors, teachers and whoever pitches up to volunteer. I'm know that the museum I worked for had some very good 'free' volunteers, but also had those involved that had their own agendas and even bigger egos. Therefore, how can these ALL volunteer museums be accredited, as there is, in my case, no one at the museum who has been trained to do the job. E.g. Today (27/07/11) I passed my old museum and noticed it was shut. A notice on the door read "Closed due to staff shortages". Never happened on my watch. We really need to assess the museum sector, because if it is going to be run entirely by untrained and non-committed volunteers, they might as well just lock the door and throw away the key.

Anonymous - the MA is currently conducting a confidential survey into cuts across the UK (you can fill it in at www.museumsassociation.org/cuts) which will help us to campaign for the vital skills and knowledge that the sector needs. Please encourage everyone that you know in the sector to complete the survey, as the more information we have, the more effective our campaigning will be.

Across the board, cuts in museums seem to be hitting Curatorial staff the hardest. Why are people not campaigning more against this? How are museums supposed to operate when they don't have the specialist skills and knowledge on which to base their daily work?

You may be interested to know that there is now a facebook page dedicated to widening awareness of cuts to the sector called 'Save our Museums (UK)'. Professionals in the sector are very aware of the consequences of the cuts (thanks to the Museum's Journal) but it is our belief that the vast majority of people in the UK are not so well informed. Save ou Museums (UK) is an independent, non-affiliated page dedicated to sharing news stories from around the country.
Please visit the site and help us to reach more people by suggesting it to your friends.
Paul
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Our-Museums-UK/177319775647669

Dear Anonymous. The press office at Hampshire County Council was clearly having an off day when I first spoke to them. I have received the following update from them today, which contradicts some of the information I was given for the magazine story:

From 1 July, Hampshire County Council will hand over day-to-day front of house management of the Curtis Museum and Allen Gallery to the Hampshire Museums and Galleries Trust but will continue to care for the buildings and associated collections, provide exhibitions and learning opportunities at the venues, as well as undertake outreach work within surrounding communities. The Trust will be guided in their work by a newly formed advisory group made up of representatives from local community organisations and supported by local volunteers. The County Council will also continue to manage Bursledon Windmill and Rockbourne Roman Villa with the support of local volunteers whilst it works towards increasing community involvement in the day-to-day operation of the sites in the future. The Museums Service is currently reducing the size of its workforce by the equivalent of 26 full-time posts in a strategic response to changes in Renaissance funding and reductions in local authority budgets. It is doing this in a way which seeks to maintain many of the beneficial outcomes of Renaissance and to enlist the support and involvement of local communities in so doing.

Interesting! People I've spoken to who have seen/mentioned the article have been under the impression it was incorrect.

Perhaps HCC's press office would care to comment and update the staff involved?

Dear Anonymous. Assuming you are writing about the news story in this month's Museums Journal which referred to cuts to Hampshire County Council's museum service, as the author of the piece I can assure you that this story was thoroughly checked with the council's press office. However, if you have evidence of any inaccuracies in the piece then please feel free to post them here, or you can email the magazine's editor, Sharon Heal (sharon@museumsassociation.org). Best wishes, Patrick Steel.

How are cuts affecting museums? Not in the way the Museums Journal is reporting.

The report about some of Hampshire's museums and galleries contains errors. Please try harder MJ.

News from Warwickshire Council's Heritage and Cultural Services, which has been hit with a 30% cut to its budget by April 2014. This means cutting annual running costs by £413,000. As a result, some service areas will be cut, including the temporary exhibition programme at the Market Hall Museum in Warwick. Five posts will also be lost through redundancy between now and 2014. According to a statement, the service will be restructured to reduce management and administrative support teams and frontline teams. It is also reviewing what services and facilities it offers from the museums at Market Hall and St. John’s, instead "focusing on what makes Warwickshire special, and on participation, learning and activity spaces".

