A new “Leading Museums Group” has been created to implement the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council’s National Action Plan for Museums.
The group, which will be led by Tom Schuller, who headed the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning last year, met for the first time last month. Its remit is to develop a plan to put into operation Leading Museums, the MLA’s action plan that was published in July last year.
Other members of the group are Dea Birkett, director of Kids in Museums, Jonathan Drori, former director of Culture Online, Sheila Healy, a former chief executive of Shropshire Council, John Orna-Ornstein, head of London and national programmes at the British Museum, Hedley Swain, director of programme delivery at the MLA, and Vanessa Trevelyan, head of Norfolk Museums.
Trevelyan said the MLA wanted a fresh perspective on its Action Plan. She added that she hoped the group would look at what the “next big thing” for the sector would be.
Roy Clare, the chief executive of the MLA, said he welcomed the “external challenge” the group would bring.
A spokesman for the MLA said that the group would be an arms-length body. The group will meet quarterly and report within the next 12 months.
An advocacy strategy for regional museums in England is also being developed under the leadership of Alec Coles, the director of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.
According to the MLA spokesman the campaign will “promote the benefit of investment in regional museums regardless of who’s in government”. He said the case needed to be made for why regional museums should get national government funding. “They contribute to tourism, the learning agenda and partnership work at a national level which is why they deserve continued support.”
But Coles will only lead the campaign until March when he leaves the UK to become the director of the Western Australian Museum in Perth.