Written evidence submitted by the
Museum Sector bodies

Museum Sector bodies response to the CMS Select Committee: Protecting Built Heritage, February 2025

About us

This response is submitted on behalf of sector membership bodies which represent and support UK museums and the people who work in them:

• Art Fund is the national charity for art that helps museums and people to share in great art and culture, with over 135,000 members.
• The Association of Independent Museums (AIM) supports the independent part of the sector, mostly charities running museums and heritage, and has over 1,000 members around the UK.
• The English Civic Museums Network (ECMN) represents the leaders of more than 75 Local Authority-funded museum services across England.
• The Museums Association is a UK-wide professional membership organisation which represents over 10,000 individual museum workers and 1,500 museums.
• The National Museum Directors' Council (NMDC) represents the leaders of the UK's national collections and major regional museums.

For further information or to discuss any aspect of this joint submission please contact Kathryn Simpson, Policy and Projects Manager at NMDC.

Note on definitions:

This response takes ‘built heritage assets’ to encompass the contents and collections of museums as well as the built infrastructure. Many museums manage historic buildings and built heritage is often an inseparable part of the museum site and collection. Our response assumes that the committee will also consider built heritage of this kind, as most museums are operated by publicly-funded organisations with a specific remit to preserve the heritage of buildings and estates as well as collections.
 

1. What are the most significant challenges facing owners and operators of built heritage assets, and how are they affecting what those sites can offer?
1. What interventions are needed to prevent the managed decline of heritage assets on publicly-owned land?
2. What can the Government do to make it easier for communities or local businesses to take ownership of historic buildings?
2. How effective are the current funding and finance models for built heritage?
1. What should long-term public funding for the sector look like?

Questions 1 and 2 are taken together, as the overriding challenge and essential intervention required for the UK museum sector to continue to operate and manage heritage buildings is to address the current funding crisis.

All parts of the UK museum sector are in need of long term sustainable funding, and although there are many different funding structures and models of governance and operation across UK museums they have all suffered the impacts of austerity, the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. Commitments made in the Autumn Budget on minimum wage and employers’ National Insurance contributions will increase many museums’ operating costs and put even more pressure on already-stretched budgets.

Local Authority funding: Civic museums reliant on Local Authority funding are in a perilous financial position and are facing stark realities including wide-reaching redundancies and the imminent threat of sale of collections or closure. The most at risk include major museum services in Derby, Birmingham and Hampshire. As well as operating museums in civic heritage buildings in city and town centres, this type of museum organisation operates heritage properties such as Pickford’s House, the Georgian home of Joseph Pickford, Sarehole Mill famous for its association with Tolkien, and Rockbourne Roman Villa.

At least 15 Local Authority services are at similar risk in the next 12 months, with many others uncertain of the outlook even as 2025/26 budgets are being set early this year. Without immediate and targeted intervention, civic museums across the country and the collections and buildings they care for could be lost altogether. The depth of the crisis is more profound than any we have previously seen and requires intervention on the scale of the Cultural Recovery Fund during the pandemic. NMDC and other museum sector bodies have been making the case for emergency funding to pull those most at risk back from the brink, and for long term sustainable funding solutions for the sector.

Decision-making power and administrative freedoms: reviewing decision-making powers of civic museums and allowing them greater administrative freedoms would remove the restrictions which cause some of the biggest current challenges, enabling them to better and more independently manage their operations, governance and finances including increasing income generation.

Arts Council England funding: Alongside Local Authority funding, the continuation of funding to Arts Council England (ACE) at least at current levels is essential. Funding for ACE needs to enable, at minimum, fulfilment of existing commitments for National Portfolio funding, as well as project grant funding so that core museum work such as collections care continues to be supported in the wider sector.

Capital investment: Investment is needed across the UK museum sector for maintenance backlogs and repairs to historic buildings, which are essential to ensure the long-term safety of collections and public access to them. Art Fund’s Directors Research identified that building maintenance demands are reaching crisis levels. This is now one of the top challenges for museums. Local authority and other civic museums are particularly struggling as local authorities cannot find funds to maintain the buildings they own[i]. There is also an urgent need to make museum buildings sustainable for the future and resilient to the ever-increasing pressures from the changing climate.