It is true to say that in some areas cuts are causing staff reductions. A sign of the times? Not always. In my case I was made redundant as curator from an independant museum in Moray (can't give you the name as I have a gaging order as post of the redundancy package). In their case (Finance Committee) they had to 'wave goodbye' to me after 7 years good and hard work because they coundn't continue to pay my salary. What they ommitted to add to the newsletter informing members of my disapearance was the Finance Committee had not bothered to do any fundraising for nearly three years. Therefore, sometimes, the current economic situation can be used as an excuse to get 'shot' of those who, for what ever reason, dond sing from the same sheet as the 'volunteer' non-museum professional staff. Beware...

We had a helpful meeting with people from the Arts Council yesterday and they seemed very aware of the benefits of properly run museum development. I think the Arts Council are taking their new responsibilities for museums very seriously and are working hard to get things right and listen to what people in museums think. In fact I think there's a good chance many aspects of central government support for museums will get better. (There will of course be less money, but that's not the Arts Council's fault...) Over the next few months we'll keep MA members up to date with developments - and do all we can to encourage the Arts Council to consult widely. There's one continuing area of concern, though: the current plan to close down hub central offices this summer seems premature and will lead to a loss of expertise and regional collaboration and networking.

The continued channelling of MDO funding through hubs during the transitional year 2011/2012 is to be welcomed - though a more prompt and more effectively communicated decision could have saved our colleagues the anguish of being served redundancy notices.

The decision gives time for the development of a properly worked out system for delivery and co-ordination of the network beyond March 2012. Let us make sure there is a level playing field for those organisations interested in participating and that their track record of engagement with the wider museum community is taken into account.

Maidstone Museum has lost 3 staff and is about to lose another 3 in a recent restructure, leaving 3 managers and 3 staff plus casuals to run a county-style museum, finish an extension project and bring back the entire collection from offsite storage.

Croydon Council has recommended "deleting" its art and heritage service, although it is still in talks with HLF about keeping the Museum of Croydon open to the public. Here is a link to the report: http://www.croydon.gov.uk/contents/documents/meetings/546596/2011/2011-01-24/cab20110124artsheritage.pdf

An update on the South Lanarkshire situation - it has been decided that two seasonal museums will be closed. This means that the whole council area will only have one museum site, in Hamilton, for the collection to be displayed. Low Parks Museum in Hamilton and the collections staff will continue in the meantime. There is a local campaign for Hunter House in East Kilbride to be given a reprieve for a year while the local community put together a proposal for it to be used as a community hub http://www.calderwood-ek.org.uk/petition.html.
The other seasonal museum earmarked for closure is John Hastie Museum in Strathaven.

Hi,

Museums Journal has received some more information about the South Somerset District Council and the Museum of South Somerset in Yeovil (see post below).

The council has confirmed the closure of building that currently houses the museum (and the Yeovil Tourist Information Centre).

In a statement, it says the museum service will continue to be run from the Community Heritage Access Centre, the district council’s heritage storage centre on the Lufton Trading Estate. This will only be open for group viewings and tours on request. The cataloguing, documenting and care of work will continue.

South Somerset District Council adds that it is also in discussion with Somerset County Council to explore how each council’s heritage services could work closer together.

Just announced, South Somerset District Council is to close its museum in Yeovil by March 2011. The building is to be used as office space and the collections returned to storage. This leaves the 6 members of staff (four full time equivalents) to await news of a staffing restructure.

This is the second local authority museum in Somerset/North Somerset to be pegged for closure this year.

On the issue of MDOs, there is some confusion. As I said in the December MJ, why the rush? With so much changing and yet to be sorted, we are pushing to change Renaissance when, it may want fixing, but it isn't so broke it needs doing this very minute. Why not take a few months to sort ourselves out with ACE and see how the land lies? This is what the MA is saying to MLA and ACE and today we are meeting the Federations to talk about these and other issues.

Looking down the list, I am saddened, but not surprised, by the bit about South Lanarkshire. Whilst I appreciate these are just suggestions, it reinforces the feeling I got several years ago when I did some freelance work there that Museum Service had little or no upper management support as their "leaders" didn't know what to do with them. They have one of only 14 top-rated Museums in Scotland, and they want to close it? Beggers belief!

