Guy Kilminster is the libraries, museums and arts manager at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
No: Making museums a statutory requirement of local authority provision would bring benefits but would not reduce the financial pressures services face. Local authorities already grapple with competing demands from various statutory services. Adding another complicates decision-making and would not guarantee that museums were exempt from budget reductions.
The level of museum service provision specified by statute would be a vital factor. If an authority met that then there would be no requirement to invest in the service. The experience of the public library sector is relevant. Until the introduction of the Public Library Standards (PLS) in 2001, there was no clear definition of a statutory library service.
PLS provided a measure and many authorities had to invest in their services to meet them. Few services managed to meet all of these standards and the same applies to new standards introduced in 2005.
But as performance against these standards contributes to the cultural services comprehensive performance assessment (CPA), performance indicators, and to an authority's overall CPA score, there is an incentive for supporting libraries.
Recognising museums through CPA performance measures is, as things stand today, more likely to protect budgets, possibly even lead to growth. Accreditation offers similar opportunities to that of PLS. Combined with strong arguments (and evidence) that show the contribution of the museum service to corporate objectives, financial pressures may be eased, without statutory status.
Malcolm Watkins is the knowledge and learning manager for culture, learning and leisure at Gloucester City Council
Yes: Local authority museums are threatened as never before. Renaissance in the Regions, like other initiatives, has failed to fill the gaps. The backbone of the museum system is crumbling - often literally.
Medium-sized museums, usually attached to local authorities, are the nursery for general staff in the museums sector, but have benefited little from Renaissance. For such museums, curators are an endangered species and scholarship has largely disappeared. They are increasingly being threatened with closure, and many have already closed.
The reason for this trend is simple. More is demanded from shrinking resources. Museums and galleries often seem easy targets for cuts. Decision-makers are often chillingly honest about their reasons for putting museums under the spotlight: 'Because they are not statutory.'
One reality that is rarely considered by such decision-makers is that people are often far more supportive of museums than visits alone might suggest. Local government elections have been won and lost on this issue.
Publicly-funded non-nationals will go on being threatened. Unless urgent and courageous action is taken, many century-old museum services will be irretrievably damaged, at a time when a renaissance is genuinely possible.
Statutory status would not save museums from cuts, any more than it does libraries or archives, but it would give them more of a fighting chance in an uneven contest.
No: Making museums a statutory requirement of local authority provision would bring benefits but would not reduce the financial pressures services face. Local authorities already grapple with competing demands from various statutory services. Adding another complicates decision-making and would not guarantee that museums were exempt from budget reductions.
The level of museum service provision specified by statute would be a vital factor. If an authority met that then there would be no requirement to invest in the service. The experience of the public library sector is relevant. Until the introduction of the Public Library Standards (PLS) in 2001, there was no clear definition of a statutory library service.
PLS provided a measure and many authorities had to invest in their services to meet them. Few services managed to meet all of these standards and the same applies to new standards introduced in 2005.
But as performance against these standards contributes to the cultural services comprehensive performance assessment (CPA), performance indicators, and to an authority's overall CPA score, there is an incentive for supporting libraries.
Recognising museums through CPA performance measures is, as things stand today, more likely to protect budgets, possibly even lead to growth. Accreditation offers similar opportunities to that of PLS. Combined with strong arguments (and evidence) that show the contribution of the museum service to corporate objectives, financial pressures may be eased, without statutory status.
Malcolm Watkins is the knowledge and learning manager for culture, learning and leisure at Gloucester City Council
Yes: Local authority museums are threatened as never before. Renaissance in the Regions, like other initiatives, has failed to fill the gaps. The backbone of the museum system is crumbling - often literally.
Medium-sized museums, usually attached to local authorities, are the nursery for general staff in the museums sector, but have benefited little from Renaissance. For such museums, curators are an endangered species and scholarship has largely disappeared. They are increasingly being threatened with closure, and many have already closed.
The reason for this trend is simple. More is demanded from shrinking resources. Museums and galleries often seem easy targets for cuts. Decision-makers are often chillingly honest about their reasons for putting museums under the spotlight: 'Because they are not statutory.'
One reality that is rarely considered by such decision-makers is that people are often far more supportive of museums than visits alone might suggest. Local government elections have been won and lost on this issue.
Publicly-funded non-nationals will go on being threatened. Unless urgent and courageous action is taken, many century-old museum services will be irretrievably damaged, at a time when a renaissance is genuinely possible.
Statutory status would not save museums from cuts, any more than it does libraries or archives, but it would give them more of a fighting chance in an uneven contest.
