A Relinquishing Of City Council
Cultural Control And The Freedom To Manage: Sheffield Galleries
and Museums Trust
Introduction
North American cities are familiar with the Trust
structure as a means of public sector engagement in cultural services,
representing one feature of the landscape; however in Europe the
experience is very different. National and local government are
the landscape, playing the dominant role in cultural provision,
with local government at regional level being the single most important
source of funding (Bretton Hall 1999). This is a long tradition
found not only in the United Kingdom but also in Germany, France,
the Benelux countries and Mediterranean states. It comes then as
something of a surprise to find a large and well established city
council, Sheffield, breaking the conventions of local authority
practice in the cultural field by divesting the direct provision
of galleries and museums to an independent trust. This is even more
unusual when the city has been politically dominated by a succession
of Labour administrations since 1945, with only a recent change
to Liberal Democrat control in May 1999.
It is a proud northern city of 530,000 people with
a long history of steel and cutlery making which has suffered from
a serious decline over the years in these activities with the consequent
job loss and resultant shrinking of the local economy. Pressure
on spending limits continues for those areas outside education and
social services, where much of the recent funding additions have
been targeted.
Net Expenditure1998/99£444,000,0001999/00£474,000,0002000/01£492,000,000
There is an inevitability given these circumstances that the city
council would give careful consideration to all its services, including
cultural services, as to their cost effectiveness and efficiency.
This has resulted in a decade of cost cutting with the obvious negative
impact on the managers operating these services.
Regenerating the economy of the city, the priority,
has involved the establishment of a cultural quarter; building a
substantial sports and entertainment infrastructure for the World
Student Games; and working in partnership with national government
to support existing businesses to modernise and to attract inward
investment through the Sheffield Development Corporation. Negotiations
were also opened with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, (due
to the failure of the Bradford city council bid) to establish a
northern outlet in Sheffield city centre as part of the “heart
of the city” regeneration project. City Council resources
have as a consequence been drawn away from the traditional services
such as museums and galleries. This lack of investment and actual
reduction in revenue budgets was diagnosed by the cultural managers
as a long and lingering illness with a very uncertain prognosis.
The preferred alternative to a “slow and
uncertain death” of a once proud and nationally well-respected
city council service was the establishment of a trust. It was almost
an inevitable outcome given the pressures described earlier and
historical familiarity with the trust “vehicle”, not
least the giving of individual donations and collections to the
city council in trust. In effect it can be seen as the wheel of
history turning full circle because the Mappin Gallery collection
which is a core component of the Sheffield Galleries and Museums
Trust was given in trust to the city council due to the financial
stability, certainty, skills, and stewardship offered at the time.
This historical perspective was reinforced with the recent experience
gained by the council in establishing trusts to operate sports and
leisure facilities which generated a receptive political climate
for the idea of a trust for galleries and museums.
The City Council Gallery
and Museum Service
The city council arts and museums service prior
to the establishment of the trust comprised Bishop's House, the
City Museum, Graves Art Gallery , Mappin Art Gallery , Ruskin Gallery,
Kelham Island Industrial Museum and Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet.
In addition the service was responsible for off-site storage of
the collections which could not be housed and displayed in the galleries
and museums. The staff employed totalled 55 and the annual City
Council support for 1997/98 was £1.28m, supplemented by £341k
from Arts Council stabilisation funding.
The arts (incorporating galleries and museums)
were one of three divisions, including libraries, which formed the
Leisure Services Directorate in 1993 under the leadership of Keith
Crawshaw who reported to the leisure services committee of the council.
Prior to the establishment of the Leisure Services Directorate there
had been four cultural services: libraries; arts; galleries, and
museums, all with three separate chief officers reporting to the
libraries and arts committee chaired for many years by Councillor
Enid Hattersley, a politically powerful and well established figure
in the city.
