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ITEM CA10

CABINET – 17 JANUARY 2006

COGGES MANOR FARM MUSEUM

Report by Director for Social & Community Services

1. After notice from West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) that it would not renew its five-year agreement to operate Cogges Manor Farm Museum from April 2005, three options for the future of the Museum were considered by the Executive in September 2004:

• development in partnership with the Cogges Agricultural Heritage Museum Trust;
• retention as a resource for schools with a limited public opening season;
• closure to the public and mothballing the site.

3. The Executive selected the first option. This report summarises the progress since the previous report and assesses the future of the Museum.

Key Context

4. Cogges Manor Farm Museum is owned by the County Council. It is a scheduled ancient monument - a site of national importance, protected from development or change by the highest level of planning legislation. Archaeological evidence at Cogges documents over 2000 years of human history; Cogges Castle was the manorial home of Wadard, a knight who fought alongside William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings.
5. The museum is one of a small national network of ‘rural life’ museums. It interprets the agricultural and domestic history of the Cotswolds and is a major visitor attraction. It is an important venue for a range of cultural activities and family-oriented events for the local community. The museum is well used as an educational resource for schools, with around 5000 visits a year, providing a unique educational experience for children from Oxfordshire and surrounding counties.
6. The agreed mission and objectives of Cogges Manor Farm Museum are as follows:

• To preserve and interpret the historic site and its environment for the enjoyment of present and future generations
• To promote the legacy of Oxfordshire’s countryside and rural heritage
• To engage local communities in their heritage
• To attract visitors to benefit the local economy
• To provide a high quality and inclusive learning resource

7. The Executive decided to maintain the current level of service at Cogges, and to work with the Cogges Museum Trust on a major fund raising campaign in order to invest in improvements on the site, with the aim, over a period of time, of improving the visitor experience and reducing the overall cost of operating the museum to a stable position.
8. The total pressure on Oxfordshire County Council of the withdrawal of WODC funding from April 2005 (£196k) was partly offset by a single contribution from them of £60k. An additional £40k, for 2005 only, from the remaining development fund which the Oxfordshire County Council Development Officer had raised for the Manor House restoration in 1997, and earmarked for future developments in visitor facilities, has been allocated to revenue support. Consequently the net impact on the Cultural Services budget for 2005/06 has been an additional cost of £96,200.
9. The remaining £13k from the development fund was invested in the shop and café furniture and fittings over the closed season to update them and make them compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act. Advice on refitting the shop, stock selection and monitoring methods was taken from Retail Matters, leading consultants in the museum retail field. A new menu that is simpler to produce using the limited catering equipment and space available, together with better management of customer service and closer links between the Tea Room, the re-vamped gift shop and the museum as a whole have resulted in improved profit margins under a new Visitor Centre Supervisor, and £5000 more income over the summer months than in 2004.
10. Both visitor numbers (expected 27,000) and income (£107k) were well up in the 2005 season over 2004, nearly reaching the income targets, although they have not recovered to the pre-2001 highs when the refurbished Manor House opened. With reasonable summer weather, a full events programme, the popular Advent Weekend and March 2006 opening for schools, the final 2005/06 expenditure should not exceed the £96,200 budgeted. Additional income has also been raised through a new programme of evening events which has been very successful.
11. The plan on which the Executive’s 2004 decision was based relied on launching a fund-raising campaign to finance long term developments and visitor service improvements. In June 2004 the Cogges Museum Trust had voted unanimously to engage Development Partners as external fund-raisers for Cogges, to raise £1 million within 2 years. Subsequently, in view of the uncertainty of the current situation, the Trust commissioned a Feasibility Study for the fund-raising campaign.
12. The Feasibility report, produced in October 2004, identified a number of factors indicating that the target of £1m was too ambitious for Cogges at this stage. A more detailed strategic development plan was required following the Heritage Lottery Fund’s rejection of a bid for a the proposed new visitor centre on the car park site. The long term targets were too big to even start fundraising without a major start-up gift from an individual or a company of £500k. Local businesses are small and medium size, and there are not enough corporate business entertainment facilities at Cogges to attract large donations. No private benefactor could be identified. Unless these elements were in place, and there was a manager devoted to the fundraising campaign, Development Partners could not recommend embarking on this route.

