South East Museum Development Programme Annual Survey of Museums 2018-19 Summary of findings Response rate Financial operations Workforce – volunteers • 149 (62%) of Accredited museums • £40,822,936 was generated by 87% of • There were 8,254 active volunteers. responded to the survey. A further four of respondent museums in earned income • Volunteers contributed a total of the 12 museums Working Towards (including admissions, retail, catering, 988,416 hours to museums, equivalent Accreditation (WTA) responded to the events, hospitality, educational and other to 599 Full Time Equivalent posts. survey. As a result 153 (60%) of the 253 earned income from trading, e.g. property • Volunteer time was worth £6.5 million Accredited and WTA museums are rental). to museums. considered within this report. • £10,241,915 received by 37% of respondent museums in regular public funding Workforce – paid staff Audiences (including Arts Council England’s National • Museums employed 1,667 paid staff or • There was a total of 6,568,954 visits to Portfolio funding). 992 FTE based on 102 responses. museums based on responses received. • £1,332,207 received in grant project funding • 23% of respondent museums were • Museums held a total of 6,513 activities by 29% of respondent museums. entirely volunteer-run with no paid and events that engaged 219,286 • £6,077,888 received in contributed income staff. participants. (including all money received in donations, friends members/schemes, any sponsorship Educational engagement income, corporate membership, or other • Museums delivered 8,243 formal learning non-earned income) by 88% of respondent and outreach sessions engaging 313,630 museums. participants in these activities. This includes both on-site and off-site activities. Economic impact • Known visits to museums had a gross visitor Online engagement impact of £127.9 million in the South East • 88% of respondent museums have economy. editorial contract over their website. 27% • At least £37.7 million of direct, indirect and of respondent museums are within induced impacts as a result of spending on multisite museum organisations. goods and services by museums. • 92% use social media to engage audiences • At least 1502 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) online. direct, indirect and induced jobs were supported by museums. 2 Introduction and survey method This report presents the findings of the Where possible, questions have been adapted Survey questions relating to finance, fourth South East Museum Development to align with Arts Council England’s previous employment, volunteer and social media have (SEMD) Annual Survey of Museums. annual survey of Major Partner Museums and, been mapped across to the National Portfolio since 2019, the Annual Survey of National (NPO) Annual survey. NPOs were able to The survey was created in the South West in Portfolio Organisations. submit their NPO Annual Survey for 2012 to establish a baseline of data on transcribing to prevent duplication of effort. museums in the region and is now being SWMD has been commissioned to deliver the A key distinction between this survey and the used to analyse and report on trends across South East Museum Development Annual NPO Annual Survey is that it captures data at England’s nine regions. Findings will Survey of Museums since 2013-14. organisational, rather than Accredited contribute to estimates of the social and museum, level. Where NPO data has been economic impact of museums and also help Survey method submitted to represent multiple Accredited inform how SEMD, and other participant museums, the total value reported has been Museum Development providers, deliver distributed based on the weighting of support to museums. The data within this The survey was sent to all museums in the audience numbers of each of the Accredited report can enable museums to benchmark South East region who are fully Accredited, museum sites. themselves against a range of comparators. provisionally Accredited or formally Working Towards Accreditation. It was promoted via The survey asks museums to provide data for The methodology has been developed and SEMD’s website and through targeted e- the 2018-19 financial year (1 April-31 March). delivered by South West Museum bulletins. Museums were given the option of Financial data can be provided for a different Development (SWMD) with the intention of either online completion or a paper copy of the financial period, e.g. calendar year, which providing consistent data capture across survey. The majority of museums have museums are asked to indicate; all other data multiple regions to enable more effective participated via the regional online survey. should be presented for the 2018-19 period. advocacy and benchmarking. The survey has remained broadly consistent since 2012- Multi-site organisations were given the option The survey is divided into five sections: 13. In 2019 additional logic was introduced to either provide a response as a whole • Audiences to aid clarity around questions on finance organisation using a bespoke off-line form, or • Educational engagement and workforce. Survey questions have been by individual site; museums which provided a • Financial operations developed in consultation with museums multi-site response are highlighted on the • Workforce and considered approaches from pre- following page. • Equality, diversity and inclusion existing data collection exercises within the sector. 3 Sample and response 62% (149) of museums within the This is the second year in which the SWMD When considering the response, the following Accreditation scheme responded to this methodology for data collection from museum should be kept in mind: year’s survey. There are 241 Accredited service providers who operate multi-site • Not all museums responded to every museums in the region and a further 12 and/or co-located museum sites has applied a question Working Towards Accreditation (WTA). Four bespoke template rather than via the online • Percentages have been rounded to the of the 12 WTA museums provided a form. This approach was designed to provide nearest whole number response. As a result 60% of all Accredited more flexibility for organisations to report a • ‘Respondents’ or ‘Museums’ is every and WTA museums are considered within mix of service-wide and site-specific data. The museum who submitted a response this report. A further 21 museums core premise of the survey is determined by • Where differences are small and response participated, of which 13 Accredited individual Accredited museums sites, levels low, care must be taken when museums provided an insufficient partial therefore it was important to develop a interpreting the data along with a further eight non Accredited consistent approach to data provided from • Budget data must be viewed as museum. The number of Accredited multi-site and co-located organisations. approximate or indicative as different museums is taken from the Accreditation methodologies are used by museums and a statistics for June 2019, the date of the Site-wide data, which is collected centrally by number of museums operate a different Accreditation panel most recent to the the organisation rather than at site-level, has financial year than April – March period of the survey. been attributed to individual sites based on a ratio of audience numbers. This approach has Where a single museum site includes more Museums in the South East account for enabled an increased consistency of analysis than one Accredited museum collection and is 18% of all Accredited museums in England. across the data provided. For multi-site unable to provide data for the individual There has been an 9% increase in response responses, adjusted data has been recorded Accredited museum the organisation has rate between this and last year’s survey. as ‘estimate’ to reflect this intervention. been consulted in order to provide an estimate of the percentage of visitors In 2019 Arts council England revised the Data within this report is presented by the allocated to each respective site or, where categories for type of governance within the sub-regions that South East Museum this is not possible, data has been included as Accreditation statistics. The category for Development operates across: a single site and the overall total has been ‘Military’ has been removed and reallocated • Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire & Berkshire adjusted accordingly. to either Independent or to National. • Hampshire Solent Nine multi-site organisations provided survey • Kent & Medway returns, representing 43 museums, 29% of • Surrey, East and West Sussex the return rate. 4 Profile of respondents Figure 1: All Accredited museums by type 60% (153) of the 241 Accredited and 12 Working Towards Accreditation 6 10 (WTA) museums responded to this year’s survey. A list of respondent 5 National (n.6) museums is included at the end of this report. The response rate this year 25 University (n.10) is 9% higher than in 2017-18 which had participation of 51% of museums English Heritage (n.5) in the region. Military (N/A) Figures 1 and 2 present the type of museum within the region in 46 National Trust (n.25) comparison to the type of museum by respondents to this year’s survey. 149 The returns are broadly representative across the governance types and Local Authority (n.46) range from 20% for English Heritage to 75% for Independent museums. Independent (n.148) 59% of Local Authority museums participated in the survey. The type of museum applied is based on the UK Museum Accreditation Scheme,