Conclusions and recommendations
1. The museums and galleries have achieved
a creditable performance in generating their own income but there
is unrealised potential.
There is scope for growth across a wide range of activities including
catering, shops, mail order and e-commerce. Fundraising and venue
hire continue to be promising areas for income growth which usually
give a high return. And there are opportunities to learn from
new and innovative ways money is being made at some of the museums
and galleries, and in the wider museums sector.
2. The museums should set five year targets
for income growth, with milestones, against which they and the
Department can monitor progress. Targets
should be supported by plans based on a systematic review of their
assets and opportunities, an appreciation of which areas are most
profitable and an assessment of the risks.
3. The museums and galleries need a better
understanding of the costs they incur in generating income. Many
of the museums and galleries do not know with any accuracy what
profit they make on some of their income generating activities
and some have lost money. For each of their money-making
activities, including those not undertaken solely for commercial
reasons, they need clear objectives and financial targets, and
accounting systems to measure financial performance.
4. The Department should explore with Partnerships
UK how to make investment funding for income generation schemes
more accessible to museums and galleries. Museums
and galleries are heavily reliant on finding private sector partners
for new business ventures, which can be difficult and time-consuming.
5. The museums and galleries need to be more
entrepreneurial. To help identify new
ideas for income generation and advise on how best to deliver
them, the Department should see what can be done to draw on the
knowledge and skills of experienced entrepreneurs. The Department
should appoint more entrepreneurs as trustees and encourage
Boards to appoint entrepreneurial Directors.
6. The museums and galleries need to develop
their skills for income generation across most of the core areas,
such as retailing and fundraising. The
Department should promote greater sharing of knowledge and skills
by:
- exploring whether some smaller
museums and galleries could pool staff resources and work together
to generate income;
- establishing an exchange programme between the
museums and galleries; and
- putting on a programme of events and training,
for example in collaboration with the Museums Trading Association.
7. Charging policies for special exhibitions
should not exclude people on low incomes from seeing the best
of what the museums and galleries offer.
Income from paying exhibitions has doubled since the introduction
of free admission to the main museum or gallery in 2001 but the
Department cannot say what impact these charges are having on
attendance by people from lower income groups.
8. Museums and galleries should collect data
on the socioeconomic status of visitors to paying exhibitions
as well as to the museum in general.
If people on low incomes tend not to visit special exhibitions,
the Department, in conjunction with the museums and galleries,
should review pricing policies, in particular the use of concessions,
and the targeting of audiences in the way exhibitions are promoted.
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