Written evidence submitted by National Museums Liverpool (NML)
1.1 NML welcomes the opportunity to provide evidence to the committee on the very real health and social benefits that cultural activity delivers to communities.
1.2 The Liverpool city region continues to face economic and social challenges which have been brought into sharper focus by the recession and public sector cuts. The economy lags behind other city regions and deprivation in some areas impacts on health, wellbeing and educational attainment.
1.3 NML is uniquely placed to serve our local communities and our work is designed to address these challenges and opportunities. NML’s vision is to be the world’s leading example of an inclusive museum service. We are pioneers in engaging with people and communities through museums, culture and heritage. We change lives.
1.4 This response outlines the latest evidence of NML’s social and economic impact in the region focusing on our reach, educational work and social impact.
1.5 The response also highlights four case studies of key work at NML: House of Memories Dementia Awareness Programme, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT+) Programmes and Projects and the impact of community engagements, the International Slavery Museum’s work on combating prejudice and discrimination and the Drugs and Weapons Awareness Programme for Young people at Seized! The Border and Customs Uncovered (the Border Force National Museum).
1.6 Further details and full reports can be provided on request. Links are provided within the document.
2.1 National Museums Liverpool comprises eight museums and galleries: International Slavery Museum, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Museum of Liverpool, Sudley House, Border Force National Museum (Seized! The Border and Customs Uncovered, funded by the Home Office), Walker Art Gallery, and World Museum.
2.2 We are the only national museum organisation in England based wholly outside London, and we have a unique, fourfold role: we are the core museum service for Liverpool and the Liverpool City Region; we are the North West’s largest cultural organisation (and one of the largest and most important in the UK) ; we operate at national and international levels. NML is the national museum in the North.
2.3 We bring our collections to life to educate, deliver social impact and fight for social justice. We cover contemporary issues, exploring challenging issues including modern slavery, racism, diversity and dementia. Our work supports and enables communities to have a voice; especially those that often feel isolated.
2.4 Our aspirations for the future focus on maximising our social impact and inclusivity. Our priorities are to support the fight against modern slavery, improve the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable and have a positive impact on all who engage with us.
All evidence below is in line with the inquiry’s terms of reference and the five major themes that have been identified: social mobility, health, crime reduction, education, community engagement, and diversity.
3.1 Making a Difference: The social and economic impact of National Museums Liverpool (March 2017 [1])
3.1.1 In March 2017 NML commissioned its most recent social and economic impact report[2] outlining the economic and social benefits NML delivers to the region and beyond. Key findings include:
3.1.2 You can read the full report online here: www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/corporate/reports/index.aspx
3.2 Our education work in Merseyside
3.2.1 The Liverpool City Region is home to approximately 310,000 young people, a quarter of whom are living in poverty. Educational attainment is below national averages.
3.2.2 In 2015/16 we engage with 422 schools equating to 75% of all schools in the Liverpool City Region.
3.2.3 NML has a strategic purpose to establish itself as a ‘Cultural Parent’ for children and young people in Liverpool .Our education programmes are designed to support every learning age and ability, encouraging participation from early childhood until later adult life.
3.2.4 In 2015/16 one in every 12 visits made by under 18s to DCMS sponsored museums were to a NML museum or gallery.
3.2.5 The number of school children visiting has increased by 77% since 2004/05.
3.3 Our social impact – health and well being
3.3.1 Liverpool City Region residents have above average levels of health deprivation. We bring an estimated contribution of £130m per year to the wellbeing of regular visitors by applying the national research on subjective wellbeing. (Key examples of work follow below)
3.3.2 NML was the first national museum service to sign up to the Autism Charter, part of an innovation project by the Autism Alliance and Department of Health to build autism friendly communities.
3.3.3 One of the most significant programmes NML has undertaken is its multi-award winning House of Memories programme. Created in 2012, the programme provides health, social care, housing professionals and family carers with a training programme to increase dementia awareness and understanding (see case study below).
3.3.4 Following external evaluation, we estimate that a total of £12.6m social value was created in the year following the training programme.
3.4 Our social impact – engaging with communities
3.4.1 NML has formed strong partnerships with a range of organisations to help reach different segments of the community. We actively work with the Princes Trust, Merseyside Police, the anti-racism charity Anthony Walker Foundation, disability arts organisations Wicked Fish and social justice organisation Homotopia amongst many others.
3.4.2 We actively campaign against human rights abuses, racism and discrimination. In 2007 NML set up the consultative body RESPECT with local and national members who have expertise in areas of ethnicity, faith, race, prejudice and discrimination. The group helps NML to engage with harder to reach communities and develops content for programmes and exhibitions in collaboration with these communities (further examples can be provided on request).
