Bristol City Council is considering moving its museums service to trust status. A full council meeting last month endorsed a report by its museums and archives select committee, which laid out a series of alternative governance options for the service, including community ownership, privatisation, trust and sub-regional or public/private partnership.
The report stated: "The existing buildings, collections, staff and commercial activities could all be within the scope of any possible plan to externalise the service."
Julie Finch, who has just been appointed as Bristol City Council's head of museums and archives, said: "It is fair to say that a move to trust status has gained a lot of support and interest from the council, but there is a lot of work to do. The key thing is the sustainability of the museum and archive services.
"There are advantages and disadvantages in a move to trust status, and there are also options to explore other routes. This is a period of change, with cuts to public funding, and we have to be clear about how we can sustain the service."
The report also recommended that the service reduce fixed costs to about 70 per cent of annual expenditure from 2011, compared with 87 per cent now.
Paul Barnett, Bristol City Council's former interim director of museums, galleries and archives, said that this did not imply a shift away from staff, but a reprioritising of activities. He added that the council would set up a steering group in January, to begin implementing the report's recommendations.