Follow up Action

13. Investigating other management arrangements. Since September 2004, officers have continued investigations into alternative management arrangements which would transfer the risk and lower the cost to the Council. Several avenues have been tried:
    
    

1. As reported in Sept 2004, the Cogges Museum Trust as currently constituted would not be able to take on management of Cogges as an independent museum, a solution which would not in any case guarantee long term stability for the museum.
2. A Community Interest Company (CIC) was suggested, but the Solicitor to the Council advised that there would be no advantage to Cogges in the change of status.
3. English Heritage was approached and their regional officers made many visits to Cogges. Whereas the heritage merit of Cogges was not in doubt, nor its obvious attraction, English Heritage would not be prepared to take on the risk of operational management, even if ownership and responsibility for the repair and maintenance of the buildings remained with Oxfordshire County Council. However, their officers made some useful observations: the site has many unique selling points; it is not overstaffed for the range of activities and facilities; the events programme is lively, and about right for the amount of resources available to fund and produce them; and the turnover and profit in the shop and café are in line with their own attractions. However, even with a massive marketing campaign to kick start it, expanding membership substantially as a result of opening an attraction in a relatively unserved area of the country, and investing heavily in large events, their business manager could not expect that Cogges could break even from admissions and turnover over costs.
4. The National Trust came to the same conclusion, even adding in the use of volunteers in place of some of the paid staff.
5. We have consulted with a commercial attraction operator, which has expressed interest in a partnership over Cogges. Their directors of marketing, interpretation and development have visited Cogges, and also two members of their Board. We have not yet had a definite response or proposal from them.
   
   
14. Development Plan. The Museum Manager has prepared a new Development Plan (a copy is in the Members’ Resources Centre) to provide options for enhancing the visitor experience at Cogges and raising the level of visitors, turnover, and income. It sets out the targets for a programme of fund-raising. In order for Cogges to move ahead, its revenue funding needs to be assured for a period of three years, and resources devoted to marketing and developing the learning programmes for schools and groups. A small investment this season in a joint marketing campaign from Corporate and Cultural Services Marketing budgets showed a promising result from the offer of one free child admission with each voucher from the Oxfordshire Magazine. An application to the National Lottery is being prepared to fund further development of learning resources.
15. Looking for investment. The Museum Manager and the Cogges Museum Trust are approaching local businesses and developers with the Development Plan. Cogges should be able to benefit from Section 106 funding from housing developments, and the developer funding officers of the County Council have visited Cogges and seen the proposals.
16. Revenue estimates for 2005/06/07/08. The refurbished shop and café, and the new management are beginning to show results in the profitability of the trading operation at Cogges, and these targets can be modestly increased. With better marketing and promotion of events, the aim is to reach the target visitor attendances in 2006/07. There will not be the £60k contribution from WODC, or further support from the Cogges development fund in 2006/07, and consequently a pressure of £93,000 has been identified as a pressure not manageable within Cultural Services in the budget process for 2006/07.
17. Potential savings identified for 2006/07. Savings on staffing can be made by opening five days a week instead of six, from Tuesday to Saturday. The Sunday and Bank holiday Monday openings have become less busy and are the most costly to employ staff. Resources would be targeted at several ‘themed weekends’, such as the threshing weekend, over the season to attract visitors to specific weekend events. The evening events programme would be expanded, and these can be expected to provide income over costs. This would provide a saving of £11,467 over the season, lowering the gap to £81.5k, but assuming that income could be maintained.

Options

18. The Cabinet is invited to consider the following four options. The revenue funding implications are summarised in Annex 1 (download as .doc file).
19. A. Continuing development at Cogges with no change in the open season: This would build on the work already begun to improve visitor services and facilities, and enhance the programmes, events and activities to increase income. To increase attendances, resources would need to be targeted at marketing, and funds raised in partnership through the Cogges Museum Trust in order to enhance visitor facilities, the displays, interpretation, and the toilets. A three-year commitment to the Development Plan would be necessary to enable fundraising to take place.
20. B. Continuing development with a five-day week opening and specific themed weekends, as described in Paragraph 16: This would allow a saving of £11,467 on the weekend salaries costs. Marketing would be targeted at themed weekends, evenings and events over the summer when increased attendances should cover the extra staffing costs and show a profit on each activity. Spend in the shop and café would be more concentrated on the busy days and should continue to meet the targets. As in Option A, staff would work with the Cogges Agricultural Heritage Museum Trust to raise funds for development of visitor facilities over a three year period. This option would provide some savings, would be manageable, and would allow for future development and reinstatement of Sunday openings when visitor numbers warranted it.
21. C. Schools and Summer opening: a public open season of 6 weeks in the summer and school groups March – October and cessation of the farm operations. This represents a substantial cut back in the public service. The Museum Manager would run the programme for schools and the summer season, with limited administrative support and casual staff. Currently schools contribute approximately £16,500 towards the income target of £64k for admissions and July - August visitors represent 28% of the total year’s attendances. Therefore, there would be a substantial loss of public access and income with this opening pattern: expected income from admissions would be £29,420 against £64,000 target for this year.
22. The current visitor pattern consistently shows peaks in April, June, August and October. The savings would come from staffing, ceasing the farm operation and incidentals such as laundry; premises costs and repairs and maintenance would not decrease. Without the animals and events which are Cogges’ unique selling points, visitor numbers would be likely to decrease, especially if the café and shop were to close. There would be a once only income from the sale of the farm animals. The redundancy costs are difficult to estimate in advance, but would involve all of the visitor centre, farm and support staff. This is the most difficult option to market, to manage successfully, to procure the casual staff for, and to predict the net expenditure over costs; it carries substantial redundancy costs, and is overall the most risky, as income is likely to drop substantially and incrementally in the future with lack of development and new offers to visitors. The estimated costs are for limited public opening, without farm operations, animals and events but with a seasonal shop and café.
23. D. Closure of the museum to the public and mothballing the site with access by appointment only as required by English Heritage as a condition of its grants: This option would be expensive in terms of redundancies in the short term, and would still entail costs of premises, caretaking, some administration, care of collections housed there, security, repairs and maintenance. It would represent a total loss of amenities and service to the public while still incurring costs maintaining the Scheduled Ancient Monument, empty buildings, land and garden. Although there would be an ongoing cost of £62k, there would be a saving to Cultural Services of £34k which would assist in its contribution to corporate pressures.

