MPs and peers told of ‘serious challenges’ facing civic museums

Museum leaders met with MPs and peers this week to celebrate the impact of museums and highlight the risks they are currently facing at a parliamentary advocacy event in Westminster.

Open to members of parliament and the House of Lords, the event was organised by the National Museum Directors’ Council (NMDC), with support from the Museums Association, the English Civic Museums Network, Art Fund and Art UK.

It featured speeches by a number of politicians and museum leaders, including the former culture secretary Lord Vaizey of Didcot, Tate director and NMDC chair Maria Balshaw, current arts and heritage minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, and Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund.

Attendees were told of the socially engaged work that museums do with their communities and the value of local museums. Waldman told how museum directors are increasingly concerned about funding, with a recent survey showing that two-thirds of directors have funding concerns, up from half in the previous survey.

Two civic museum directors, Sara Wajid, co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust and Kim Streets, director of Sheffield Museums, outlined the severe challenges facing their institutions.

Wajid described how Birmingham Museums Trust had avoided being considered by commissioners looking to liquidate the city’s assets after the council issued a Section 114 notice last year. However, she said just three of the trust’s nine venues are currently open to the public.

Streets said that Sheffield Museums is facing an “extremely challenging” financial situation and called for government support to address the immediate crisis, with an end to cuts, an emergency fund and work on options for a sustainable future.

Chi Onwurah, the MP for Newcastle Upon Tyne Central, reflected on the importance and impact of museums in their constituencies.

MPs and peers were given the opportunity to view objects from civic museums, including a plaque from Glasgow Life’s Scotland’s Lascar Heritage project, which won the Best Museums Change Lives Project at the MA’s 2023 awards, and the Byron collection held by Newstead Abbey, which is part of Nottingham’s museums and galleries. Both local authorities have made significant cuts to their museum services this year.

MA director Sharon Heal said: “It’s great that sector organisations came together to celebrate museums and also to highlight the serious challenges facing civic museums in particular. We know that there is public support for museums and an understanding of the role that they play in society – we hope politicians get this message and take urgent action to invest in the sector.”