8 March 2007

Follow-up report on collections management at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum

Submitted by the Auditor General for Wales to the Audit Committee of the National Assembly for Wales

Contents

Summary 3 The Museum has adopted a 'vision' which has led to specific targets in key 5 areas of collections management Acquisitions, curation and verification 6 The size of the Museum’s collection continues to grow by about one per cent 6 a year which places additional pressures on revenue budgets The Museum has increased the computerisation of the records of its 7 collections and plans to computerise all of them The Museum has verified the physical location and condition of more than 8 half of its collection since 1999 Storage and conservation 10 The Collections, Care and Access Project will improve storage conditions 10 considerably from the summer of 2007 The Museum’s policy of preventative conservation is intended to limit future 11 deterioration Improving access 12 Visitor numbers are broadly static but the new National Waterfront Museum 12 is establishing itself as a major tourist attraction The Marketing Department is co-ordinating the implementation of an 13 Audience Development Action Plan The Museum is improving access to its collections through its loans and 13 outreach programmes Income generation 15 The Museum is adopting professional approaches to raising more income 15 The Museum’s Enterprises arm is taking forward a five-year expansion 15 strategy which should increase income The Museum is actively pursuing new funding sources 16

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Follow-up report on collections management at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

Summary

1. In May 2004, the Audit Committee considered my predecessor’s report on Collections Management at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales1. The Audit Committee recognised the progress made in improving collections management but remained concerned at the backlogs in the documentation, curation and conservation of the collections and in verifying items in the collections. The Audit Committee published its own report in August 2004 with thirteen recommendations to help the National Museums and Galleries of Wales2 (the Museum) improve the management of their collections (see Figure 1). 2. The response of the Welsh Assembly Government (the Assembly Government) to those recommendations emphasised the development of a new strategic corporate vision, which would allow management to decide priorities and determine how best to address the Audit Committee’s recommendations. The Audit Committee requested a progress report from the Assembly Government by the end of 2005, by which time the Museum had planned to adopt and implement its vision. 3. In March 2006, the Audit Committee considered an update from the Minister for Culture, Welsh Language and Sport, which reported some progress in work towards implementing the Audit Committee’s recommendations. However, the Museum had not then adopted its new vision and so progress in implementing a number of the Committee’s recommendation was still ongoing. I agreed to provide the Audit Committee with a follow-up report once the Museum’s vision was in place.

1 Auditor General for Wales report, Collections Management at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, published 22 April 2004. 2 The Museum has recently rebranded itself as Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Page 3 of 18 Follow-up report on collections management at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

Figure 1: The Audit Committee’s recommendations In its August 2004 report on Collections Management at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, the Committee recommended that the Museum: i approaches the development of a ‘vision’ with urgency so that its future context and general direction are defined and made clear without further delay. It should set time-related, measurable targets for the implementation of the ‘vision’ which should pay regard to all the recommendations in this report and be explicit in how the respective improvements will be achieved; ii sets realistic, achievable, time-related and measurable targets for improving the documentation of its collections and closely monitor their achievement; iii immediately extends its spot checks, which are designed to test the condition and location of items within its collection, to include those objects held only on manual records. It should also review the level of resources allocated to verification with a view to introducing systematic verification procedures; iv formulates an action plan with timescales and costings of how it will seek to address storage problems beyond the 15-20 years that the planned improved storage facilities might cater for; v completes, as a matter of urgency, its assessment of how best to use the funding committed by the Assembly, to lever in additional external funding, so as to improve the storage of its collections; vi takes all necessary steps to ensure that standards of storage are satisfactory and that the health and safety of staff and visitors are never put at risk; vii develops contingency plans to tackle the conservation backlog should the Nantgarw project not proceed and be fully successful. And it should press ahead, as a matter of urgency, with its survey of the condition of objects within its collections to ensure that its remedial conservation efforts are targeted to best effect; viii undertakes an especially rigorous impact assessment at the point of acquisition and monitor collection growth to inform its planning for future storage and conservation needs; ix seeks the views of visitors in a systematic way concerning the best ways of displaying items so as to improve visitor experience; x continues to explore ways to extend the loans programme, including extending the Partnership Programme in the interests of improving access to the collections throughout Wales; xi evaluates the use of its marketing budget to assure itself that best value for money is being achieved; xii develops and implements a clear plan for income generation which includes areas for growth and the action needed to maximise those opportunities; and xiii monitors visitor numbers at the Museum of Welsh Life to assure itself that the introduction of car parking charges is not detrimental to the success of free visitor entry.

