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ITEM EX11

EXECUTIVE - 14 OCTOBER 2003

SCRUTINY REVIEW OF THE COUNTY MUSEUMS SERVICE

Report by Director for Learning & Culture

1. This report responds to the recommendations made in the Scrutiny Review of the County Museums Service (OCMS) which were accepted (amended in respect of Recommendation 9) by the Executive on 8 July 2003. It outlines proposals and budget implications for implementing the recommendations.

R1: Commend existing partnerships and encourage the new Director of Learning & Culture to look for ways to strengthen the network in order to gain most advantage from its critical mass.

2. The fact that the Scrutiny Review has endorsed the existing partnership arrangements will, in itself, help to strengthen the network; in addition a number of the recommendations in the Review, particularly R4 and R5, will help all the partners to gain from the critical mass of the service. If all the recommendations in the Review are implemented this will ensure that the network is encouraged and supported. The Whole Service Inspection recently completed by the Audit Commission has suggested possible improvements to the operation of these services and these will be developed further through the Best Value Review of these services; in particular strengthening the integration of heritage services within Oxfordshire County Council should help all the services.
3. Two of the service level agreements (SLA) between the OCMS and ‘district museums’ are due for renewal this year (after 5 years). With West Oxfordshire District Council there is some discussion about details of the lease arrangements; and with the Vale and Downland Museum Trust there has been a meeting, with the South East Museums Libraries and Archives Council, to review the SLA. Both museums welcome and support the strengthening of the OCMS and in both cases it is anticipated that the arrangements will continue for a further period.

R2: Address the shortfall in resources for digitising the collection that is likely to prevent the target in the Oxfordshire Plan 2003 to have electronic access to 100% of our services by 2005.

4. Although some progress has been made with the digitisation of images of the collections only a very small proportion of the collection is available on the web to date and progress, within existing resources, is too slow to meet the Oxfordshire Plan target. At the same time OCMS and the other heritage services are missing opportunities to join collaborative projects to publish collections on the web. A bid for ‘digitisation of photos and collections’, which would provide funding for OCMS and the Centre for Oxfordshire Studies (where the Oxfordshire Photographic Archive is housed), is included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals for 2004/05.
5. An application is being prepared to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for a project to digitise collections and information relating to the Witney Blanket Industry. This project has been supported enthusiastically by the West Oxfordshire Schools partnership and by advisory teachers. The project will meet History Key Stage III targets, as well as being a valuable resource for community learning. OCMS has recently received a request to join a project to create digital content about the Second World War – again this would be a subject of great interest to local schools.
6. Other opportunities for externally funding such projects will be sought. The budget bid for ‘heritage access partnerships’ to provide a small fund of pump-priming money towards such partnership projects is included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals.

R3: Extend the Oxfordshire Community Network to include the Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock and the Standlake Store and to facilitate the connection of the District Councils and independent museums; furthermore to provide sufficient capacity centrally for storage of the digitised images of the Oxfordshire collection.

7. During the course of the Scrutiny Review an application was submitted to the South East Museums Libraries and Archives Council (SEMLAC) for a grant towards connecting the Oxfordshire Museum to the Oxfordshire Community Network. The offer of the grant was time-limited and this has led to the Oxfordshire Museum being brought forward in the programme; connection to OCN was completed for office computers in August and work on the public service computers (in the Learning Centre) is continuing into September.
8. The Oxfordshire Museums Store is in the programme for connection to OCN. Corporate ICT estimate that the Store will be connected by the end of January 2004. Connections to other sites will follow.
9. Storage capacity for digitised images has been increased and should be sufficient for some time; OCMS is working with Corporate ICT to identify a suitable software programme to manage the databases of images and related information.

R4: Request that the Museums Joint Working Group’s current constitution and terms of reference are revisited with a view to recognising OCMS’s key role in overseeing strategic museums development in the County, to agree a strategy for the Service and as a means to improving and developing partnership arrangements including independent and University of Oxford museums.

10. The Museums Joint Working Group (MJWG) will consider the implications of the Scrutiny Review as a whole at its next meeting on 21 October. The constitution and terms of reference will be revisited as recommended. A draft report to the MJWG which addresses these particular issues is attached.

• to address the need to strengthen the OCMS’s ability to offer a conservation service to the districts.

11. Paragraph 58 of the Scrutiny Review highlights the current pressures on staff and particularly the tension between the care of collections in the district museums (to generate income) and the work on the ‘county’ collection. The highest priority identified is for an additional conservation post. This additional post at the Oxfordshire Museums Store would relieve pressure on existing staff and support outreach and community use of the collections throughout Oxfordshire. Funding for the post is included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals.

