Bolton Council’s plans to sell off some of the works in its museums and art gallery collections to raise funds for a new storage space have fuelled the debate about the ethics of disposal.
“The council’s executive has decided to allow officers to start the process to identify items from the museums collection to be sold,” said a council spokesman.
“It is proposed that this should not include any items from current exhibitions, any items from our core collections such as Egyptology, or any items that document Bolton’s history.
“We will not be selling any items that have been donated to the council, or bought using grants and other external funding.”
The revenue raised will be used to facilitate the transfer of museum objects in storage at the Bolton Enterprise Centre to another location.
Maurice Davies, Museums Association (MA) head of policy and communication, said: “The MA ethics committee will agree to a proposed sale only if it meets all the requirements of the code of ethics.
“The committee assesses proposals extremely closely and aims to have a constructive dialogue with museums proposing sales. The committee hasn’t yet considered Bolton’s proposal, but is ready to offer advice.”
The move has reignited the debate on the disposal of works in local authority collections. As Museums Journal went to press, 81% of participants who voted in an MA poll said that they did not trust local authorities to safeguard their collections.
But Davies said: “It is scaremongering to suggest that the UK’s collections are vulnerable. Since the MA changed its code of ethics [in 2007], we have approved only two cases of financially motivated sales of collections [at the Watts Gallery in Surrey and the Royal Cornwall Museum].”
John Roles, head of museums and galleries at Leeds City Council, said: “Sales to fill short-term budget deficits are the first step towards closure of the site or service and do not assist with solving the long-term sustainability of services, which is the ultimate challenge.”