Source: Collections Management at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Audit Committee report (2) 06-04, August 2004 4. This report examines whether the Museum has made progress in implementing the Audit Committee’s recommendations to improve collections management at the Museum. We found that the Museum has made progress in addressing a number of the Audit Committee’s recommendations but that there are still some areas in which the Museum needs to improve performance. 5. The actions taken by the Museum include adopting a corporate vision, in April 2006, which provides the Museum with a strategic framework for all its activities with clear links to a long-term 10-year development plan and the current operational plan which contains explicit and clearly measurable targets in some of the areas covered by the Audit Committee’s recommendations. The Museum is

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implementing its Collections Care and Access Project which substantially increases the amount and quality of storage space across the Museum’s estate. As such, it is central to the improvement of the Museum’s collections management. The Museum has made notable progress in improving the computerisation of the records of its collections. It has also made a new high-level appointment specifically to address the issues raised by the Audit Committee. 6. There are a number of areas where the Museum recognises that further work is needed, in particular: • rolling out the assessment of whether items should be disposed of; • establishing a more systematic, risk-based verification system; and • completing the process of computerisation of records. 7. This report sets out my main findings in respect of : • the Museum’s strategic vision; • acquisitions, curation and verification; • storage and conservation; • improving access; and • income generation.

The Museum has adopted a ‛vision’ which has led to specific targets in key areas of collections management

8. The Audit Committee recommended that the Museum develop its corporate vision with urgency; to place its actions to improve collections management in a clear, strategic context. The Museum adopted its vision statement for the 10 years to 2016, in April 2006, after extensive internal and external consultation. It goes a long way towards providing the strategic framework necessary to tackle the key issues raised in my predecessor’s report and in the Audit Committee’s recommendations. The vision is to create a world-class museum of learning with seven priorities: • creating living museums; • developing flourishing collections; • finding paths to make sense of the world; • learning through sharing; • communicating; • growing through learning; and • building the Museum’s resources. 9. The seven priorities form the framework of the 10-year Development Plan to 2015-16 and of the Operational Plan for 2006-07 which contains core objectives, projected outcomes, measures of success and explicit and measurable targets which relate to several of the key areas in which the Audit Committee made recommendations in 2004.

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Acquisitions, curation and verification

The size of the Museum’s collection continues to grow by about one per cent a year which places pressure on revenue budgets

10. The size of the collection increases through bequests and gifts to the Museum and through opportunities to purchase items on the open market that would enhance existing collections. The Museum has traditionally been reluctant to dispose of items within its collections, as a consequence of its mission to conserve and retain items which it has acquired for the Welsh public. There are also restrictions arising from both its own statute and professional practice which include a code of ethics which, for example, precludes disposals for financial reasons and stresses the potential of disposals to discourage future bequests. The Museum intends that its collection will continue to grow, as there are items that it wishes to acquire, in line with its strategy. In particular, the Museum intends to enhance its collections of contemporary social history and industry material, which it believes to be currently weak. The Museum has a policy of not adding to its collections in other areas such as costume, agricultural implements, and large zoological specimens. 11. The Audit Committee noted that the Museum had acquired an average of 40,000 new items into its collection each year in the four years prior to my predecessor’s report. Disposals of items were negligible at 111 a year on average in the same four-year period. Since the Committee hearing, the rate of acquisitions has increased and disposals decreased (Figure 2). The Committee was concerned at the pressure that this steady expansion of the collection placed on the backlogs of documentation, verification, storage and conservation. The Committee recognised that the absolute number of individual items which the Museum acquires may not be the best guide as to future implications for the Museum’s revenue budget for its collections management activities. For example, one large painting may consume more resources in terms of conservation than thousands of fossils or biology specimens and a single large object may take up more storage space than hundreds of smaller specimens. Nonetheless, the Committee recommended that the Museum undertake an especially rigorous impact assessment before acquisition and that it monitor collection growth.

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Figure 2: Acquisitions are increasing and disposals remain negligible Year Acquisitions Disposals 2002-03 35,096 items 92 2003-04 22,855 items 51 and 4,135 lots 2004-05 25,087 items, 2,526 lots 5 and 4 collections 2005-06 81,425 items 54 4,300 lots and 10 collections

Source: Wales Audit Office Analysis Note: Collection – a group of objects or specimens managed together, or acquired as such. Can be inventoried as individual parts or as a whole. Lot – a group of the same specimen, collected at the same time and location by one individual, and not inventoried individually.

