Herbert Coutts is the former director of culture and leisure at the City of Edinburgh Council
YES: In my experience of local authorities, and in the case of small museums, it would be best to steer clear of a single museum trust.
It is better if a museum is part of a bigger trust - a cultural trust - and includes concert halls, theatres, and possibly libraries. In this type of management and operational trust, local authorities should continue to own the buildings and museum collections.
Museums would have the strength of other council areas around them. A cultural trust is one that I proposed in Edinburgh (discussions held up because of pending elections). The chair of such a board could speak with greater authority to the council.
Any such trust should be set up only with detailed discussion with the local authority concerning the revenue grant to be given to the trust. And a strong board and chair should argue that business-rate savings should come directly to the trust as a kind of dowry. With council budget cuts year after year the trust could attract private support.
Small borough museums may not have the option of a cultural trust but are able to partner other museums across local authority boundaries. The Scottish Executive is encouraging project partnerships across boundaries.
The obvious next step would be for some of Scotland's 32 unitary local authorities to cooperate as a trust across neighbouring councils. Rather than set up little trusts, each local authority with an under-funded museum service could be integrated into one larger trust.
Steve Garland is the head of museums at Bolton
NO: Trust status is an option for museums, but there is a danger if it is seen as the only option. With the wrong trustees, inadequate funding set-up and badly thought-through service-level agreements, trust status can fail to deliver. Museums must take a long-term strategic approach to funding and consider a suite of measures.
Regional government agendas advocate partnerships such as joint services and cross-boundary management, which offer significant opportunities for museums. Projects such as the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's strategic commissioning and many Renaissance projects show how effective this can be.
This may lead to governance changes in the future, as is happening with Ipswich and Colchester. Sharing collections, staff and new management structures will raise many issues, not least around local political attitudes and civic pride.
The Collections for the Future debate is already touching on these issues in relation to collections. Other budget solutions, such as the commercial exploitation of collections, also lend themselves to joint approaches. These activities can be lucrative, but are often too challenging for individual museums to take on effectively.
If local authority museums do not develop a more radical long-term strategy to partnership working that generates greater strengths and efficiencies, then they will continue to suffer death by a thousand cuts or greater pressure to sell collections as part of short-term, unsustainable budget solutions.
YES: In my experience of local authorities, and in the case of small museums, it would be best to steer clear of a single museum trust.
It is better if a museum is part of a bigger trust - a cultural trust - and includes concert halls, theatres, and possibly libraries. In this type of management and operational trust, local authorities should continue to own the buildings and museum collections.
Museums would have the strength of other council areas around them. A cultural trust is one that I proposed in Edinburgh (discussions held up because of pending elections). The chair of such a board could speak with greater authority to the council.
Any such trust should be set up only with detailed discussion with the local authority concerning the revenue grant to be given to the trust. And a strong board and chair should argue that business-rate savings should come directly to the trust as a kind of dowry. With council budget cuts year after year the trust could attract private support.
Small borough museums may not have the option of a cultural trust but are able to partner other museums across local authority boundaries. The Scottish Executive is encouraging project partnerships across boundaries.
The obvious next step would be for some of Scotland's 32 unitary local authorities to cooperate as a trust across neighbouring councils. Rather than set up little trusts, each local authority with an under-funded museum service could be integrated into one larger trust.
Steve Garland is the head of museums at Bolton
NO: Trust status is an option for museums, but there is a danger if it is seen as the only option. With the wrong trustees, inadequate funding set-up and badly thought-through service-level agreements, trust status can fail to deliver. Museums must take a long-term strategic approach to funding and consider a suite of measures.
Regional government agendas advocate partnerships such as joint services and cross-boundary management, which offer significant opportunities for museums. Projects such as the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's strategic commissioning and many Renaissance projects show how effective this can be.
This may lead to governance changes in the future, as is happening with Ipswich and Colchester. Sharing collections, staff and new management structures will raise many issues, not least around local political attitudes and civic pride.
The Collections for the Future debate is already touching on these issues in relation to collections. Other budget solutions, such as the commercial exploitation of collections, also lend themselves to joint approaches. These activities can be lucrative, but are often too challenging for individual museums to take on effectively.
If local authority museums do not develop a more radical long-term strategy to partnership working that generates greater strengths and efficiencies, then they will continue to suffer death by a thousand cuts or greater pressure to sell collections as part of short-term, unsustainable budget solutions.
