London Museum Hub Expenditure
Draft Letter to the Museums Association, re London Museum Hub Expenditure
I was startled to hear, at the recent London Museum Group meeting, that Archives, Libraries, Museums, London (ALM) had a mere £155,000 to implement its proposed Museum Development programme over the years 2006/7, while the London Museum Hub had a budget of £5.8m.
Of course these figures do not tell the entire story as the Hub are paying for the new Museum Development Officer network out of their £5.8m and the projects they support involve other Museums. As a member of the former Hub Advisory group I can vouch for the fact that the Hub have tried hard to make a reality of the 'trickle-down' effect to spread the benefit of Hub money. Also ALM have another £60,000 saved up to add to its total.
However, despite the best intentions of the Hub, the comparative figures do tell their own tale about the flawed logic of the whole Renaissance in the Regions project. Here we have an excellent Museum Development strategy put together by Ben Travers and ALM, with clear objectives and a relatively simple strategy, funded with peanuts. For example, they can spare only £45,000 towards a Collection Care programme, and £24,000 for Audience Monitoring. These sums do not go very far with a museum sector of some 200 museums.
The process also seems less than effective - MLA (the Museums, Libraries, Archives Council) seem to have imposed a hopelessly bureaucratic system on the HUB while the ALM strategy seems to have been far less painful to arrive at - and hence seems to me to be clearer and more strategic.
Just think what £5.8m given to implement the ALM strategy would have been able to achieve? At some point, the penny will drop that the whole idea of Hubs (particularly as implemented) is a complete nonsense - the idea should have been implemented via the regional agencies.
yours sincerely
Kevin Flude
Director
Readers, if you have no idea what a Museum Hub is click here
My opinion of Renaissance in the Regions and Museum Hubs
I was startled to hear, at the recent London Museum Group meeting, that Archives, Libraries, Museums, London (ALM) had a mere £155,000 to implement its proposed Museum Development programme over the years 2006/7, while the London Museum Hub had a budget of £5.8m.
Of course these figures do not tell the entire story as the Hub are paying for the new Museum Development Officer network out of their £5.8m and the projects they support involve other Museums. As a member of the former Hub Advisory group I can vouch for the fact that the Hub have tried hard to make a reality of the 'trickle-down' effect to spread the benefit of Hub money. Also ALM have another £60,000 saved up to add to its total.
However, despite the best intentions of the Hub, the comparative figures do tell their own tale about the flawed logic of the whole Renaissance in the Regions project. Here we have an excellent Museum Development strategy put together by Ben Travers and ALM, with clear objectives and a relatively simple strategy, funded with peanuts. For example, they can spare only £45,000 towards a Collection Care programme, and £24,000 for Audience Monitoring. These sums do not go very far with a museum sector of some 200 museums.
The process also seems less than effective - MLA (the Museums, Libraries, Archives Council) seem to have imposed a hopelessly bureaucratic system on the HUB while the ALM strategy seems to have been far less painful to arrive at - and hence seems to me to be clearer and more strategic.
Just think what £5.8m given to implement the ALM strategy would have been able to achieve? At some point, the penny will drop that the whole idea of Hubs (particularly as implemented) is a complete nonsense - the idea should have been implemented via the regional agencies.
yours sincerely
Kevin Flude
Director
Readers, if you have no idea what a Museum Hub is click here
My opinion of Renaissance in the Regions and Museum Hubs
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