• to liaise with the District Councils to strengthen the principle of the shared curatorial arrangement, but to reduce the load from 25% of the curators/managers time to a more readily manageable 20% (ie 1 day per week on average).

12. Paragraphs 59-66 of the Scrutiny Review describe and analyse the difficulties of managing the current arrangements. A reduction of the time commitment from the curators of 25% to 20% is welcomed and is certainly more realistic; however this will reduce the overall curatorial time available to the county collection. The suggestion of a new tier of management in paragraph 64 is welcomed and this Senior Curator post could both manage the curatorial team more effectively and provide overall management at the Oxfordshire Museums Store. Funding for the post is included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals.

• to use the opportunity of the amalgamation of the previous Education and Cultural Services’ departments and the appointment of the Cultural Entitlement Officer to provide greater strategic co-ordination of education/access/outreach/marketing activities within those Districts that have their own education staff and provide a consultancy type service to those Districts that do not.

13. The amalgamation of the previous Education and Cultural Services departments has helped to focus attention on joining learning and culture. The Cultural Entitlement Officer has initiated new work across all cultural services and is working with Education Advisers, schools and children to develop the ‘Entitlement’ concept. She has worked with the Children in Care team (Summer holiday activities) and with Youth Services (an application to the Young Roots Heritage Lottery Fund scheme) and consulted schools on their needs.
14. An application to the Heritage Lottery Fund to create a first class education facility at the Oxfordshire Museum and to fund a museum education officer for 5 years has been successful, and, building on the successful pilot Culture Bus project, a business plan has been prepared to launch a new Loans Service to Schools (see R8 below). The Scrutiny Review identifies a need to provide greater strategic coordination of this work; such a development would be welcomed by the District museums and by the independent museums throughout Oxfordshire. A part time post could offer that strategic coordination, leaving some time for consultancy work for those museums that do not have their own museum education staff. Funding for such a post is included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals.

R6: Re-name the Museums Store as ‘The Museums Resource Centre, Standlake’, the Museum Centre @ Standlake or by another appropriate suggestion, and to instruct the Director for Learning & Culture to explore ways of achieving greater public access to Standlake including many more open days and school visits.

15. The proposal to rename the Store is welcomed by staff and will help to signal a change of policy, particularly increasing access to the public. The preferred names suggested are: The Museum Resource Centre, Standlake or The Collections Centre, Standlake.
16. An additional Open Day was arranged in the Summer holidays this year (Saturday 16 August) as a result of the additional funding received in the current financial year. Again the event proved popular, with about 100 visitors, and evaluation demonstrated high levels of satisfaction, with 90% of visitors scoring their tour as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. But the current arrangements for tours are not cost effective, as 5-6 staff are needed to cope with each Open Day. It is proposed to review the tour arrangements to reduce the staffing needed; that together with the additional posts identified in R5 would allow significantly more Open Days in future.
17. The relocation of the museum workshop from the Oxfordshire Museum to the Store, improving the efficiency of the workshop functions and allowing the creation of the museum education centre (funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund) at the Oxfordshire Museum, will limit the space available for school groups at the Store in the short term. It is therefore proposed to promote school visits for the time being particularly at the Oxfordshire Museum. In due course, the extension of the Store (see R7 below) will enable public access to the reserve collections and provide opportunities to offer a rich educational experience for school visits there too.

R7: Instruct the Director of Learning & Culture and the Director of Resources to produce an action plan for the completion of the second phase of development of the Museums Store.

18. When the Museum Store was built in 1993 it was estimated that it would be able to house the planned growth of collections over the following ten years. Strict adherence to the acquisition policy and limitations on new acquisitions have allowed some leeway, but the Store is almost full, and meanwhile some important collections are at risk. A meeting was held in July with the Heritage Lottery Fund’s South East regional officer to discuss an application for funding Phase II. The Store extension has been identified as the highest priority, in terms of bids to the HLF, for capital schemes for Cultural Services. The HLF officer said that the Oxfordshire Museum capital works should be completed and the educational work be well underway before an application for the Store extension would be considered; the earliest date for submission would therefore be 2005. The officer also said that an ‘adequate financial contribution’ from the local authority would be needed to lever another substantial HLF grant.
19. The estimated cost of the extension is £2 million. A bid of £100,000 has been included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals for 2005/6 as a local contribution towards the Store; some local fund raising will be possible to add to that sum. The Action Plan will therefore start with the preparation of a bid to the HLF in the Autumn of 2004; fund raising and negotiations with HLF are likely to continue through 2005; with 2006 as the likely start date for work on site, and aiming for completion in 2007.

