SEVEN HUNDRED and ELEVENTH MEETING Minutes of the Meeting of the Trustees Held at the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday 20 February 2003
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SEVEN HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH MEETING Minutes of the Meeting of the Trustees held at the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday 20 February 2003 Present: Sir David Scholey (Chairman) Professor David Cannadine Ms Flora Fraser Professor Ludmilla Jordanova Mr Tom Phillips Ms Sara Selwood Miss Alexandra Shulman Sir John Weston Baroness Willoughby In attendance: Mr Sandy Nairne Mr Jacob Simon 1. Apologies for Absence Apologies were received from the Rt Hon. Robin Cook, Ms Amelia Fawcett, Sir Max Hastings, Professor Phillip King, Dr Christopher Ondaatje and Professor the Earl Russell. 2. Trustees The Chairman thanked Flora Fraser for her service as Vice Chairman. • THE TRUSTEES agreed to the appointment of David Cannadine as her successor as Vice Chairman. 3. Minutes of the Last Meeting The minutes of the meeting held on 21 November 2002 were approved. 4. Matters Arising The Director reported that the Management Statement/Financial Memorandum, the framework agreement between the Gallery and the DCMS, had now been signed, subject to a letter being appended to the document, with the agreement of the DCMS, clarifying the fact that the document could not be taken to override the Gallery's status as an exempt charity.Trustees would be sent a copy of the agreement and appended letter. 5. Director's Report The Director reported that it is proposed to bring the drawing of Lucian Freud, currently in David Hockney's exhibition at Annely Juda, to the May meeting of Trustees. The innovationof circulating a selection of press cuttings to Trustees was generally welcomed. There was a discussion of our expectations of the Americans and the JuliaMargaret Cameron exhibitions and the Trustees complimented Hazel Sutherland on her achievement in obtaining such extensive coverage for Cameron. 6. Vision and Objectives The Director presented his paper on the Gallery's vision and objectives and drew attention to his statement of six contributing strategic objectives. Apart from a request that the total income figures in Appendix A should be adjusted for inflation, the discussion focused on four main areas: • the notion of 'extending activity selectively' implied that by the time of the conclusion of the series of policy review papers we would be in a position to identify those activities to take on now and those to postpone or omit. In extending activity we should consider whether work could be outsourced, since adding new staffing had accommodation and personnel costs as well as the salary commitment. We should have a fallback position should the full programme not prove possible, and in any case we must avoid going into financial deficit. • broadening access as a Gallery aim broadly coinciding with DCMS objectives. We faced capacity limitations, for example with school groups, and a major focus would be on our activities around the country. • the inclusion of innovation as a theme led to a recognition that innovation, originality and imagination, were welcome characteristics of much of the Gallery's work but that innovation was not an end in itself. The calibre of the Gallery's staff gave rise to a willingness to innovate; this was a welcome feature in the interpretation of the collections, which encourages visitors to return to the Gallery to see portraits in a new light. • launching an endowment fund would be a challenge for the Gallery, requiring a major commitment at a difficult time for the economy; it was recognised that an endowment would need to be a long-term programme and that a more detailed paper incorporating the views and recommendations of the Development Board would be brought to Trustees later this year. • THE TRUSTEES welcomed the Director's paper. 7. Development and Communication: policy review paper Pim Baxter presented her paper on Development and Communication. She reported that Amelia Fawcett, the new Chairman of the Development Board, had suggested expanding the list of the Gallery's selling points to include innovation and sponsor and visitor satisfaction. Despite the downturn in the economy we were relatively well placed as an institution. Various issues were highlighted in the discussion: difficulties in retaining corporate members owing to the economic climate, the need to use our access to living artists and sitters in leveraging support and promoting the Gallery's image, the paramount importance of getting relationships right in fundraising and communication, the importance of harnessing current public interest in history, especially on television but also through history magazines, and the importance of a phased approach to reviewing brand identity with the aim of focusing on market potential. • THE TRUSTEES welcomed the policy review paper on Development and Communication. 