12. The Museum subsequently reviewed its policy on acquisitions and disposals in October 2005. The revised policy states that: ‘Acquisition of objects and specimens is always constrained by the availability of resources. Acceptance of material will accordingly depend on our ability to ensure adequate control of storage, curation, conservation, finance, professional expertise and other factors essential to good collections management.’ Section heads complete a Collection Impact Assessment form for all proposed accessions which includes an estimate of resource implications after acquisition, such as curation and conservation costs. Many items are donated but where there is a purchase cost which exceeds £500, the Deputy Director’s approval is necessary. 13. The Museum has also begun to review what items it can usefully dispose of. This process is enhanced by the ongoing computerisation of records (paragraphs 14 to 17), and the move to new storage facilities (paragraphs 23 to 26), which are providing an opportunity to review the appropriateness of continuing to hold some items. Objects in the industrial collections – which contain some very large items which require substantial storage space and care – are being assessed in 2007-08. The Museum intends to follow this with a rolling programme of assessments across all its collection areas.

The Museum has increased the computerisation of the records on its collections and plans to computerise all of them

14. The Museum holds information on every item held within its collection, including details of its identity, ownership, location and status, for example, whether on loan or on display. The aspect of curation which most concerned the Audit Committee in 2004 was the slow transfer of basic information from paper records to an electronic format. Computerised records allow information to be updated,

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retrieved and accessed more efficiently and effectively than paper records. They can also therefore play a part in detecting loss or theft. At the time of my predecessor’s report in April 2004, this information on two-thirds of the Museum’s 4.7 million items was held on paper records, with 34 per cent of the collection on computerised records. The Audit Committee recommended that the Museum should set and monitor realistic, achievable, time-related and measurable targets to improve its documentation. 15. The Museum has been setting increasing annual targets for the percentage of its records which are to be computerised. The target for the current year (2006-07) was that, by March 2007, 50 per cent of records should be computerised. The latest figure available, for the end of November 2006, was above 51 per cent which implies an annual rate of around 275,000 new items put onto the computerised record, an increase from the 200,000 a year reported by my predecessor. 16. However, these figures hide a significant variation in the percentage achieved by the Museum’s seven departments. For instance, the Department of Biodiversity and Systematic Biology, which holds nearly half of the Museum’s 4.7 million items, has computerised records for only 21 per cent of its collection. The Museum also holds more than 400,000 individual photographs and written documents in its Social and Cultural Department, few of which are on the computerised record. The computerisation percentage for the rest of the Museum’s collections ie, excluding Biodiversity and Systematic Biology, and the photographs and documents, is 93.5 per cent. 17. The Museum is currently assessing the importance of having computerised records for the remaining 49 per cent of its collections which is still held on paper records. Items are assessed in four categories, where computerisation is regarded as: essential, important, useful, or, not required. The Museum intends to complete this categorisation exercise by August 2007, after which it will set targets to achieve the related level of computerisation. The items categorised as not requiring individual computerisation will be entered as part of a lot, eg, a number of mollusc shells or pottery shards from the same cooking pot. The Museum does therefore intend to computerise the records of all of its collections, although it has not yet decided how many will be by individual item and how many by lot.

The Museum has verified the physical location and condition of more than half of its collection since 1999

18. The Audit Committee was concerned at the lack of systematic arrangements for verification, which involves checking the physical presence, condition and location of items. The Museum focuses its verification checks on high-value items, those on display, in the loans programme or otherwise in use. In addition, staff carry out spot-checking of randomly chosen collections or specific storage areas.