Councillor Hattersley retired in 1983/4 and so
did the chief officer for galleries, thus leading the way to further
change. This resulted in the creation of the post of Director of
Arts, which ultimately led to the merging of the museums, galleries,
and arts services in1995. Since 1983, with no clear political champion,
there has been a general decline in these services with a resultant
reduction in the number of visitors enjoying the museums, galleries
and libraries. In addition, internal reorganisation of the services
led to staff not being replaced and significant annual cash reductions
in the expenditure budgets. There were also the inevitable constraints
for council managers, on borrowing and trading activities as well
as restrictive legal frameworks.
The general decline was accelerated in the early
'90s with the closing and/or transfer of sports centres to trusts
or contracting out of services to private sector management teams.
In the case of the museums and galleries the progressive
reduction in resources and staff reorganisation resulted in the
collapse of the quality of the temporary exhibition programme and
the inability to acquire works of art and objects for the collections.
Goodwill was stretched to the limit and the curatorial staff used
all their networks to borrow works of art and objects to be able
to mount temporary exhibitions as an important means of articulating
the permanent collections and attracting visitors. There was no
investment in information technology; opening times were drastically
reduced and at one stage serious consideration was given to closing
down the Graves and Mappin Galleries with compulsory redundancies.
This was blocked by a combination of the force of public opinion
and the trade unions directly involved.
In wider council terms the servicing of the capital
debt used to build the sports facilities for the World Student Games
(as a contribution to regenerating the city) was becoming increasingly
burdensome, particularly as the Conservative national government
placed more and more constraints on councils. This restricted borrowing
and also included progressive annual reductions in the grant aid
from central government as well as control over local taxation.
However, national government encouraged the contracting out of services.
Setting Up the Sheffield
Galleries And Museums Trust
It became clear that the use of the trust vehicle
was a real political option due to the positive experience gained
through the transfer of the sports and leisure facilities. Not least
rate relief could be gained as well as providing a means of protecting
the service from further council cuts. It also had the potential
to enable the services to grow.
The councils’ view of trusts was explained
by Keith Crawshaw, the Director of Leisure Services, as:
the trust can produce a more focused approach to
service delivery, and business development opportunities may be
more available utilising other experiences and resources
opportunities may arise to involve a wider group of stakeholders,
for example local community interests, in managing the business
by involvement on the management board
the trust may have access to external resources both revenue and
capital which are not available to the local authority
it has potential to develop new ways of working in an external environment
cash savings can be made where the trust can benefit from charitable
NNDR relief provisions and VAT relief.
However the negative aspects of a trust approach
to the galleries and museums were also recognised by him:
the need to sustain ongoing management input and
capacity to sustain relationships
the problems of making trusts properly accountable for the spending
of public monies or the use of public resources because under trust
arrangements direct control by the city council cannot be exercised
cost savings are not always evident and additional costs are often
incurred in the short term as a result of legal and accountancy
requirements
legislation may preclude the city council from having direct control,
relationships will need to be built using influence rather than
control
charitable NNDR relief depends upon fairly strict statutory tests
and it is not achievable for every aspect of leisure provision.
It will depend upon whether the charity is in rateable occupation
and the use to which the premises are put. To qualify may require
that the whole model of occupation of a particular facility may
need alteration thereby affecting income potential.
Quite apart from assessing these advantages and
disadvantages, the council had to decide on the appropriate trust
model if it wished to proceed. It was generally felt that a charitable
trust was the preferred option although consideration was given
to management buyouts, and worker controlled industrial provident
societies. It was also recognised that external funding agencies
such the regional arts and museum bodies would need to be consulted
to ensure that their current funding partnership with the city could
be accommodated in any future arrangements.
