Tim Desmond is the head of services at the Galleries of Justice: the National Centre for Citizenship and the Law in Nottingham
Yes: When I think of national museums I think of dinosaurs (in some cases quite literally): large beasts who roam in isolation and consume vast quantities including smaller dinosaurs. I think you get the picture.
What I would advocate is that the monopoly of national status be broken down and an environment of competition be established.
The number of nationals should be increased and at the same time a Premier League be created built around a criteria of unique collections, conservation, diversity in visitors and staff and social and learning inclusion.
If a national does not achieve at a consistently high level, making a real impact on their communities and spreading good practice then they should be relegated and, by the same token, recognised museums that are achieving at a high level should be promoted to national status.
This idea has also the benefit of being able to be practised with hub museums. There is a more revolutionary alternative: one of the chief benefits of being a national is that they give free access to visitors.
What could happen is that the funding could be put into the concept of national visitors so that UK citizens could enter all museums for free with the revenue going to the museum to invest back into their organisation. We could then all be national museums. That could really lead to renaissance in the regions.
Charles Saumarez Smith is thedirector of the National Gallery in London
No: During the last 30 years, the whole concept of a relatively small group of museums and galleries that are nationally funded has changed beyond recognition. From the 1970s, the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, the Science Museum and the Imperial War Museum all established branches outside London, as did the National Museums of Scotland outside Edinburgh.
The Liverpool Museums were transferred from local authority ownership to national funding. And the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the Tyne and Wear Museums also receive national funding.
More recently, Renaissance in the Regions has produced a system whereby funding is channelled through hubs to major regional mu-
seums with enormous benefit to the sector as a whole.
Meanwhile, the support for the existing great national museums has been gradually eroded in real terms in order to make them more dependent on business and private sponsorship and commercial income. They are now only partly national in that up to half of their funding is private and commercial.
If the existing system of national funding were made purely competitive, as has been advocated to break up the BBC, the criteria for funding would be likely to be more directly political, more short-term and more purely instrumental.
The measures of success would most likely be quantitative. Museums would be expected to serve short-term party interests, not long-term national, international and educational welfare.
Yes: When I think of national museums I think of dinosaurs (in some cases quite literally): large beasts who roam in isolation and consume vast quantities including smaller dinosaurs. I think you get the picture.
What I would advocate is that the monopoly of national status be broken down and an environment of competition be established.
The number of nationals should be increased and at the same time a Premier League be created built around a criteria of unique collections, conservation, diversity in visitors and staff and social and learning inclusion.
If a national does not achieve at a consistently high level, making a real impact on their communities and spreading good practice then they should be relegated and, by the same token, recognised museums that are achieving at a high level should be promoted to national status.
This idea has also the benefit of being able to be practised with hub museums. There is a more revolutionary alternative: one of the chief benefits of being a national is that they give free access to visitors.
What could happen is that the funding could be put into the concept of national visitors so that UK citizens could enter all museums for free with the revenue going to the museum to invest back into their organisation. We could then all be national museums. That could really lead to renaissance in the regions.
Charles Saumarez Smith is thedirector of the National Gallery in London
No: During the last 30 years, the whole concept of a relatively small group of museums and galleries that are nationally funded has changed beyond recognition. From the 1970s, the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery, the Science Museum and the Imperial War Museum all established branches outside London, as did the National Museums of Scotland outside Edinburgh.
The Liverpool Museums were transferred from local authority ownership to national funding. And the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the Tyne and Wear Museums also receive national funding.
More recently, Renaissance in the Regions has produced a system whereby funding is channelled through hubs to major regional mu-
seums with enormous benefit to the sector as a whole.
Meanwhile, the support for the existing great national museums has been gradually eroded in real terms in order to make them more dependent on business and private sponsorship and commercial income. They are now only partly national in that up to half of their funding is private and commercial.
If the existing system of national funding were made purely competitive, as has been advocated to break up the BBC, the criteria for funding would be likely to be more directly political, more short-term and more purely instrumental.
The measures of success would most likely be quantitative. Museums would be expected to serve short-term party interests, not long-term national, international and educational welfare.