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19. My predecessor reported that, over the five-year period 1999-2004, Museum staff had verified 23 per cent (1.1 million items) of its collection. As at the end of November 2006, the Museum reported that since 1999, it had verified 51.2 per cent or more than 2.4 million items. A substantial part of the increase is the by-product of the computerisation of 800,000 items since 2004, in that staff automatically verify an item when they computerise its record. The Museum expects the figure to increase to just under 60 per cent over the next few months, as all 424,000 items due to be moved as part of the Collections, Care and Access Project will be verified. 20. However, it remains the case that the Museum has no systematic and consistent system of verification which sets out a planned programme with targets, agreed timescales and spot-checking based on a monitoring system which produces a single, reliable estate-wide figure for items verified each year. The current ad hoc system almost certainly underestimates the level of verification taking place at a departmental level as staff verify some items on a daily basis eg, high-value items on display where check-lists are provided for staff. Museum staff told us that verification is only one of a package of measures designed to counter loss or damage. The highest-value items on display are individually alarmed. A risk-based priority is then given to verify high-value items not on display: the fine art collections, for example, are verified on a regular, monthly basis. The Museum does not keep a central record of the findings of these verifications, other than by exception. 21. The Museum believes that verifying items documented on paper records would be a waste of scarce resources, given that those items not yet computerised tend to be those of lowest value. Although their records will eventually be computerised (see paragraph 17), there is currently no target date for the completion of that process. Staff checked approximately 3,000 items at random over the last year of which approximately 20 per cent or 600 items were on paper records. Therefore, staff currently verify only a small fraction of the items held on the paper records as part of their random spot-checking. 22. The Museum recognises that it needs to develop a more systematic approach to verification. It plans to change the way it collects its verification figures so that the estate-wide figures will include departmental verification figures once the Collections, Care and Access Project is complete in 2008. At the same time, the Museum plans to set an annual target for the amount of items which it verifies annually. It intends to roll out its risk-based approach to verification more systematically, but does not intend to verify large numbers of low-value items.

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Storage and conservation

The Collections, Care and Access Project will improve storage conditions considerably from the summer of 2007

23. The Museum is preserving its collections for future as well as present generations. It is thus very important to keep the Museum’s collections in environmentally appropriate storage to preserve them in good condition and to arrest any existing damage or deterioration. For example, many items and specimens require specific lighting or humidity. Storage should also avoid any risk of crushing delicate items such as biological or botanical specimens, fabrics and old manuscripts. My predecessor reported that 43 per cent of the Museum’s storage space was of poor quality. The Museum has since made considerable progress on its project, known as the Collections, Care and Access Project which will substantially improve the level of high-quality storage space in which to hold the collections (see Figure 3 below).

Figure 3: The Collections, Care and Access Project will substantially increase the amount of new high-quality storage space The Collections, Care and Access Project The Collections, Care and Access Project is designed to improve the quality and amount of space in which to hold the collections whilst also improving access to collections for both staff and the public. It consists of separate projects at the , St Fagans: National History Museum, the , and the Collections Centre, Nantgarw which is a large storage facility without public displays. The total cost of the Project is £4.37 million. The new storage space which it will make available is: Site in m2 Complete by Nantgarw Collections Centre 3,356 Summer 2007 St Fagans: National History Museum 1,330 Spring 2008 National Museum Cardiff 500 Summer 2007 National Slate Museum 172 Spring 2006 The project plan leaves 14 per cent of the space at Nantgarw unallocated to allow space for growth in the size of the collection. At the National Museum Cardiff, the project will remove collections from the sub-basements which provide unsuitable environmental conditions for some of the Museum’s collections. The sub-basements are part of the city’s flood relief system and are prone to damp; they also pose significant health and safety risks to staff due to the low ceilings and ceiling-mounted storage facilities. At St Fagans, the public will be able to see the new open storage facilities from viewing galleries. The project has also provided improved access and facilities for the loans, partnership and schools outreach services of the Museum.

Source: Wales Audit Office Analysis

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24. The completion of the Nantgarw phase of the project in the summer of 2007 will increase substantially the amount of storage space classified as good or very good across the whole estate from the current level of 57 per cent to around 80 per cent. The completion of the work at St Fagans in the spring of 2008 will further increase that figure to more than 90 per cent. 25. My predecessor’s report in 2004 included six case studies of problems arising from poor storage. As an illustration of the impact of the Collections, Care and Access Project and other improvements, the problems in five of the six case studies will be resolved and significantly reduced in the sixth. One example is the National Herbarium in the Department of Biodiversity and Systematic Biology which comprises around 250,000 specimens. At the time of my predecessor’s report, its storage facilities were overcrowded and lacked adequate environmental control. These conditions made documentation and conservation difficult. In addition, the public could not safely access the collection and there was no scope for further expansion. The provision of new cabinets of appropriate size and design has resolved the storage problems in respect of the National Herbarium. 26. The Audit Committee was also concerned that the Museum should have long- term plans for appropriate storage. The new storage facilities provided by the Collections, Care and Access Project, were only expected to suffice for 15-20 years in view of the increasing size of the collections. The Audit Committee therefore recommended that the Museum formulate an action plan with costings and timescales to address long-term storage problems. 27. In response to this recommendation and others, the Museum created a new post of Keeper of Collections Services in June 2006. The post has strategic responsibility for collections management including many of the key areas on which the Audit Committee made recommendations. From February 2007, the Keeper of Collections Services will chair a new Collections Storage Group tasked, among other responsibilities, with formulating a medium to long-term strategy for the storage of collections in line with the Audit Committee’s recommendation.

