Communities key to Wales’s significance assessment toolkit

It has been 10 years since the Welsh government published its last significance assessment toolkit, Why Do We Have It? A Significance Process and Template – and the world is a now a very different place.

It is time for a new toolkit and a new approach, one that puts communities front and centre, inviting them to be part of the conversations that impact on their collections and stories.

Last year, Headland Design Associates was asked to develop a toolkit for use across the sector but with the Welsh context at its heart. The team consulted colleagues in Wales, first through an online survey, and then conversations and focus groups.

The consultees came from a range of museums – from independent operations, volunteer-run organisations and heritage sites to those caring for local authority, university and national collections.

Staff at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales were involved in an advisory capacity. Respondents gave feedback on previous collections reviews and significance assessment projects they had undertaken, the tools they had used, what did and didn’t work, and whether they had involved associated communities. 

This consultation – alongside a study of toolkits from the UK, Australia, Finland and the Netherlands – informed the team’s thinking and contributed towards the formulation of the toolkit’s structure.

At the beginning of 2023, pilot studies and training sessions tested the toolkit’s processes, with feedback refining the guidance.

The aim was to create a toolkit that would work for people with all levels of experience in significance assessments. This fed into the development of a four-stage process: planning your approach; collections review; significance assessment; and project review.

Tasks are organised clearly, guiding users through a logical process, with tools that can be tailored to meet the needs of an organisation,  its collections and those working on the project.

At the significance assessment stage, four action plans have been designed to help museums achieve their goals: defining the status of collections; informing rationalisation; assisting with acquisitions; and making interpretive decisions.

Toolkit users are encouraged to take a more philosophical and qualitative approach, engaging in discussions prompted by different assessment criteria, rather than employing a scoring system. Museums are advised to seek peer review to verify their assessment conclusions.

Community involvement is highlighted as vital to this process: the identification of communities associated with collections and engagement with people to incorporate their knowledge and lived experience into these significance discussions. 

These communities may be many and varied, but within the toolkit, community is defined as the people and places associated with the mission of the organisation. 

No greater importance is placed on items that have potential national or international significance; objects with local and community relevance are of equal value, particularly if they help museums to connect people with collections. 

Going forward, it is vital that we devote more resources to engage our communities, and make them part of the conversation.

Jennifer Cragg is a heritage consultant at Headland Design