India Divers, policy and campaigns officer, Museums Association looks at the impact on museums of the financial squeeze faced by most local authorities.

Over the last fifteen years, the landscape of council funding has drastically changed. Continuous cuts to local authority funding mean that councils now have much less money available to fund services. Sharp rises in inflation have worsened the situation with councils faced with difficult decisions about how to balance the books and distribute limited funding. As non-statutory services, museums are often one of the first services to be cut, seen as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a necessity.

The cost-of-living crisis has led to an increase in demand for statutory services such as social care which means that cultural services and museums are even more vulnerable to cuts. Rising inflation also means museums are experiencing increased operating costs across the board including for staff salaries, energy costs and building maintenance.

In 2021, the Museums Association (MA) published a report on Local Authority Investment in Museums after a Decade of Austerity. The findings from this research showed that across the whole of the UK, local authority spending on museums and galleries declined between 2009/10 and 2019/20 by 27% in real terms, from £426m to £311m. In England, local authority expenditure on museums and galleries declined by 34% in real terms, in Scotland by 23% in real terms and in Wales by 31% in real terms. We know that the situation has only become worse since 2021 due to the impact of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. 

The impact of these cuts on museum services has been a reduction in opening hours; a decrease in learning and community engagement activities; cuts to staff resulting in a loss of relationships and expertise; and in some cases, complete closure of museum sites. This is concerning especially when we know the important role museums play in their communities. As well as providing access to culture, history and science, museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and make us feel healthier. Museums can also help to raise awareness about the climate crisis and can play a key role in helping us to address difficult histories of empire and slavery. With society facing issues such as poverty, inequality, intolerance and discrimination, museums can help us understand, debate, and challenge these concerns.

Over the past decade many local authority museums have increased their earned income from retail, catering and events and moved towards more commercial operating models. However, there is a finite amount that can be raised from these activities, especially when local communities are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and are looking for free and low budget forms of engagement and entertainment. Public museums need public funding to look after collections and to engage and support communities.

In some cases, decades of funding cuts have put museums in a vulnerable position of managed decline and the reduction and closure of services are the only options. The MA has been active in advocating against cuts to museum services, including to the Museum of Cardiff where the local council was proposing to close the museum and turn it into a mobile attraction, putting the collections, jobs, and community engagement at risk. The effective advocacy campaign has led to the museum being given five-year stay of execution, however what happened in Cardiff is a warning sign for the fate of local authority museums across the UK if we do not take action now.

The MA believes that everyone should have the right to engage with and participate in museums and have access to a high-quality museum service near to where they live. To achieve this, museums across the UK urgently need strategic public investment to look after collections and buildings and to support learning, community engagement and health and wellbeing programmes.

It is clear that change to how culture is funded at a local level is needed. The MA has been working closely with the English Civic Museums Network which is developing a strategic response to long-term public funding issues in the form a ‘new deal’ for civic museums. While a straightforward solution is unlikely, innovative thinking is needed to secure the survival of much loved and much needed local institutions.

If this article was of interest, then check out our feature, 'How to fix local government finance'.