The Museum’s policy of preventative conservation is intended to limit future deterioration

28. My predecessor reported a conservation backlog which the Museum estimated at 384 staff years. The Museum stated that it was moving from a remedial conservation strategy to one of preventative conservation to ensure that its collections do not deteriorate any further, in line with a general change of approach within the profession. The completion of the Collections, Care and Access Project provides the right physical and environmental conditions to permit this approach. The Audit Committee accepted the general direction of that strategy but recommended that the Museum should press ahead as a matter of urgency with a condition survey of its collections to ensure that it could target its remedial conservation work to best effect.

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29. The Museum believes that its approach to preventative conservation removes the need for a programme of remedial conservation to address a backlog. By moving items into more environmentally appropriate storage facilities, their condition will be stabilised and not deteriorate any further. Remedial conservation work can then be carried out as and when items are required or requested. The Museum’s conservators are currently carrying out the remedial conservation that has already been prioritised, namely items required for access through exhibition and for the loan, partnership and outreach programmes. The Museum believes that direct intervention only when required for these purposes means that a higher proportion of objects can be preserved for posterity in their original condition, which has a greater scientific value. The process of transferring large numbers of items between sites as part of the Collections, Care and Access Project, as well as the process of computerisation of records, is also providing conservators with the opportunity to access and assess items and thus to begin to prioritise immediate and urgent remedial conservation, for example, if an item is found to have woodworm.

Improving access

Visitor numbers are broadly static but the new National Waterfront Museum is establishing itself as a major visitor attraction

30. Since the introduction of free admission to museums in 2001-02, the number of visitors to the Museum’s sites has remained broadly static within a band of nearly 1.3 million to just over 1.4 million visitors a year, except in 2003-04 when there were a number of closures for refurbishment. Figure 4 below shows the figures for the last two financial years. The opening of the National Waterfront Museum is predicted to increase the number of visitors by around 200,000 a year. 31. There are several factors which make comparison of visitor figures between different years difficult. These include temporary closures for refurbishment, the effect of temporary exhibitions or special events and the weather, particularly at St Fagans, much of which is an open-air museum. Excluding the figures for the National Waterfront Museum, the number of visitors fell from 1.32 million in 2004-05 to 1.26 million in 2005-06. Including the new museum, the figure increased to 1.34 million. Like-for-like visitor figures for the current financial year to November 2006 show an increase of one per cent on the same period in 2005. There are indications that the National Waterfront Museum in is establishing itself as a visitor attraction and has exceeded its target for visitors so far in the 2006-07 year.

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Figure 4: Visitor numbers fluctuate from year to year at different sites but are broadly static overall Site 2004-05 2005-06 National Museum Cardiff 293,770 308,714 St Fagans: National History Museum 652,998 582,798 National Roman Legion Museum 69,206 71,826 18,927 16,151 National Slate Museum 137,687 117,890 Big Pit: National Coal Museum 145,898 158,069 National Waterfront Museum (which n/a 88,237 opened in October 2005) Total 1,318,486 1,343,685

Source: Wales Audit Office Analysis

The Marketing Department is co-ordinating the implementation of an Audience Development Action Plan

32. In its 2004 report, the Audit Committee questioned whether the Museum’s marketing budget at £490,000 in 2003-04 was best value for money. That budget has fallen to £458,000 in 2006-07. The Museum commissioned an independent review of its marketing activity, which concluded that the activity was best carried out in-house, but that an Audience Development Plan was required. The Marketing Department is spearheading the implementation of the Plan which was adopted in October 2005. It includes a ‘Foundation Year’ for consultation, establishing partnerships, research, raising staff awareness and identifying good practice. This work is intended to lead to measurable targets for 2007-08, including specific key target groups. The adoption and monitoring of specific targets will help enable the Museum to evaluate the effectiveness of the Marketing Department and whether it continues to provide the best value for money.