Running parallel with these internal discussions,
an approach was made to include the council’s arts activities
(including galleries and museums) in the Stabilisation Programme,
a national lottery fund administered by the Arts Council. The application
for £1.15m over four years was successful and work commenced
in 1997. The grant came with conditions and the stabilisation programme
specified:
the award is made to the Sheffield City Council
on condition that once the Trust (Sheffield Galleries and Museums
Trust) is legally constituted as a limited company with charitable
status and takes control the benefits and conditions will be transferred
to the Trust
Sheffield City Council has committed to continue its core funding
of £1,050,848 per annum for the next three years to the end
of March 2001 and will additionally guarantee a realistic minimum
grant for the following seven years to allow the trust to plan effectively
Sheffield City Council also commits to providing the ongoing transfer
of funds for support costs, from the building budget, Arts Directorate
budget and the Heart of the City fund as outlined in the stabilisation
strategy submitted in June 1997.
The stabilisation fund required the establishment
of the trust, by the city council, as a limited company with charitable
status and this provided the spur for the council to take the final
decision to proceed with divesting itself of the galleries and museums
service. In so doing the city council agreed to provide funding
of £1.21m for 1998/99, £1.51m for the next two years,
followed by an amount of £1.51m for the next three years of
the trust’s operation. This it was agreed that a reasonable
or realistic minimum grant for the next four years.
Similarly a city council application to the Millennium
Commission to build a new £13m gallery, the Millennium Galleries,
in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the
city centre regeneration (“Heart of the City”), was
also in the process of being approved. The purpose of this gallery
was to display major exhibitions from the collections of the Victoria
and Albert Museum. The council also had to determine the most effective
means of managing this project and decided to include the Millennium
Gallery in the trust arrangements under consideration.
Approval was given by the council to commence the
setting up of the trust in May 1997 with a view to completing the
transfer in January 1998 and the Sheffield Galleries and Museums
Trust established as a legal entity by 1st April 1998.
It is worth noting here that the industrial museums were excluded
from the Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust . In the case of
the Kelham Island Industrial Museum this was set up as an independent
trust in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University and also included
the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. The industrial museum trust became
the Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust in April 1998.
An equally important decision was taken by the
council when setting up the trust, that there would be no transfer
of the collection assets, significantly the collections remain in
council ownership for the benefit of the people of the city. Amongst
other considerations it was recognised that this was an important
control which could be sustained through a collection agreement.
The buildings also had controls exercised through the lease arrangements
although all non – building and non – collection related
assets passed from city council control to the trust. This led to
determining levels of accountability and it was thought that this
could be achieved by:
the city council influencing the objects of the
trust and /or articles of association for any trading arms which
may be established
the provisions of any leasing arrangements that will be put in place
with regard the use of city council property and assets
the terms of any funding agreements.
An example of this is that the council has insisted
that the existing galleries and museums remain free at entry to
the public although the trust can charge entry to temporary exhibitions.
There was a further suggestion that the equivalent
of national government's Public Accounts or Select Committees should
be established to undertake the monitoring of the trusts and carry
out detailed appraisals of their activities.
In effect the city council were agreeing to the
transfer of the management of its galleries and museums to a trust
and providing a guaranteed income over an agreed period of at least
a minimum of six years and maximum of ten years with assets remaining
in council ownership with the buildings leased back to the trust.
The leases offered to the trust were not commercial, but financially
nominal, that is at no cost to the trust. The trust could negotiate
for a further four years funding beyond the six years thus providing
a ten-year period to deliver the mission and objectives of the trust
on behalf of the council. Building repair and maintenance remained
the responsibility of the council.
The management of the collections was the subject
of a separate but related agreement between the council and the
trust. This covered conservation care, research, display, interpretation,
loans, and curatorial responsibilities (including acquisitions and
disposals).
The council put in motion the legal actions needed to set up the
trust and also approached individuals who would be willing to become
trustees. Sir Hugh Sykes, a well-respected local businessman with
extensive public service experience was chosen and accepted the
position of chair of the trust. It also began the process of appointing
a director to the trust. Dr Gordon Rintoul, whose knowledge and
experience of independent trusts was recognised (having established
the Catalyst: the Museum of the Chemical Industry), was appointed
as the Chief Executive in January 1998.