The Museum and Estate Development fund (MEND) supports museums in England to maintain their buildings and estates, with the recent round being the last of the existing five-year commitment. Further funding is now needed, next year and into the future, to extend the scheme.

In 2020 Historic England conservatively estimated the maintenance backlog across the listed regional museums estate alone to be nearly £350m[ii], and while the £84m already provided by MEND helped address the most urgent need there remains ever-increasing demand – demonstrated by the huge over-subscription for the first two rounds of MEND. A survey last year by AIM suggested that for nearly half of museums maintenance funding is their most important need[iii].

The sector therefore needs to see:

-          Continuation and expansion of museum capital funding to maintain buildings and estates via the Museums Estates and Development Fund (MEND) and the Public Bodies Infrastructure Fund for national museums.

-          Continuation should be accompanied by granting longer timeframes for delivery of essential capital programmes, as expectations for delivery can be a barrier to museums wishing to apply.

-          Eligibility should be expanded to enable upgrades of museum buildings for environmental sustainability and access requirements, and to widen access by including availability of project development funding.

The recent Budget included capital infrastructure for museums but Government has not yet provided further detail. This funding is crucial for the sector to ensure that museums and the heritage buildings they occupy are protected.

Community Asset Transfer: Many communities have taken on responsibility for built heritage and collections in recent decades which were or are now operated as independent museums or heritage sites. This can be as owners or as leaseholders, in which case they are frequently supported by for example peppercorn rents from public owners (often local authorities) but can also take on repairing responsibilities, in which case they share the maintenance and capital challenges shared elsewhere. Community transfer can work very well and AIM and other organisations can provide guidance and support for this, but it should not be seen as an easy solution to maintaining historic assets or one which removes the need for heritage funding.

3. What role does built heritage play in the regeneration of local areas and in contributing to economic growth and community identity?

Regional growth: Museums are key to the renewal and reimaging of the high street, playing an important civic role as city and town centres become more economically diverse. They help make places that people want to live, work and study in, attracting inward investment. Restoring a sense of civic pride and local identity through placemaking contributes to rejuvenating towns and cities and drives regional growth.

Most peoples’ engagement with museums is in their local area, and 63% of Arts Council England-supported museums are located within a 5-minute walk (500m) of a high street. When asked specifically about funding for local museums for an NMDC/Art Fund survey, 74% of people said local government should provide at least half, with 45% saying it should provide most or all of their funding.

Economic impact: Museums have a huge GVA multiplier effect – for every £1 directly generated by museums, galleries and libraries, their supply chain supports another £4.40 elsewhere in the economy.[iv] Recent research using HMT Green Book methods indicates that independent museums welcome around 19 million visitors annually, contributing around 17,900 jobs or £838m of expenditure to the economy every year, as well as benefiting from nearly 39,000 volunteer days[v].

Tourism: Museums are also a key driver of domestic as well as international tourism – nearly half of UK adults visit museums and 51% say their children visit at least once a year. Museums are frequently the most visited attraction in a town, city or region; they are an all-weather attraction, encourage secondary spending, directly and indirectly create jobs and make an area more desirable for investment.

Wellbeing and life satisfaction: Recent research by Historic England uses the WELLBY approach ‘Wellbeing-adjusted life year’ to show the statistically significant improvement in life satisfaction through proximity to heritage assets. A doubling of assets within a 1km radius is associated with a 0.025 increase in life satisfaction – a modest but meaningful link[vi].

4. How can heritage buildings be supported to increase energy efficiency and contribute to the Government’s net zero targets?

Heritage buildings, museum estates and grounds offer opportunities for demonstration of clean energies and net zero. Through their public profile and large audiences museums are ideally situated to show how buildings and energy use can be transformed, and to engage the public in the need to reach net zero and to reduce our impact on the environment and support biodiversity.