The Museum is improving access to its collections through its loans and outreach programmes

33. The Audit Committee was concerned that the Museum should make its collections more accessible to the public including an extension of its loan programme. Both the Museum’s Development Plan for the 10 years 2006-07 to 2015-16 and the Operational Plan for 2006-07 contain commitments to improve public access to the Museum’s collections. It loans material to other museums and galleries for exhibitions, to schools and community venues, and to universities and other institutions for research. In 2005-06, the Museum had material on loan at 371 venues which exceeded its target of 350. It currently has material on loan to 125 venues in Wales (141 in 2004), 128 in the rest of the United Kingdom (120 in 2004) and 118 abroad (105 in 2004). The total number of items on loan is just over 40,000, a substantial increase on the 32,000 items on

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loan in 2004. There are five full-time equivalent staff working on outbound loans. The Museum’s website contains links to documents about its Loans Policy and about the breadth of its collections which interested institutions or groups can access. 34. When complete, the Collections, Care and Access Project should also help make collections more accessible to the public. An example will be the walk-through display of agricultural vehicles and implements in a refurbished store at St Fagans. The Nantgarw Collections Centre includes new facilities to enable researchers to access and work on items from the collections stored there. 35. One way of increasing visitor numbers, thereby increasing access, is to extend opening hours, which vary across the Museum’s estate (Figure 5). The National Waterfront Museum trialled extra opening hours in 2006. The report of the trial is not complete but the indications are that there was a small increase in the number of visitors during the summer holiday but the increase petered out immediately after the holiday period.

Figure 5: There is no uniform pattern of opening times across the estate Opening times National Museum Cardiff 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday to Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays St Fagans: National History Museum 10 am to 5 pm Seven days a week National Waterfront Museum3 10 am to 5 pm Seven days a week Big Pit: National Coal Museum 9 30 am to 5 pm Seven days a week (February to November) 10 am to 4 30 pm Seven days a week (December and January) National Roman Legion Museum4 10 am to 5 pm Monday to Saturday 2 pm to 5 pm Sunday National Slate Museum5 10 am to 5 pm Seven days a week (Easter to October) 10 am to 4 pm Sunday to Friday (November to Easter) National Wool Museum 10 am to 5 pm Seven days a week (April to September) 10 am to 5 pm Tuesday to Saturday (October to March)

Source: Wales Audit Office Analysis

3 As part of its agreement with the City and County of Swansea, which provides funding, the National Waterfront Museum is open seven days a week. 4 The National Roman Legion Museum is open six and a half days a week in line with the opening hours at the Roman Baths in Caerleon which are in the care of Cadw. 5 The National Slate Museum is currently closed on Saturdays but is reviewing the position. Page 14 of 18 Follow-up report on collections management at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

36. The National Museum Cardiff opens from 10 am to 5 pm from Tuesday to Sunday. It is closed on Mondays, other than on Bank Holiday Mondays. Four of the other six museums are open seven days a week and the other two (the National Wool Museum and the National Slate Museum) are open seven days a week for six months of the year. Figures for 2006-07 reveal that visitor numbers on Mondays are buoyant and that Bank Holiday Mondays are the most popular days of the year for people to visit the museums. The Museum estimates that the additional cost of opening the National Museum Cardiff on Mondays would be £150,000 a year, most of which relates to the staff costs of providing gallery assistants. It has bid to the Assembly Government for funding to enable it to open on Mondays, but this has not been forthcoming. The Museum considers that there is little prospect of recouping this cost given that there is no admission charge and only negligible potential for additional profit from the retail and catering outlets. It also argues that closure on Mondays allows staff to clean and move exhibits and that it will provide more flexibility for the Enterprises subsidiary to arrange more corporate hire in the future. There is no bias towards use of the facilities for corporate hire on Mondays at present. Most of these points apply to a greater or lesser extent to the other six museums which do open on Mondays. The Museum is currently reviewing winter opening hours at some sites.

Income generation

The Museum is adopting professional approaches to raising more income

37. Entry to the Museum has been free since 2001. This has acted as an incentive to the Museum to generate income in line with the seventh priority in its vision statement (paragraph 8). There are two strands to the Museum’s income generation: sales through a wholly-owned company and fundraising.