The Sheffield Galleries
and Museums Trust
The trust formally came into being in April 1998
as a registered charity and limited company with the purpose of
managing the non-industrial museums and galleries in Sheffield on
behalf of the city council. These were the Graves Art Gallery, Ruskin
Gallery, the City Museum, Mappin Art Gallery, and the Bishop’s
House. The trust is expected to take over the management of the
Millennium Galleries when it is opened in the spring of 2001. The
board of trustees number between 11 and 14 members and the day to
day responsibility for the operation of the trust is delegated to
the chief executive and the management team.
The vision for the trust
is:
“To be one of the leading gallery and museum
organisations in the United Kingdom”
(Enriching the Future, corporate plan 1999 – 2002, Feb.1999)
The mission, which flows from this, is as follows:
“To enrich the lives of our audiences by:
providing imaginative exhibitions and displays
of regional, national, and international importance of interest
to local people and visitors to the city the development of innovative approaches to interpretation, education,
and enhancing public access the provision of exceptional customer service the care, preservation and development of collections.”
(Enriching The Future corporate plan 1999 – 2002, February
1999)
Strategic aims and objectives have been developed
which are intended to articulate the mission and these include:
the creation of a programme of high quality exhibitions
and displays which meet the needs of local people and visitors to
the city
to generate the widest possible understanding and enjoyment of the
Collections and exhibitions through the development of effective
educational and public programmes
to improve the operation of the sites in the care of the trust and
their facilities to enhance the service offered to users
to increase public awareness and the use of the trust’s resources,
services and facilities through effective marketing
to document, store preserve and research our collections to the
recognised professional standards
to manage and develop human, and administrative resources in the
pursuit of the mission and the aims of the trust
At transfer the trust took responsibility for 55
staff and up to March 2000 has an establishment of 70, with 32 male
and 38 female, and which includes 19 part time staff. It is anticipated
that this will rise to 80 when the Millennium Galleries, with its
800-m2 temporary exhibition space opens.
In financial terms the trust commenced life with
an annual grant of £1.21m followed by £1.40m for a further
two years and £1.51m for the next three years, guaranteed
for three years with an agreement to provide a further £0.5m
to manage the Millennium Galleries. In addition the trust receives
£1.15m from the Arts Council Stabilisation Fund up to 2002.
It is, then, in the remarkable position of knowing that it has a
guaranteed income of £2.6m over a three-year period. This
has advantages for the managers of the trust particularly in terms
of stability, and in planning with confidence, which is important
for temporary exhibitions and trading activities.
The range of the collections in the care of the
trust fall into five key areas:
Social History
Archaeology
Decorative Arts
Visual Arts
Natural History
The trust also has in care the collection of the
Guild of St George, which was originally assembled by the great
Victorian thinker John Ruskin.
The total accessioned collection amounts to 674,446
items with the largest numbers in natural and social history, which
is not unusual in a large municipal museum and gallery service in
the UK.
The city museum houses the decorative arts, archaeology,
and natural history collections. The museum started life in 1875
in Weston House, a private residence situated in extensive parkland
purchased by the city to become the first public museum known as
the Weston Park Museum. The surrounding gardens became a public
park and in 1937 the museum was rebuilt and greatly enhanced by
physically attaching it to the adjoining Mappin Art Gallery.
The Mappin Art Gallery was the first public gallery
to be opened in Sheffield in 1887 and originally housed the collection
of the local brewer and benefactor, John Newton Mappin.
In 1940 the gallery was bomb damaged and in 1964 the original Victorian
galleries were restored and new galleries built which now house
contemporary art exhibitions.
The Graves Art Gallery, situated above the central
library in the centre of the city, is a purpose built gallery comprising
eight galleries of differing sizes. Alderman J. G. Graves was the
benefactor and presented his collection to the city and the 20th
century collection is housed here.