R8: Instruct the Director to address how a new Loans Service may be offered.

20. Following a period of consultation with schools and support from advisory teachers which demonstrated widespread support for a loans service, a business plan has been prepared for the launch a new Loans Service. It is proposed to build on the successful pilot Culture Bus project which demonstrated that similar collections can be used to promote creativity and learning in schools, and interest and reminiscence with target communities including rural communities, minority groups, the elderly in day care and residential homes. It is proposed that the service will provide cross-sectoral cultural collections from museums, local studies and archives. SEMLAC has provided a grant to audit the Loan Service collection over the Summer, an application has been submitted to Leader Plus (West Oxfordshire District Council) for core funding for the first year, and a request has been made to the South East Museums Hub for longer term financial support from 2005/6. The budget to establish the service has been included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals as a high priority.

R9: (Amended as adopted by the Executive) in implementing a Tourism Strategy to give clarity to marketing museums within the county and identify an appropriate marketing budget for the County Museums Service; and to support the Oxford Inspires Programme.

21. The Tourism Strategy and Action Plan for the City and County of Oxford 2003-2008 (Oxford Inspires), published in March 2003, illustrates very clearly the importance of tourism to Oxfordshire’s economy. The network of museums and heritage locations throughout Oxfordshire contribute significantly to the attraction of the county as a destination of choice to both day visitors and longer-stay holiday makers. The County Museums Service can and should contribute towards meeting the objectives outlined in the action plan: eg establishing an Oxfordshire Brand, encouraging visitors to Oxford to extend their visit to other parts of the county, developing a countywide partnership, creating a strong "www" presence for Oxfordshire, encouraging repeat visits, liaison with Tourist Information Centres, and exploiting tourism’s potential for community regeneration and learning.
22. The Cultural Strategy for Oxfordshire Action Plan identifies objectives (nos 29 & 30), Cooperative marketing and audience development initiatives and A shared strategic plan for sustainable tourism; measures of success include ‘new audiences gained as result of initiatives’, ‘better distribution of visits and spend across county’; and ‘small and medium sized tourism enterprises created or protected’. Consideration is being given to the idea of an ‘Oxfordshire Heritage Festival’ if ideas for a festival year go ahead.
23. The County Museums Service will work with the proposed Tourism Development Manager. In particular the OCMS will continue to support the Oxfordshire Museums Council’s annual publicity leaflet for Museums and Galleries in Oxfordshire and the associated website. A budget for marketing is included in the Learning & Culture budget proposals for 2004/5.

R10: Address how the various museums in Oxfordshire should accredit the important role of OCMS (‘badging’ issues as we have termed them) in liaison with other Directorates and District partners.

24. The Scrutiny Review identified the need to see acknowledged more clearly the role of the County Museums Service countywide, particularly at sites which may not be owned by the County Council but where the County Museums Service plays a significant role (eg providing the museum collections). It is proposed to raise this issue at the Museums Joint Working Group meeting in October and to recommend the new branding of the Oxfordshire museums network – possibly as ‘Oxfordshire Museums Partnership’ - this could be followed by commissioning a new logo. The new logo could also be used to promote touring exhibitions and other partnership projects. Preliminary discussions with the District museums indicate that there is support for this idea.

R11: Ask the Director of Learning & Culture to produce an action plan to express his vision for the development of the Museums Service in accordance with the analysis supplied within [the Scrutiny Review] report, especially with regard to effectively joining up ‘learning’ and ‘culture’.

25. The Scrutiny Review has received widespread support throughout the OCMS and from the partners and other stakeholders. Following the Review, the Whole Service Inspection by the Audit Commission has indicated some areas for improvement for museum and heritage services, particularly the strengthening of integration between the heritage services; both the Review and the Inspection are informing the Best Value Review of heritage services which has just started. The BVR will develop a vision for the heritage services both individually and collectively, informed by consultation with the public and with the involvement of staff, elected members and partners; this vision will include an Action Plan. It is therefore proposed that rather than preparing an Action Plan now, without the benefit of the BVR process, the two will be combined.

RECOMMENDATIONS

26. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

1. note and (subject to (b) below) endorse the progress made and planned in implementing the Scrutiny Review recommendations;
2. note that further progress on a number of the recommendations from the Scrutiny Review will be subject to allocation of funding in 2004/05 and subsequent years.

Background Papers: Nil

Contact officer: Martyn Brown, County Museums and Heritage Officer, tel: 01993 814114

September 2004

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