New funding brings ray of hope after turbulent time for museums in Wales

The Welsh Government's announcement that it is allocating an additional £5m to its museum, culture and sport arm's length bodies, which faced severe cuts earlier this year, is a welcome development.

The new funding may help to ease some financial pressures, but months of uncertainty caused by the budget, as well as turmoil in government, have made 2024 a difficult year for Wales's embattled cultural heritage sector.

Over the summer, the recently appointed culture secretary, Lesley Griffiths, was among four ministers to quit the cabinet following a vote of no confidence in former first minister Vaughan Gething, who was then forced to resign. A new first minister, Eluned Morgan, and culture secretary, Jane Hutt, have since been appointed.

This internal strife could not have come at a worse time for the Welsh museum and heritage sector, with senior figures speaking out in parliament over the impact of the funding cuts and accusing the Welsh Government of being “at war with culture”.

The Labour-led government has blamed an inadequate funding settlement from the previous Westminster government for the cuts, coupled with pressures such as persistently high inflation, unfunded public-sector pay rises and rising demand for services.

Major restructure

The past few months have been particularly trying for Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales. The national institution, which manages seven sites across Wales, is undertaking a major restructure and voluntary severance programme following a 10.5% (£3m) cut to its grant-in-aid, which was enacted at short notice earlier this year.

The announcements of additional funding will come as a welcome relief to Amgueddfa Cymru, and may help reduce the scale of redundancies, but the restructure will still hit many areas of operations.

Sector bodies have warned that the loss of funding will have a “catastrophic impact”, while the short notice of the cut will inevitably affect staff morale and succession planning and lead to a loss of specialist expertise.

There are also serious concerns about the perilous state of some of Amgueddfa Cymru’s sites following years of underfunding, with months of urgent talks taking place behind the scenes about the danger this may pose to the national collections.

Amgueddfa Cymru chief executive Jane Richardson warned earlier this year that the National Museum Cardiff, which has a deteriorating roof and faulty electrics, would be forced to close without immediate critical repairs. Apocryphal stories have been shared of staff racing to the museum whenever it rains to move paintings to safety.

The Member of the Senedd for South Wales Central, Heledd Fychan, who previously worked at Amgueddfa Cymru, compared the building’s condition with the national museums in Brazil and Delhi, both of which were destroyed by fire after years of maintenance neglect.

Warnings heeded

Griffiths appears to have heeded these warnings: in one of her last acts as culture secretary, she announced additional government funding for Wales’ local and national collections, including £1.3m for urgent repairs to the National Museum Cardiff.

The Welsh government has pledged to work closely with Amgueddfa Cymru to develop plans to address the wider maintenance issues at the Cardiff site over the coming years. The building is estimated to need £30m over the next six years to cover its significant issues, including the repair of its roof.

Grave concerns

Budget cuts and deteriorating buildings are not the only difficulties facing Amgueddfa Cymru. The institution has also been criticised over its handling of an employment dispute between former director David Anderson and president Roger Lewis.

A recent report by the Senedd’s committee for public accounts and public administration raised “grave concerns” about the governance arrangements that were in place at the time of the dispute (see box).

Dispute exposes governance issues

A report asserts that Amgueddfa Cymru’s governance set-up was unsatisfactory for resolving a breakdown in relations between two senior parties

Over the summer, the Senedd’s committee for public accounts and public administration expressed concern about the governance arrangements that were in place during the dispute.

In a report scrutinising Amgueddfa Cymru’s financial reports for 2021-22, the committee’s chair, Mark Isherwood, wrote that the dispute had “exposed serious governance issues that led to significant costs for the public purse, as part of a novel and contentious settlement”.

The case incurred costs of £620,000 in total, comprising settlements, compensation payments and legal fees. It followed a breakdown in relations between Amgueddfa Cymru’s director general, David Anderson, and the organisation’s chief executive, Roger Lewis. This followed the latter’s appointment in 2020, which led Anderson to raise several grievances against Lewis. Both men stepped down from their roles at Amgueddfa Cymru almost two years ago.

The Welsh government contributed £40,500 to the cost of the settlement agreement. The £40,500 figure comprised £20,500 towards services for the mediation process, £10,000 towards compensation for injury to feelings, and £10,000 towards a payment for loss of office.

Isherwood said in the report: “The committee was extremely concerned by the evidence heard about the governance arrangements that were in place at Amgueddfa Cymru and how, ultimately, they proved to be wholly unsatisfactory in resolving a foreseeable risk.

“In this case, this was in response to a dispute between two senior parties, a possibility that could occur in any organisation and should have been resolved at the earliest opportunity, in a sensitive and considered way.

“We have grave concerns about the processes that have been adopted throughout this dispute, not least in the interactions between Amgueddfa Cymru and the Welsh government. More work needs to be done to ensure that this situation is not repeated at Amgueddfa Cymru, or any other public body.”

The report also expressed concern about the candour and quality of information presented during the scrutiny process.

It said: “Throughout the scrutiny process, the committee was concerned about the availability of crucial information that would have helped us to more effectively and promptly scrutinise the serious issues under consideration.”

The report’s recommendations include that Amgueddfa Cymru should provide a copy of its updated grievance policies, “highlighting how these have changed since the time of the original grievances”.

It adds that the Welsh government should, “as a matter of urgency”, consider implementing a system of reviewing the grievance policies at all of its arm’s-length and sponsored bodies, to ensure they are robust and fit for purpose.

Amgueddfa Cymru has said it welcomes the comments and is committed to acting on the recommendations. It says significant changes have already been made to its governance, in addition to the appointment of a new leadership team.

Richardson says: “The last few years have been challenging for Amgueddfa Cymru. Lessons have been learned. Following the Welsh government’s tailored review in 2023, Amgueddfa Cymru has taken significant steps to update and strengthen our governance arrangements. We are confident that these steps mean we won’t face such challenges in the future.”

Amgueddfa Cymru is confident it can put the difficulties behind it and look to the future, with plans including a major redevelopment of Llanberis’s National Slate Museum (see box), which aims to put slate back at the centre of Welsh history. 

Welsh ministers say they will be lobbying the recently elected Labour government in Westminster for an improved funding settlement to ease some budgetary pressures.

But many in the museum sector will be hoping the Welsh government is finally getting its own house in order and bringing some stability back after a tumultuous year. 

The NMC needs some TLC

An extra £1.3m in capital funding will allow the Cardiff museum to be upgraded, says Amgueddfa Cymru’s chief executive Jane Richardson

The national collection is at the heart of Amgueddfa Cymru’s programming and storytelling, and we’re actively making our offer more dynamic, sharing more of the collection more often, and providing high-quality learning and visitor experiences.

Key to this is the redevelopment of the National Slate Museum in Llanberis. With partners Cyngor Gwynedd and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and support from the Welsh and UK governments, we will transform it into a Unesco world heritage site hub.

As well as creating spaces to support learning, wellbeing and traditional skills with a new exhibition space, we can take the national collection to the communities of North Wales. But it’s not just Llanberis that is changing.

The National Museum Cardiff was built to house Wales’ unique national collection and is home to natural sciences and history collections, as well as a renowned art collection. But at more than 100 years old, National Museum Cardiff is showing its age.

Museum colleagues with buildings of a similar age will be familiar with the maintenance challenges they bring. So we are delighted to receive an additional £1.3m of capital funding from the Welsh government.

This enables us to kick-start a five-year plan to update the National Museum Cardiff and begin work to ensure this collection remains accessible to the people of Wales, as well as to worldwide visitors.

Update
12.09.2024

This article has been updated to reflect the announcement of additional funding from the Welsh Government.