The Ruskin Gallery was established in 1985 to house
the John Ruskin collection, which was originally founded in 1875
in the St George’s Museum in a small cottage in Walkley, a
suburb of Sheffield. This collection of international importance
is to be rehoused in the Millennium Gallery.
Bishops’ House is a grade II* 17th century
town house situated in Meersbrook Park and was acquired by the city
council in 1976. Although none of the original furniture survives,
the house has collections, which interpret both the building and
the Tudor and Stuart periods.
The Management and Financing
of the Trust
The organisation and management structure of the
trust is a conventionally hierarchical model and one expected to
be found for trusts with similar aims and objectives. The management
team comprises the Chief Executive, the Exhibitions and Collections
Manager, the Finance and Administration Manager, the Education and
Public Programmes Manager, and the Operations Manager. All other
staff are designated to these managers. This is explained in figure
1.
Figure 1: Management Team
The management team reflects the organisational
structure found in figure 2, which again follows similar lines to
that of other independent museums and galleries.
Figure 2: Organisation Structure
EMBED OrgPlusWOPX.4
It is the lines of reporting and the freedom to
act to realise the trust’s approved business plan, which differentiate
the management of the trust from that of the city council. The Chief
Executive has far greater flexibility to deliver the objectives
of the business plan and is only accountable to the Chairman and
Board of Trustees. He does not have to act as a local council officer,
with limited executive powers and extensive reporting lines to sub
committees, committees and the council, as well as the chief executive
of the council. In other words a chief officer of the city council
is expected to serve two masters, the councillors (politicians)
and the executive of the council. The primary function of the council
is to deliver public services to the highest standards for the benefit
of the city. Inevitably, because it is a public service using public
money, levels of access and accountability are high.
On the other hand the trust Chief executive is
employed to deliver “day to day responsibility for the operation
of the trust” and is accountable to the board of trustees
as mentioned earlier.
The Chairman of the Trustees is accountable to
fellow trustees, the charity commissioners and the various stakeholders
including the city council who financially support its work. There
is no direct public accountability as found in city council services.
It is a far simpler system but this freedom to act comes with strings
attached.
Conditions, which form part of the agreements with the funding agencies,
have to be met, timescales matter, and there is no one to bail out
the trust if it gets into financial difficulties through its activities,
including trading. In a public service environment risk is minimised.
And it is unheard of for a city council to become bankrupt.
The funding of the trust has been briefly touched
on, however the figure 3 describes the projections over a three-year
period.
Figure 3: Income and Expenditure
1998/19991999/20002000/2001Total
Income1,770,1452,205,5222,214,344
Total
Expenditure1,708,7862,165,4432,164,114
Source: S. Roodhouse, April 2000
These total income projections rely on grant aid
from the Stabilisation Fund , the city council, and the Heart of
the City regeneration programme. The planned projections recognise
that the stabilisation fund will cease, and this shortfall is expected
to be replaced by an increase in private sponsorship, other public
sector grants, and trading activities. It is also expected that
the management of the Millennium Galleries and additional revenue
grant being given to the Trust for this purpose will assist in ameliorating
the shortfall. However, within these projections are modest steady
growth estimates for trading activities from the shops and specific
exhibition admission fees, as well as sponsorship. These trading
activities were at minimum levels when operated within the city
council. It is expected that retailing, selling of reproduction
rights, catering, room hire, corporate membership and picture loans
activities can be effectively grown, given the low initial baseline.