Financial and Staffing implications

24. Options A and B would require additional revenue funding of £93k and £81.5k respectively to be identified through the County Council’s service and budget planning process. This is not within the flexibility of existing Cultural Services budgets, as £96k has already been allocated from 2005/06, and substantial savings from the service are required for 2006/07. The net savings achievable under Options C and D are shown in the preceding paragraphs.
25. The additional cost of retaining Cogges was identified as an expenditure pressure in the current budget process, and in the initial proposals submitted to the Health & Community Services Scrutiny Committee on 7 December 2005 the closure of the museum (ie Option D) was included as a proposed reprioritisation. This was not supported by the Scrutiny Committee – see their comments below.
26. Option D (as with Option C) would incur staff redundancies, not costed in detail at this time. All except a few of the shop and café staff are on permanent contracts, although their hours vary according to the seasonal opening times of the museum. This makes offering redeployment difficult to manage satisfactorily. Under Option C, it is unlikely that income could be maintained.
27. There are no implications for the County Council's capital programme in the choice of revenue option. In the event that the future operation of Cogges could be seen to be reasonably secure, then there would be a firm basis on which to build a long-term external fund-raising strategy to secure some of the capital developments envisaged in the Development Plan.

Health & Community Services Scrutiny Committee

28. The Committee on 7 December, in considering what advice to give on the budget, urged the Cabinet:

1. to ensure that Cogges Manor Farm Museum remains open to schools and to the public without any reduction to its opening hours, as it is of significant historical, cultural and educational importance; and
2. to ensure that more options are explored to enable the Museum to generate as much income as possible within the limitations of its status as an ancient monument."

29. The Committee made a number of suggestions regarding how the Museum could remain open on a Sunday and generate more income:

• the Oxfordshire Drama Network could be approached to discuss the possibility of contributing volunteers to enact scripted extracts from Victorian literature free of charge;
• further use of volunteers to staff the Museum on Sundays could be explored;
• the Oxfordshire Drama Wardrobe could be formally approached to lend a changing selection of costumes for display in the Manor House and to be used for Drama productions;
• people could be invited to adopt animals; and
• the Museum could be used for other activities, for example, a Museum of Stories.

30. The positive suggestions by the Scrutiny Committee for extending the range of activities at the museum, and potentially assisting with its funding, are welcomed.  Officers will follow up and evaluate these in the event that it proves possible to continue the operation of the museum (although it may be noted that the museum already has a programme with schools of adopting the farm animals.)

Conclusion

31. Option A is clearly to be preferred from a pure service delivery viewpoint, but is the most dependent on the identification of additional financial resources. Option B would provide a limited saving, and is manageable, although the proposed closure on Sundays and Mondays would provide less choice and access for people at times they might have free for cultural activity. The Executive resolved against agreeing the comparable Options C and D in 2004. Either of these options would lead to a complete cessation of the service in the long term and would represent a diminished choice of cultural activity for the people of Oxfordshire, reduced educational opportunities for schools, as well as a diminished legacy to the heritage of the county.
32. If the proposed reprioritisation goes ahead and Option D becomes a firm prospect, there will need to be urgent consultation with staff and stakeholders before closure is confirmed and detailed arrangements made for implementation.

32. The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

CHARLES WADDICOR
Director for Social & Community Services

Background Papers:
Fund-Raising Feasibility Report (October 2004)
Cogges Manor Farm Museum Development Plan

Contact Officer: Nancy Hood, Cultural Services, Tel: (01865) 810292

January 2006

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