The museum sector is committed to decarbonising and supporting Government’s Net Zero Targets. Many museums are also working with their communities and as part of collectives committed to improving the environment and contributing to local carbon reduction targets.

Museum directors convened in October 2023 for the ‘UK Museum COP’ and made collective agreement to tackle climate change[vii]. Directors released a joint commitment[viii] agreeing to:

• Use relevant collections, programmes and exhibitions to engage audiences with the climate crisis and inspire them to take positive action,
• Introduce more sustainable collections management,
• Develop and implement decarbonisation plans which include relaxing carbon-hungry environmental parameters,
• Undertake measures to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather and adapt to new challenges,
• Increase biodiversity in our green spaces.

Museums can be exemplars of environmentally sustainable and nature positive estate management. However, they also face unique challenges in balancing sustainability with their responsibility for the long-term care of collections and buildings. There are major opportunities for carbon and cost savings across museum estates as recent research and case studies conducted for NMDC shows[ix].

In order to maintain the high levels of public trust in museums as sources of information on the climate and biodiversity crises and act as role models for sustainable behaviours, museums must reduce the environmental impact of their own operations and buildings. There is also an imperative urgency to act now to protect collections from future climate risks.

The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) has also allowed a small number of museums to transform their estates. To ensure even more public organisations can benefit from future rounds we encourage an expansion of the criteria, more transparency and ease of application. Offering smaller grants to the sector for energy assessments prior to capital works would ensure museums are in the right position to apply for these larger grants, as key barriers are the time, funds and expertise to conduct energy audits to identify capital needs. A similar scheme already exists for voluntary, community and social enterprise sector which could be expanded for museums.

While we note culture is devolved, the PSDS is only currently available in England and therefore would urge development and availability of similar funding streams to be provided by in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

The ’Decarbonisation Case Studies’ submitted alongside this response demonstrate the scale of the challenge in funding and completing environmental improvements to heritage buildings. There are some ‘quick wins’ but long-term the sector needs to be on a path to ensuring the majority of these repairs and adaptations can be delivered to protect heritage from climate related risks and so as to continue to make them accessible and pleasant for the public to enjoy.

Over the six museum sites considered, annual carbon savings of approximately 448 tonnes of CO2 were identified through several different measures, equivalent to 75 UK households (based on average UK household emitting 6tCO2 a year). At a cost of £30,949,700, substantial investment will be needed in museum estates to realise these carbon reductions. However, as the case studies outline, there are also significant improvements that can be made from relatively quick wins for less expense.

The importance of baseline carbon surveys to identify such measures cannot be overstated, as implementing these may mitigate potentially larger costs of more advanced maintenance or capital work, for which considerably more external funding is necessary.

At the moment much work by museums is responsive to current climate conditions and focused on mitigation; however the extreme conditions the UK may face in future will make issues with heating, cooling and structural complexities more pronounced. Some museums have already had to respond to incredibly destructive weather events, such as Derby Museum of Making which was severely impacted by floods in 2023, and many museums across the country that closed temporarily during the heat waves of 2022 as indoor spaces reached unsafe temperatures. Museums must therefore also have access to capital funding in order to adapt their heritage buildings and spaces to make them resilient to future risks.

5. What are the financial, regulatory and practical barriers to preserving built heritage?

Long-term stable funding is the biggest barrier to preserving the nation’s built heritage. Government investment is needed as a solid and reliable basis to enable museums to generate their own income and attract philanthropy.

This investment is also essential as an ongoing mechanism to support maintenance of buildings, as fundraising for repairs and infrastructure is challenging. Donors want to give to successful and sustainable organisations, and many funders including the lottery require match-funding, but income-generation is only possible with stable core funding and sufficient in-house capacity and skills.

Ensuring that our heritage buildings are here to be enjoyed into the future is of paramount importance; however the planning system can sometimes be a barrier to sector progress. The process of obtaining Listed Building Consent from a local authority can be unnecessarily slow, particularly if the heritage asset sits in an overwhelmed local authority. However, sustainability measures and protecting heritage can and should be complementary as long as the planning system can be flexible to museums and heritage sector needs. Historic Houses has suggested that introducing Listed Building Consent Orders (LBCOs) on certain low-risk, high-impact measures such as secondary glazing, loft insulation, and heat pumps in grade II listed buildings as a low-cost, effective solution to help expedite the process.

