Museums are increasingly considering operating at arms length from local authorities in the current economic climate.
At last month’s Museums Association annual conference in Manchester, Rita McLean, the director of Birmingham’s museums and galleries, said that trust status was a tempting option (see link below).
Already, in the West Midlands, two museums services, Worcester City and Worcestershire County Council, have taken the first steps to what may eventually become a trust.
Merging the city’s two museums with the county museum in spring this year was “part of the rehearsal before full Independence”, according to Iain Rutherford, the general manager of the Joint Museums Service.
He says the service will now consider taking on the initial expense that trust status brings, and devolution to a charitable trust will be considered within the next three years.
Added resilience
Rutherford says the joint working was instigated by the city council asking for 20% of its budget to be saved over two years. That resulted in two redundancies – one a manager and the other from visitor services.
But Rutherford says the joint working has made the service more resilient for the future. Though there has been a lot of interest from across the country in the model, he cautions that they won’t be able to judge success for another couple of years.
Bill Ferris, the chairman of the Association of Independent Museums, says some local authorities contemplating trust status have been to the AIM conference when governance has been debated. But he adds that there appears to be a reluctance to ask for direct advice.
However, Keith Merrin, director of Woodhorn, a trust of museums and archives in Northumberland, says institutions and local authorities within and outside the north east often ask him for general information and detailed advice on becoming a trust.
Fighting your corner
AIM has plans to formalise its advice by publishing a Dos and Don’ts list of moving to a trust on the organisation’s website. Ferris says local authorities involved in the process are often too inward looking and wrapped up in their own political and business concerns, seeing it more as a local issue and bent on getting the results they want.
Maggie Appleton, the chief executive of Luton Cultural Services Trust, agrees that it is important to ensure that there is a team within the trust that is fighting the museum’s corner. She says the council has its own needs and it will be representing its own interests.
Although there is a lot of talk about becoming trusts, there are few museum services that are actually taking the plunge at present. Ferris says the thing to do when considering it is to make sure you understand the risks of a trust.
He says a trust can create more opportunities but that museums need to remember that historic buildings are very expensive to run – a trust taking on buildings could soon find itself in difficulties.
“It’s not a one-size fits all,” says Ferris. “Learn the lessons and then do what suits you.” York museums became a trust in 2002 and entered into a 10-year funding agreement with the city council, with £1.2m a year (linked to inflation) coming from the local authority.
Janet Barnes, the chief executive of York Museums Trust, believes it is the only museum service, trust or not, to have that sort of stability.
Success for York
York is widely considered to be a success story, although the high numbers of tourists visiting the city may be a factor. Barnes believes that deciding to do small investment projects “that have a lot of perceived public impact” rather than big capital projects has been a key to its success.
Woodhorn has a five-year deal, which ends in March 2011, and negotiations couldn’t have come at a worse time. But, according to Merrin, instead of waiting for the council to say, “this is what we can give you”, the trust has delivered a realistic package that has been favourably received so far.
