Regional help for museums will be cut back under Arts Council England (ACE). Under proposals unveiled last month to staff at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the MLA’s area directors and regional managers will be replaced by two relationship officers per region covering museums and libraries when ACE takes over the MLA’s functions this year.
ACE will create 53 posts to enable it to take over the MLA’s museum and library functions. Museums will, in effect, be treated as another art form with a structure similar to dance and literature.
It is proposed that the most senior museum position will be a London-based director of museums and Renaissance. There will be a Birmingham-based head of standards with responsibility for Accreditation, Designation and the MLA’s acquisitions, exports and licensing unit.
If the proposals go through, the changeover will happen on 1 October. MLA staff are said to be frustrated with how long it has taken for the proposed structure to be announced, and some are unhappy that ACE is looking to align museums with its own structures, rather than replicate those of the MLA.
One source said: “Whereas previously there were regional teams for, say, the whole of the north, with backup from central office, the relationship officers will not have that backup. The knowledge is not going to be there at senior level for museums.”
Mark Taylor, director of the Museums Association, said: “It seems ACE is less willing than the MLA to engage with bigger local authority agendas and key decision-makers at local authority level.
“However, it’s good that there will be many posts devoted to museums in the new system, and that specialist expertise will be maintained.”
An ACE spokeswoman said: “ACE and the MLA have shared with staff the arts council’s proposed staffing structure for the integration of museum and library roles into the organisation.”
An MLA spokesman said: “The MLA and ACE have agreed a process that can enable the transfer of some MLA staff to ACE. The MLA is conducting an intensive consultation with its staff about this process, and the implications for affected individuals, and a more detailed announcement will be made in due course.”
