Team work

Museums have been initiating partnerships among themselves for decades. It largely began as sharing collections through loan schemes, but has increasingly led to sharing expertise and knowledge.

Partnerships between national and regi-onal museums are common, with some institutions forming a number of relationships. The National Museum Directors' Conference (NMDC) reported last month on its five-month review of its members' partnerships with regional museums.

It surveyed members to understand whether there is a coherent strategy and what, if any, barriers there are to further work (see box below). The survey also set out to find the truths behind the anecdotal evidence and to challenge misconceptions.

"There's sometimes a perception that the nationals have all the resources and should put more into partnership work," says an NMDC spokeswoman.

"But although national museums already undertake a huge amount of work with regional partners, they do not receive any ringfenced money apart from project-specific funding such as Strategic Commissioning [which supports museum education activities]."

Partly in response to the NMDC's recent winding up of its UK Affairs Committee, which promoted regional partnerships, another joint venture has been born. David Fleming, the director of National Museums Liverpool, created the Core Cities Museums Group early this year.

Its aim is to bring the big regional city museum services together to "counter metrocentricity", says Fleming, its chairman, "and to fight for investment in the sector at a regional level".

It is a loose alliance, intended to kick into action when needed. The eight cities (Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield) will discuss at director level burning issues such as the Renaissance Review and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's Action Plan for museums, which were both published in July.

Renaissance in the Regions, which was launched in 2003, was a major catalyst for partnership working. Emma Anderson, Renaissance North West manager, says: "Partnership working often comes out of either crisis or opportunity."

Perhaps Renaissance was a bit of both. With a much-needed cash injection into declining regional museums, it was used, more successfully in some areas than others, as a lever for attracting money into regions in need of cultural regeneration.

The Manchester Museums' Consortium came out of alliances that had been formed through the Renaissance programme and has been successful in attracting additional funds.

At first it mirrored Renaissance's focus on education projects, but now the emphasis is on visitors and putting Manchester on the map as a national and international tourist destination.

The consortium includes the Imperial War Museum North (IWMN), the Lowry, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the People's History Museum and the Whitworth Art Gallery. The Cornerhouse and Urbis also feature as exhibiting venues.

"Audiences don't know if a museum is a local authority- or government-funded service and they don't care," says Jim Forrester, the director of the IWMN. "They want to know if it is a good use of time and has it got good learning rewards."

Mutual benefits

Regional Development Agency (RDA) funding (£1.5m over three years split across the North West) has bolstered Renaissance in the Regions money and helped with collective marketing to unify the cultural and tourism offer.

The consortium, says Forrester, is designed to stand alongside the North West hub. "The RDA has been willing to fund the consortium because it saw a conversation happening between us."

The consortium brings in-house benefits, says Anderson, with learning and audience development staff more informed about regional activities. Data and programme information is shared between venues and external relationships have been built with audience development agency Arts About Manchester and tourism body Visit Manchester.

Though the focus is currently on tourism and audience development, the precarious economic climate could lead to new priorities. "We are looking at a perfect storm of funding cuts in 2011," says Anderson, "which means we might look at different business models."

She says the consortium could tackle what services museums can offer around issues affecting the city's population, such as unemployment. This could mean developing workforce opportunities and volunteer schemes.

Challenges

Workforce development is central to the East of Scotland Museums Partnership (ESMP), which was formed after the Scottish Executive launched the Regional Development Challenge Fund in 2003, a £3m programme to support the creation of regional museum partnerships.

The ESMP, which initially secured more than £1m in regional development funding, consists of 40 organisations who are responsible for 75 museums and galleries.

One of the ESMP's schemes is the Regional Museums Training and Development Project, which received £300,000 over three years from the Scottish Museums Council (now Museums Galleries Scotland) and the Scottish Executive (now the Scottish Government). The Scottish Borders Council Museums and Galleries Service was the lead partner.

The Regional Museums Training and Development Project included workshops in collections care and customer service and there were behind-the-scenes visits to partner organisations.

There was also training at partner museums, which helped to improve the regional profile of individuals and their museums, says Fiona Colton, the senior curator at the Scottish Borders Council Museums and Galleries Service.

The focus of the project was on those coming into the sector who needed support to get further experience, says Colton. "There are lots of skills they can learn from peers and colleagues that don't have to cost large amounts of money." She says a strong part of the legacy was building professional networks with colleagues from across a vast region.

For Forrester at IWMN, partnerships should "deliver surprise, accelerate change and move us out of our comfort zones". But moving into uncharted territory can often be a barrier to relationship building.

Anderson in the North West recalls that over the course of its development, the Manchester Museums' Consortium moved from guardedness to a confidence "to challenge ourselves". A degree of trust, particularly among the learning staff, made it work, she says.

There is also the matter of time. "It is very hard for a sector with its nose pressed against the coal face to put in time to do work outside [of its core responsibilities]," says Anderson.

Raising profiles

But museums continue to embrace alliances, whatever the constraints. A museums service with an eye for a cultural relationship is Tyne & Wear Museums, which this year partnered with the region's archives to become Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM).

The Great North Museum: Hancock, which opened in May, involves Newcastle University, TWAM, Newcastle City Council, the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Natural History Society of Northumbria, which owns the Hancock building and the majority of the natural history collections.

With the TWAM's strong focus on social inclusion, the two societies concerned with collection stewardship, and the university's research angle - the partnership has learned to square its different priorities.

Alec Coles, the director of TWAM, says that everyone gets a fair chance to air views. The partnership, he says, has raised the profile of the natural sciences and world culture collections and has enabled public access to the societies and university specialist libraries.

Coles admits that TWAM has its fingers in many pies. As well as local partnerships it has long-standing relationships with almost every main London-based national museum. He says the big bonus is the sharing of expertise, audiences and strategies.

"The harder we work, the luckier we get."