The Museum’s Enterprises arm is taking forward a five-year expansion strategy which should increase income

38. In April 2003, the Museum set up a wholly owned company with charitable status – National Museums and Galleries of Wales Enterprises Ltd – with a Chief Executive Officer from the private sector. Strategy for the company is set by a Board of Directors which consists of Trustees, Executive Directors and non- Executive Directors, who together bring with them experience of private-sector commercial activities. The company has a five-year strategy which is subject to annual review. The Enterprise Board set the company a net profit target in 2006-07 at £324,650.

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39. The main income generating sources are shops and catering at all of the sites and corporate hire at the major sites. The retail outlets are in the middle of a number of developments including refurbishment, changes in product ranges, and the introduction of full electronic sales facilities at all sites. The potential for online sales is also under consideration. The average visitor spends 76 pence in the Museum’s shops (of which net profit is nine pence); below the figure of 97 pence reported to the Committee in 2004. The equivalent figure for catering is not available as there is a mix of in-house provision and contractors. The Museum receives an annual payment for the catering concessions and a percentage of income above a certain level. There have been recent improvements at St Fagans with both a significant expansion of the shop and significant capital investment by the contractor in the catering facilities. 40. In 2006 the Museum carried out a benchmarking exercise related to digital image sales. This indicated that in order to generate significant extra sales it would have to invest a considerable sum in staff and equipment, and would not recover sufficient revenue from increased digital sales to recover these costs. Therefore, the Enterprise Board has decided to concentrate its efforts on retailing, corporate hire and catering. The Business Plan is designed to increase income within the current five-year strategy and changes made so far, along with others planned or under investigation, are likely to assist the company towards its goal.

The Museum is actively pursuing new funding sources

41. The Museum is currently developing a fund-raising strategy, due for approval in May 2007. To date, the Museum’s funding-raising efforts have focused on specific capital projects because the publicity associated with them is more attractive to sponsors than activities funded out of revenue. There were therefore peaks in fundraising income in 1999 in connection with work at the National Slate Museum, in 2002 as a result of specific campaigns linked to Big Pit and the National Wool Museum and in 2004-05 linked to the opening of the National Waterfront Museum. Over the past decade, the Museum raised nearly £40 million towards its Industrial Strategy 42. Fundraising staff focus on different funding sources including trusts, European grants, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Landfill Tax, Aggregates Levy, corporate sponsorship and individual patrons (see Figure 6). This is a complex mix of sources which makes it difficult to compare year-on-year changes, in that applications can be made one year, for decision in the next and eventual drawing down of funding over a number of subsequent years. The fundraising department cultivates relationships with companies and individuals on a long-term basis which may not bear fruit in the short term. For example, the target for new fundraising income in 2006-07 is £558,000 but there is also £392,000 pledged in previous years to collect.

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Figure 6: In addition to major projects, the Museum has fundraised nearly a million pounds a year in the last two years Funding source 2004/2005 2005/2006 £000 £000 Grants* 796 383 Donated assets 0 97 Donations 151 396 Total 947 876

Source: Wales Audit Office Analysis * European Union, Heritage Lottery Fund and VisitWales (formerly the Wales Tourist Board) but excluding core Assembly Government capital and revenue funding.

43. One example of the innovative ways in which the Museum is approaching fundraising was the exhibition of a number of its works of art at Christies in London in January 2007. This was part of the fundraising campaign for the proposed new National Museum of Art which the Museum plans to create on the upper floor at the National Museum Cardiff, as it can raise the necessary funds over the next few years. A Development Board, which was established to assist the Museum in its fundraising aspirations, used this exhibition to form a London Committee to support and steer this first venture and to support future projects. The exhibition was used as a platform for a series of dinners and other events with potential corporate and individual donors and sponsors which the Museum hopes will lead to financial support for the new project. 44. The Museum’s fundraising contributes to its income although the actual amount varies significantly from year to year depending on the timing of major capital projects. The adoption of a fundraising strategy this spring is a positive step. The Museum sees this as an opportunity to set realistic but challenging fundraising targets, which it intends to monitor.

Page 17 of 18 Follow-up report on collections management at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

Wales Audit Office 2-4 Park Grove Cardiff CF10 3PA Tel: 029 2026 0260 Fax: 029 2026 0026 Textphone: 029 2026 2646 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.wao.gov.uk