8. Regional Strategy: policy review paper The Director presented a paper prepared jointly with Kathleen Soriano on the Gallery's regional strategy. He emphasised the five main strands of the regional strategy and reported that the Gallery was in the process of making a bid for additional government funding for regional activities this year under a recently announced DCMS/DfES Strategic Commissioning programme for national/regional partnerships. It was suggested that the Gallery should refer to a 'National Strategy' rather than a 'Regional Strategy' and that more publicity was needed at the Gallery itself about the extent of our regional programme. • THE TRUSTEES welcomed the policy review paper on Regional Strategy. 9. Portraits on Offer • THE TRUSTEES agreed to commit £100,000 from the Purchase Grant for 2003/4 towards funding the acquisition of the portrait of Omai, Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander. • THE TRUSTEES agreed the acquisition of the portraits on the attached list. 10. Commissions Sarah Howgate presented her paper on the current situation concerning commissions. The possibility of approaching Sam Taylor-Wood to do a portrait of David Beckham was discussed. It was requested that the annual process of seeking Trustee recommendations for commissions be put in hand in good time for the July Trustees meeting. 11. Business Plan 2003/4 Barbara Jotham presented the Budget for 2003/4 and the Business Plan. The Chairman and other Trustees asked about the extent of our forward commitments and suggested that the Gallery should produce a forward five-year plan of spending and investment needs. The Director welcomed the idea of such a forward plan, which would emerge naturally from the current round of policy review papers. • THE TRUSTEES approved the Budget for 2003/4. • THE TRUSTEES approved the Business Plan in principle, requesting that it be re- circulated once the DCMS Funding Agreement Performance Indicators were in place so that the Trustees could give final approval to the document at their next meeting. 12. Policy for Investment Fund The Trustees discussed the policy for the Investment and Contingency Fund. • THE TRUSTEES agreed to the use of £460,000 of the Investment and Contingency Fund for the one-off priorities identified within the 2003/4 Business Plan. • THE TRUSTEES agreed that the balance on the Investment and Contingency Fund should be maintained at a minimum of £250,000. • THE TRUSTEES agreed that authority should be delegated to the Director, in consultation with the Chairman or the Chairman of the Audit and Compliance Committee, to use this balance to smooth fluctuations on cyclical expenditure and take advantage of unexpected opportunities. • THE TRUSTEES agreed that a revised reserves policy be brought for approval to the next meeting of Trustees. 13. Delegation of Loans The Trustees discussed their responsibility for the approval of loans and asked that delegation of this responsibility be considered at the same time as a policy review paper on the programme of lending works to other institutions. 14. Risk Management Sir John Weston took the chair on the departure from the meeting of Sir David Scholey and of the vice-chairman. In view of the importance of Risk Management, he suggested that this item should come higher up the agenda in future to ensure that it received the full attention of Trustees. Sir John reviewed a number of the salient risks and said he was satisfied that Directing Staff were addressing them effectively. In particular he reported that appropriate steps were being taken to deal with risks relating to acts of terrorism (including a desktop exercise at the end of March), that the Business Recovery Plan should be completed in skeleton form by the end of March, that five days of the internal audit programme in 2003/4 would be devoted to the Business Recovery Plan and that we hoped to be able to take advice from the National Gallery procurement manager in order to meet EC regulations on procurement. It was requested that the detailed risk management register, with risks colour coded, be sent to Trustees and that a reference to the Gallery Loans Policy being brought to Trustees be added under 'follow-up action' in the register. • THE TRUSTEES noted the Risk Management Annual Report and approved the Risk Management Policy set out in the appendix to the report, as well as the progress in making the risk management framework effective during 2002/3. 15. Matters for Report The Financial Report, the PR and Development Report, the Building Report and the Education and Access Report were noted. The Director reported that there was a possibility of Deloitte & Touche becoming a major partner of the Gallery by sponsoring photographic displays for three years and possibly providing funds for photographic acquisitions or commissions. He reported on the successful progress of building works for the Regency Galleries and the Trustees complimented John Wykeham on his effective management of the programme. 16. Loans • THE TRUSTEES agreed the loans on the list of Applications for Loan. 17. Any Other Business The Trustees asked that their best wishes be sent to Christopher Ondaatje for his speedy recovery.