The Museums Association (MA) carries out a survey of our members every year, asking questions about all sorts of things, from the demographic profile of the people who respond to how they value there services we offer, including Museums Journal in print and online.
We also ask about the challenges that MA members face, including the impact of budgetary pressures on themselves and the work they do. The responses to our latest survey have been particularly worrying, with a growing number of people saying that job losses are increasing and activities such as learning, programming and collections care are being cut.
The impact is being felt in all types of museums, from large local authority services to small independents and everyone in between. National organisations are not immune, with English Heritage recently revealing that its workforce could shrink by 7% as part of a major restructure.
Many venues have not seen their visitor numbers return to pre-Covid levels, while rising costs are having an impact on everyone, with the recent National Insurance increases causing more financial pain for the sector.
Overall, many working in museums are exhausted by poor pay, restructures, widespread redundancies and recruitment freezes. Many are also anxious about the impact of reduced opening hours and depleted reserves. It is no surprise that staff wellbeing is a huge issue.
With all these challenges, the news announced in late February of a £270m funding package for the cultural sector was extremely welcome. This included £20m for a Museum Renewal Fund to support English civic institutions. The government says this money is designed to “help keep cherished civic museums open and engaging, protect opening hours and jobs, continue serving communities, and tell our national story at a local level”.
All this new money is extremely welcome but we should remember that the museum sector is a complex one, with lots of different types of museums in terms of governance, size and indeed funding models. We need to make sure everyone is supported and no one is left behind as the variety of the sector is one of the things that makes it so rich.
Simon Stephens is the editor of Museums Journal