This is the potential growth area for the trust and consequently
detailed consideration has been given to visitors to the galleries
and the museums. There is a planned growth in visitor numbers which
is to be expected with the introduction of the Millennium Galleries
and the re-introduction of marketing literature and temporary exhibitions,
as well as the extension of opening times. Apart from the dependence
of visitors and trading turnover, private sponsorship has also been
identified for expansion. This is due to a perception that the private
sponsor being generally unwilling to give financial support to the
city council as the contribution is often thought to be used to
reduce fiscal deficits. It rarely seems to reach the specific activity
or organisation the sponsor intended it for. Consequently it is
easier for a potential sponsor to target their financial contribution
to a discrete organisation with clearly defined aims, and lines
of accountability. As a consequence the Trust is confident that
there is an untapped sponsorship market to exploit. Targets and
operational plans have been drawn up to achieve the income projections.
However the visitor performance over the first two years of the
trust have fallen short of the original targets and this it seems
reflects the inadequacies of the inherited methods used to collect
this data as well as gallery closures for refurbishment programmes.
It is worth noting that as part of the progressive cost-cutting
to the museum and gallery service when in city council control referred
to earlier, expenditure on marketing and publicity was reduced to
an absolute minimum hence the need to re- introduce a marketing
and publicity campaign at an early stage in the Trust’s life.
From a Trust management perspective, however, these are the real
challenges associated with this freedom to act.
Advantages and Challenges
of the Trust
It should be recognised that the trust has only
been in operation for two years and it is too early to assess the
benefits of the model. However, there is no doubt that there is
a new lease of life in the work of the galleries and museums. It
is also the case that there is less political interference in the
operation of the trust, and it is recognised that the galleries
and museums are progressively being revitalised. Investment has
and is occurring, with the following results:
new information technology systems
improved opening times
higher quality temporary exhibitions
more staff
refurbishment of the galleries
better marketing and publicity.
establishment of an acquisitions fund
new educational and public programmes
partnership with Tate Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum
The partnership with the city council seems to
be progressing satisfactorily, and close working relationships between
the two managements have been established, particularly with regard
to the Millennium Galleries.
It is significant that the downward spiral of year
on year financial cuts, non-replacement of staff, and lack of capital
investment has been stopped and reversed. From the city council’s
point of view there is a planned and predictable financial commitment,
one less service to directly manage and the opportunity to change
the operation of the Leisure Services Directorate into a more strategic
role with strengthened monitoring and appraisal functions as well
as contract managing capability. It seems to be a “win win”
situation for the council and the trust.
However the challenges are yet to come with:
the introduction of the Millennium Galleries
the expiry of the stabilisation fund grant
maintaining and increasing visitor numbers
increasing the earned income from shops, specific exhibition admission
charges , catering and private sponsorship
council appraisal and accountability.
Nevertheless as long as the trust improves the
performance of the galleries and museums, and those living in the
city can tangibly benefit from this, then the relationship will
strengthen and grow. However if the trust does not make a material
difference to the lives of those living and visiting the city it
cannot be expected to continue to be paid to manage the council’s
galleries and museums. As a result, the quality of the management
team is critical to success. Similarly increasing pressures are
being placed on the city council to ensure that the services it
provides are good value for money, deliver the agreed outputs and
meet the needs of the community. It is within this context that
future difficulties may arise.
Notes
The sources used for this company profile are internal
documents given to the author in confidence and therefore cannot
be referenced.
Interviews have been carried out with trust and
council senior staff to inform the study.
Prof. Simon Roodhouse
7.06.00 final draft
The Graves Gallery and Collection was not given in trust, and was
never a separate charitable trust.
The Mappin Art Gallery Trust dates back to when the Mappin Collection
was bequeathed to the City in 1883 on the death of John Newton Mappin.
A condition of the bequest was that the Council erected a suitable
building to house his treasure.
The facilities transferred to the SGMT were City Museum, Mappin
Art Gallery, Graves Art Gallery, Ruskin Gallery and Bishops House.
The Millenium Galleries will be managed with effect from 1 January
2001. The Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust were given responsibility
for Kelham Island Industrial Museum, Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet
and Shepherds Wheel.
In 2001/02 the revenue from the Stabilisation Fund will completely
disappear, but will be replaced by an additional c£500k revenue
to support the new Millennium Galleries.
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