3.4.3 Working with Merseyside Police, our International Slavery Museum and Museum of Liverpool has become a third party reporting centre for hate crime.
House of Memories
4.1.1 At National Museums Liverpool we recognise that to acknowledge and understand an individual’s personal history and memory is of great value and significance, especially for people living with dementia.
4.1.2 House of Memories is a flagship project which represents an integral part of National Museum Liverpool’s social inclusion mission. Created in 2012, the programme has connected more than 12,000 participants (from the health and social care sector) with an innovative dementia awareness / museum collection experience that promotes the need and value for compassion, respect and dignity in care.
4.1.3 Museums are experts at looking after memories and House of Memories is designed to provide knowledge and understanding of how information about a person’s history and life experience can be a valuable tool for positive communication. Activities include an interactive training day, access to a free object loan service and a memory app (25,000 downloads).
4.1.4 At NML, wider activities include Meet me at the Museum, a reminiscence session focusing on the 1940s, 50s and 60s, and When I was little, aimed at children visiting with their grandparents.
4.1.5 To date more than 12,000 health, housing, and social care workers as well as NML staff have undertaken the training. The ambition to make the services available in every care setting across the country is already beginning to be realised with roll out across the UK.
4.1.6 House of Memories Social Return on Investment: The House of Memories evaluation study for the Midlands applied financial proxies to the programme’s outcomes depending on the scale of impact, and found that in return for an investment of £135,500 to train 1,000 carers, a total of £1.1m of social value was created for the Midlands programme. This results in a social return of £8 for every £1 invested. It was assumed that participants would retain knowledge for eight years following the programme, returning a total £45 for every £1 input into the initial intervention.
4.1.7 Based on these values a total of £12.6m social value was created in the year following the programme.
4.1.8 Detailed reports can be found here: www.houseofmemories.co.uk/about-us/evaluation-and-reports/
4.2 Happy Older People (HOP)
Created in 2014 by NML, HOP is a new network which promotes age-friendly arts participation. HOP brings together older people, artists, cultural organisations, health and social care providers, housing associations, community groups, transport providers and volunteering organisations.
The programme has an active network of over 222 members, with 34 member organisations being awarded grant funding of up to £300 over the past three years to help break down the barriers to participation in the arts.
The HOP grant scheme has enabled over 3685 older people to engage with the arts in 234 activity sessions across Liverpool since March 2014.
The programme has had a number of positive impacts on older communities:
HOP continues to have synergy with Liverpool City Council’s Healthy Liverpool agenda and with LCCG initiatives that aim to improve health outcomes of individuals as well as self-care for older people across the Liverpool region.
The success of HOP at increasing partners and members demonstrates the significant positive impacts that museums have on the lives of local people.
This programme is part of the pioneering House of Memories dementia awareness programme.
4.3 LGBT+ Programmes and awareness
4.3.1 Homotopia is an LGBT arts and social justice organisation based in Liverpool and organises the biggest LGBT annual arts festival in the UK. Homotopia has worked closely with NML since 2010 and there have been numerous collaborations, including the ground-breaking exhibition and Trans heritage project April Ashley: Portrait of a Lady at the Museum of Liverpool from 27 September 2013 to 1 March 2015. The collaborative project was launched as a key part of Homotopia’s 10th anniversary in 2013. After 17 months and 930,000 visitors, the exhibition closed on the 1st March 2015.
4.3.2 The collaboration continues in a partnership project funded by the Esme Fairbairn Foundation called Pride & Prejudice. In this project NML is researching its urban history collections at the Museum of Liverpool, and its fine and decorative art collections at the Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley House, in order to identify items with an LGBT+ connection.
4.3.3 A further commitment to this work is the Art Fund New Collecting Grant, awarded in 2015 to build a fine art collection relating to LGBT+ culture and history. This funding is enabling NML to build on the work already done in this area, by making real changes to the Walker Art Gallery's collections and displays in particular. Findings from this project is feeding into the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ project.
4.3.4 An exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery: Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender and Identity marked the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexual acts in England and Wales and brought together a diverse range of artists who have used their work to explore sexuality and gender identity since 1967. The exhibition ran from July to November 2017 and revealed the findings of over two years of research by the Gallery into LGBT+ history, visual culture, its collection and the Arts Council Collection, revealing hidden queer histories and institutional blind spots that were addressed through the exhibition’s programme of events and performances. Coming Out was a touring exhibition conceived by National Museums Liverpool, in partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust as part of the Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme 2016-19. Alongside the exhibition the Walker team ran a programme of events for schools and the public on raising awareness on prejudice, discrimination and equality.
