The course of the inquiry
3. We announced the current inquiry on 25 July 2006,
inviting evidence on the following issues in particular:
- Funding, with particular reference
to the adequacy of the budget for museums, galleries and archives,
and the impact of the London 2012 Olympics on Lottery funding
for their sector;
- Acquisition and disposal policies with particular
reference to due diligence obligations on acquisition and legal
restrictions on disposal of objects; and
- The remit and effectiveness of DCMS, the Museums,
Libraries and Archives Council and other relevant organisations
in representing cultural interests inside and outside Government.
4. Much of the evidence submitted to the earlier
inquiry related to museums and archives and their collections,
and we have drawn on that evidence as well as on the evidence
submitted specifically for this inquiry. There was a magnificent
response to our second call for evidence, with well over a hundred
new memoranda, many of which came from organisations and individuals
who had not submitted evidence to the earlier inquiry. We are,
as always, grateful to those who made submissions.
5. We held five public sessions, with oral evidence
from directors of national and regional museums, galleries and
archives, the Museums Association (which represents museums and
galleries in the whole of the UK), the National Council on Archives
(which represents UK bodies and organisations concerned with archives),
the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund, the Museums, Libraries
and Archives Council (which is the lead strategic agency for museums,
libraries and archives)[2]
and the two Government departments most closely involved with
museums and archives - the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
and the then Department for Constitutional Affairs. We devoted
part sessions to film archives, to databases of works of art and
cultural objects, and to schemes designed to promote new acquisitions
by museums, galleries and archives.
6. We undertook three visits in connection with the
inquiry. We went to the British Museum to see the Elgin Marbles
in the Duveen Gallery (which was built for them in the 1930s)
and to Athens, where we visited the museums at the Acropolis as
well as holding meetings to discuss the funding and support for
museums in Greece, and the preparations which had been made to
showcase them at the 2004 Olympic Games. Our third visit, to the
North-East of England and to Glasgow, showed how museums in what
had been seen as a badly run-down sector can be revitalised by
relatively modest funding and new approaches to the use and storage
of collections. We gained a great deal from all our visits and
wish to record our thanks to our hosts.
7. We also had the assistance of a Specialist Adviser,
Mr David Sekers, who is a trustee of Heritage Link with experience
of heritage and museum management. We are most grateful to him
for his contributions.
8. In this report we have drawn extensively on two
particular publications. These are the 2004 Goodison Review:
Securing the Best for our Museums: Private Giving and Government
Support ("the Goodison Review"), a review of
the effectiveness and efficiency of support to regional and national
museums and galleries to help them acquire works of art and culture
of distinction, led by Sir Nicholas Goodison in response to a
request by the Chief Secretary; and Museums and Galleries in
Britain: Economic, Social and Creative Impacts, by Tony Travers
of the London School of Economics ("the Travers Report"
2006), a report commissioned jointly by the National Museum Directors'
Conference (NMDC) and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
(MLA).
Structure of the report
9. The whole of the museums, galleries and archives
sector sees its biggest problem as being shortage of resources,
but the causes and consequences of this vary considerably, as
do the structures of the sub-sectors—the museums and galleries
sub-sector, the archives services sub-sector and—within
that—film archives. We therefore examine their structures
and particular concerns separately, before considering the remit
and effectiveness of the organisations responsible for representing
them inside and outside Government.
1 Protecting and Preserving our Heritage, Third
Report of Session 2005-06 HC 912-I Back
2
The structure and role of the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council are outlined at paras 218-220 Back