1. What policy changes are needed to make restoring historic buildings easier and less expensive?
1. Better access to capital funding, more sustained and long-term Government commitment for ongoing maintenance and repairs, as well as the ability to use grants for capital to make environmental improvements and adaptations at the same time.
2. Ensure that the planning system allows for sustainability measures that support the long-term future of heritage buildings. Heritage can be protected and made more sustainable in parallel. If the planning system enables improvements to buildings that support adaptation, they will be more sustainable and less energy intensive (and save money). This will also help protect from climate-related risks such as flooding and extreme heat which historic buildings are ill equipped to deal with.
1. What policies would ensure the UK workforce has the right skills to maintain our heritage assets?

NMDC recently responded to consultations on the Government’s Industrial Strategy and Curriculum Review – these areas should be considered in tandem to understand the foundational importance of embedding culture in the curriculum and to see how pipeline issues arise.

The importance of cultural learning is more significant than ever. Creativity is essential in a global economy which needs a workforce that is knowledgeable, imaginative and innovative. One of the few parts of the economy in the UK which is still growing is the creative industries. Cultural education is vital for the development of individuals and of society as a whole and it should be delivered through schools as part of the curriculum to ensure both quality of opportunity and experience. It should not be regarded as an optional extra. 

Early years and primary education are crucial in fostering an interest in creative and cultural activities. The absence of focus on creative subjects in the curriculum has had a marked impact on the take up of creative subjects later and entry into relevant careers. To ensure the UK has the skills needed to support our heritage, children must be given the opportunity in younger years to foster an interest in arts and heritage in order to later develop the skills to physically care for, understand and interpret heritage buildings and objects.

In higher education it is fundamental that a wide range of courses can be studied at universities and colleges where there is an alarming contraction and narrowing of the variety of subjects on offer. The specialisms that enable our cultural sector and specifically museums to thrive are being cut quickly and with no strategic oversight. Courses such as ancient languages, archaeology, decolonial practice, art history and literature are being stripped away, and with them the skills needed by museums to preserve, interpret, display and engage the public with global heritage.

Regional museums which are official repositories for treasure finds will not be able to retain these wonderous objects without skilled archaeologists to understand, conserve and interpret the finds. The UK will lose its competitive cultural edge to Europe and America, as is already happening to a large extent in the HE and research sector. 

Retrofitting and carbon reduction: Research has identified a need for 205,000 workers to focus solely on retrofitting historic buildings every year from now until 2050 to meet the UK’s net zero targets[x]. This is more than double the number of workers that currently have the necessary skills, which poses both a challenge and an enormous opportunity. The museum sector is making inroads into upskilling its workforce, but when many museums are operating very close to the edge of financial viability there are inevitable constraints on the time,  capacity and resources available to make buildings and operations more sustainable. There is also an issue with availability of the specialist skills required – Art Fund research indicates that local authority cuts have led to a reduction of staff expertise; there is no training for staff that specifically addresses heritage, retrofitting and sustainability together[xi].

Carbon Literacy Training is having a huge impact on the sector: Museum Development North and Manchester Museum developed a pioneering CLT programme, ‘Roots and Branches’[xii], and developed the Museum Toolkit with the Carbon Literacy Project. However this programme is currently applied for on a rolling basis and is tied to securing wider Museum Development funding from Arts Council England – it should instead have sustainable long-term funding as a sector-wide strategic priority.

Small-scale funding: Many of the skills needed to adapt heritage buildings also sit outside of the sector with specialist firms, making this kind of support inaccessible to museums with smaller budgets. As mentioned above, having a smaller grant scheme as a means of pre-access for the decarbonisation scheme would enable more museums to begin the journey with more modest assessments, first understanding the areas of impact and potential reduction before moving on to more complex bids. 

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