4.3.5 At the Museum of Liverpool, the powerful exhibition Tales From the City marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act with stories from Liverpool’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT+) community over the past five decades. The exhibition reflects how the lives and experiences of Liverpool’s LGBT+ community have changed from 1967 to 2017. Individual stories are told through a mixture of objects, costume, art, photography, film and oral history interviews. The exhibition also explores the impact of national events such as Section 28, civil partnerships, marriage, age of consent equality, and equal adoption rights. The experiences of Liverpool's LGBT+ community reveal devastating cases of discrimination and prejudice but also examples of self-determination, resilience and creativity. Fifty years on from the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, the exhibition offers a reflection on the significant advances that have been made, while also remembering there is still work to be done for full equality. Alongside the exhibition runs a programme of events for schools and the public on raising awareness on prejudice, discrimination and equality
4.4 International Slavery Museum: Campaigning and social justice
4.4.1The International Slavery Museum is the only museum of its kind to exhibit aspects of historical and contemporary slavery as well as being an international hub for resources on human rights issues. Working in partnership with other museums with a focus on freedom and enslavement, the museum provides opportunities for greater awareness and understanding of the legacy of slavery today. The case study below describes several programmes run by the International Slavery Museum aimed at engaging with local BAME communities.
The International Slavery Museum actively campaigns against racism and discrimination. An example of this work is the 2015 exhibition about the excesses of Belgian colonialism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Belgian Congo as it was known, from 1908 to 1960. The exhibition, Brutal Exposure, revealed some of the truths of European colonisation of the African continent, many of which some modern Europeans still appear to wish to deny. The museum worked with the Congolese community residing in the City Region to understand the intricacies of this migrant community.
4.4.2 Slavery Remembrance Day, 23 August
Liverpool was the major port for the transatlantic slave trade, with local ships forcibly transporting as many as 1.5m Africans in the 18th century. Slavery Remembrance Day takes place on 23 August to mark an historic revolt by enslaved Africans against their masters in Haiti on the same day in 1791.
The event led by the International Slavery Museum in partnership with Liverpool City Council, has been commemorated since 1999, when the council formally apologised for the city's role in slavery.
Annual celebrations include a walk of remembrance, a libation on the waterfront, the Dorothy Kuya Slavery Remembrance Lecture and family friendly events at the International Slavery Museum. The objectives of the programme are to:
- Commemorate the lives and deaths of the millions of enslaved Africans and their descendants
- Celebrate the resistance and revolution that ended slavery
- Remember that we still live the legacies of transatlantic slavery such as racism and discrimination
In a survey of the event in 2016, more than 70% responded that the event was the main reason for coming to Liverpool that day. 97% of respondents who attended the Remembrance Lecture would recommend attending future events to friends and family.
4.5 Learning at Seized! the Border Force National Museum
Seized! is an inspiring and revealing museum which, through its collection and dynamic interpretation, communicates the role of the Border Force in ensuring our way of life is fair, safe, civilised and protected. Inclusive and forward thinking, the museum tells a contemporary story supported by history.
The lead partner is the Border Force, with the support of HM Revenue and Customs.
The Border Force National Museum’s education programme specialises in issue-based educational sessions across a range of topics. The most popular are the drugs and weapons awareness sessions, delivered in a non-judgemental, safe environment. The aim is to promote open discussion and knowledge around often emotive and challenging topics.
The museum regularly engages with young people between the ages of 16-25 years old who are ex-offenders, ‘At Risk of Offending’, refugees and asylum seekers. Many of the young people worked with are not in education, training or employment. The Education team also goes into local schools, along with Merseyside Police, as an intervention with children deemed to be at risk of offending. Some of these groups include:
• Princes Trust (NEET groups)
• ‘Safe Hands’, Everton in the Community’s programme for ex-offenders
• Shaftesbury Youth Club
• Step Forward employment programme
• Rocket Training education provider
• Work Ready St. Helens
• National Citizenship Service
• Merseyside Police Cadets
The sessions are age appropriate, engaging and usually provoke further discussions on the topics when back at team base. They often provide a valuable learning experience for young people with positive feedback received from all involved.
The Seized! Education team works with local school Cardinal Heenan, along with Merseyside Police, as an intervention with children deemed to be at risk of offending. They also work with alternative education providers Prudentia, Evolve and Cheshire Fire & Rescue Service ‘Respect’ programme, all of whom provide education for children with barriers to learning in mainstream classes.
February 2018
[1] The Economic and Social Contribution of National Museums Liverpool, report by Regeneris Consulting (March2017) and Executive Summary Publication: Making the Difference – the social and economic impact of National Museums Liverpool (March 2017)