Agenda item

Report attached.

Councillor Munsif Dad BEM JP, Portfolio Holder for Education, Leisure and Arts, provided a report seeking approval for the Haworth Art Gallery’s application to Arts Council England for Museum Accreditation.

Councillor Dad indicated that the Museum Accreditation sought was the sector’s standard and dealt with issues such as access, engagement and protection of the collection.  The Haworth Art Gallery currently managed its collection responsibly and engaged well with visitors.  It also had in place good governance arrangements.  The 5 year accreditation had been due to be renewed on 29^th February 2020, but nationally museums had been closed due to COVID-19.  However, the time was now right to apply for accreditation, which was a benchmark for all museums.

Approval of the report was not deemed a key decision.

Reasons for Decision

The Arts Council Accreditation Scheme was the UK industry standard for museums and galleries.  It helped everyone involved with a museum to do the right things, helping people to access and engage with collections, and protect them for future generations.  The Accreditation Scheme did this by making sure museums managed their collections properly, engaged with visitors, and were governed appropriately by encouraging all museums and galleries to meet an agreed standard in:

• How they were run;
• How they managed their collections; and
• How they engaged with their users.

The Haworth currently benefited from Museum Accreditation which had a term of 5 years.  The Haworth’s accreditation had been due for renewal on 29^th February 2020 and an application had been submitted.  However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, museums across the UK had closed their sites because of the impact of the pandemic and in line with Government guidance.  In response the UK Accreditation partners – Arts Council England; Museums Galleries Scotland, Northern Ireland Museums Council and the Welsh Government (Museums Archives Libraries Division) – had paused the Accreditation Scheme with effect from 1^st April 2020, and all Accredited museums in the UK had their current award status extended.  The Haworth had until the 31^st of March 2022 to make a new submission.

It was very important that the Haworth renewed its Museum Accreditation because it was the benchmark for a well-run museum.  The award did the following:

For a Local Authority

• Helped show a museum met visitors’ and users’ needs;
• Showed a museum was being managed and governed properly;
• Could boost a museum’s reputation, secure funding and give confidence to donors and other supporters;
• Helped a museum to manage their collections fairly, ethically and legally;
• Provided a museum with a set of minimum requirements that had to be met, which included accountability and performance management/monitoring progress;
• Opened up opportunities for a museum, including funding opportunities and new partnerships;
• Helped a museum audit their collections, and assess risks to them.

For Visitors

• Showed a museum was being properly managed and governed;
• Let people know that anything they donated to a collection would be accessible to the public and would be looked after ethically;
• Showed a museum looked after its collections properly and safeguarded them for the future;
• Helped museums understand what their users and visitors wanted and made plans for the future.

This mattered because it meant people could actually access collections and stories – seeing the items that mattered to them and knowing that future generations would be able to do the same.

For Museum Staff and Volunteers

• Showed a museum was being properly managed and governed – and other museums recognised that;
• Demonstrated a museum’s professionalism – which made it easier to get funding and helped give confidence to lenders and donors;
• Meant a museum was looking after their collections and managing them appropriately;
• Helped museums meet their users’ needs;
• Showed the museum team that they were working to an industry-wide standard;
• Gave access to professional advice and support, including mentors and Museum Development in England;
• Helped keep museums on track by giving them ways to formalise plans, policies and procedures and so improve services.

The Accreditation application comprised a suite of set documents that provided the required standard, policies and procedures for the Haworth and its collections.  It was divided into three key areas and volumes and further split into a number of sections as follows:

Governance and Management

• Forward Plan: to include a clear statement of purpose, an appropriate constitution, a satisfactory structure for governance and management, and an approved forward plan demonstrating financial stability.
• A risk assessment of security arrangements: to cover arrangements for staff, volunteers and visitors, stored and displayed collections and buildings and site.
• Emergency Plan:  to include arrangements for staff and volunteers, visitors, collections and collections information, a risk assessment of threats, how you authorise, maintain, communicate and test your emergency plan, and how you share it with your staff and volunteers, and the emergency services, how your museum works with the emergency services, and any other relevant emergency plans, a priority salvage list and when you’ll review your emergency plan.

Managing Collections

• Collections Development Policy: to include taking responsibility for the collections we manage, the museum’s statement of purpose, an overview of current collections, themes and priorities for future collecting, themes and priorities for rationalisation and disposal, information about the legal and ethical framework for acquiring and disposing of items, and the date the policy will be reviewed.
• Documentation Policy: how the collections would be recorded
• Documentation Procedural Manual: to include how the museum would follow Spectrum Primary Documentation Procedures (these include instructions how to follow the following procedures, object entry, acquisition and accessioning, location and movement control, inventory, cataloguing, object exit, loans in (borrowing objects), loans out (lending objects) and documentation planning.
• Collections Care and Conservation Policy
• Collections Care and Conservation Plan

Users and Their Experiences

• Access policy: to cover how people could see, use and reference your collection, gain access to your museum buildings and sites and how you share information about the collection with people.
• Access plan: this must contain information to maintain and if possible improve the physical, sensory and intellectual access to collections, information about collections, access to the buildings housing your collections, understand and develop your audiences and engage with your users and improve their experience providing stimulating learning and discovery activities including exhibitions and programming and how we communicate effectively with users and potential users through a range of access, marketing and promotional activities.

A link was provided in the report to the Council’s website to enable the full draft documentation to be viewed.

Alternative Options considered and Reasons for Rejection

The Haworth Art Gallery did not have to apply for Accreditation, however, the Gallery would no longer be museum accredited with significant disadvantages especially in applying for external funding from Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and various other funding bodies. 

Decision                                     -    That Cabinet notes and approves the draft application for Arts Council England Museum Accreditation as described and summarised in the report (full details of which can be viewed on the Council’s website accessible via the link included in the report).