As an MDO that has recently been amongst several in my region to be served redundancy notices I would like to know why the MLA aren't working fast enough to secure the network post March. With rumous that organisations are being asked to tender for the network contract, why aren't the MDOs being secured first? The deadlines for local authorities to secure contracts have come and gone and as such have left MDOs in a terrible limbo.
Will we continue?
If so, who will be supporting us?
What funds will we have for essential museum development and training?
How long until we find out?
All urgent questions that need to be answered immediately before essential posts are lost from the museum sector leaving countless hundereds of community museums without the support they need.

Of the works planned for sale, how many have been conserved with monies raised by public donation or HLF funding? If any, then are Bolton Council going to refund the money, every last penny, to the good people committed to funding PUBLIC art on behalf of the Council? And how much time and effort will be wasted performing this task?

Re: museums in scotland post below - oh dear! The powers that be really do need to think carefully about this whole budget business and not just look at numbers on a sheer, but the long term as well. I doubt very much public toilets bring in tourists to the area who spend money?! I hope they come to their senses!

The second largest council area in Scotland has suggested not just cutbacks or closing venues but axing its entire Museums service.

I imagine that they haven't really thought this through, further than looking at figures on a budget sheet, and interesting to note that this would save only slightly more than closing all the public toilets in the same area.

As reported here;

http://www.hamiltonadvertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/hamilton-news/2010/10/07/south-lanarkshire-council-unveil-290-cash-cutting-proposals-51525-27418003/

Sadly you're right, a lot of those who are devoted to their job and actually know what they are doing will be lost. The one good thing that may come out of all this is that departments/jobs that were simply created because there was a bit of spare cash at the time may now be thought through fully as to wether they are needed or not. I sincerely hope that projects such as renaisance continue and that cuts can be made where they will have as little impact as possible such as no longer hiring out external rooms for meetings at a cost of £70,000 a year! This is money I'm sure we could all put to better use on the ground running of museums.

I work in a well-respected and award winning local authority museum, whose work has been hailed as an excellent example of the successes of Renaissance funding. With the loss of Renaissance funding and a decrease in council funding we are looking at a reduction in staff from around 70 to 15 within the next year. Loss of services and expertise is seen as a 'regretable outcome' of the current economic situation.

I didn't think things could get much worse under Labour, but clearly I was wrong. Working for English Heritage I and most of my colleagues have been on a pay freeze for 3 years. We are now potentially being threatened with a pay cut and reduced opening hours as well as job losses. In order to deal with our 32% cuts we are apparently losing 8 directors which will save £3 million and our chief exec is moving offices in order to save £70,000 a year so they can use that room for meetings instead of hiring rooms externally. Looking at stats like this it seems that half the problem has come from funds being allocated incorrectly and not to areas where they are desperately needed - maintenance of buildings for example. The Labour government spent far too much in areas that were not needed, (banks cannot be entirely blamed) as a result we are all now suffering. Having worked in museums of various types for 10 years, the state things are in for everyone leaves me very sad.

It's nice to hear some good news. Porthmeor Studio Complex in St Ives – the workspace for artists such as Ben Nicholson and Francis Bacon – is to undergo restoration work thanks to £1.5m of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), English Heritage, ERDF/Convergence and European Fisheries Fund. The HLF award will help support education and outreach activities at the 200-year-old building.

Alton museum has been hit hard by the cuts, with the staff if not the premises going.

Is it true that The Town House Museum in Kings Lynn has already been axed?

I work for a small local authority museum in the north-west of england. The building is going to be sold off to raise funds leaving us with a very uncertain future. This will be the third time in as many years we have been reorganised or restructured.

I am going to be working with the ITV soon to discuss the effects the cuts are having on me. I have been approached by them as I am currently doing an MA in Museum Studies (part time) and work full time for a National Museum in London. I have been doing a lot of research into the effects on these areas, as I want to do the cause justice. But would really like to hear personal accounts. If anyone has anything they would like to say email me at ab450@le.ac.uk.

Abi

Efficiency savings have cost us one part-time learning post (a service cut). We have been asked to reduce storage costs by 65%. This was all pre-election. So whilst the CSR may make the position and degree of cuts clearer the efficiency/service cut climate was already here for many gov't funded organisations.

I work for a small local history museum and the future is looking grim - the building is to be sold off and future plans are uncertain!