COMMUNITY-MANAGEMENT

OF LOCAL AUTHORITY
MUSEUMS: AN ADVENTURE
WITHOUT A MAP?
About this research
Cuts to museum funding over the past 5 years have raised questions about the future of
local authority museums. A popular option for local authorities is the alternative service
delivery model. This catch-all phrase refers to a broad spectrum of approaches to delivering
public museum services. The most prevalent model is the museum trust. However,
community managed museums are increasingly being considered as part of the changing
future of Englands museum services. The current picture of community managed museums
is incredibly complex. The legal form that these organisations take is varied, as is the
process by which a local authority museum transfers to another body. There are large
variations in support available to organisations, and in the level of responsibility that they
accept.
This research examines how the turn to community is framed, discussed and experienced
by council employees, councillors and the diverse range of individuals managing these public
spaces. Particular attention is paid to the process of management transfer. The central
argument is although these changes are often framed in terms of broadening participation in
the museum, responding better to local need and enhancing the experience of audiences,
the research shows that the imperative is overwhelmingly financial, that the process is ad-hoc
and uncoordinated and that the outcomes are precarious. As a result the research argues for
a more honest appraisal of the difficulties of establishing community-managed museums,
one that takes into account questions of fairness, impact on audiences and employees, and
Abofunctioning of local government in relation
the deeper question of the appropriate role and
to public spaces such as museums.

Key findings

Research findings in context

The research questions the way local

authorities are progressing with
community-management, in that they
are:

The previous Coalition governments

(2010-15) austerity measures, which
continue to progress under the current
Conservative government, have resulted
in a new normal for local government in
the form of reduced budgets, fewer staff
and new ways of delivering services.

Firefighting rather than working

proactively: the immediate concern to
keep up appearances by avoiding
building closure eclipses
consideration of whether these
spaces will continue to serve a public
function and what the impact on
audiences will be;
Adopting a passive approach to
recruitment of individuals and
groups: lack of staff time means that
councils are relying on
announcements in the local press and
council websites as a means to attract
interested parties this is not
conducive to a diverse pool of
candidates;
Basing decisions on the (often
acknowledged) assumption that a
museum managed by a group that is
considered local in one way or
another is by proxy a museum that
works in the interest of, and in
response to the needs of, its
communities;
Uncertain about how these
relationships will function in the longterm: particularly the level of funding
available and the strength of the links
back to the main service (if any);
Selecting providers who can deliver
quick wins such as reduced operating
costs, increasing visitors and opening
hours, not their ability to develop
stronger relationships with audiences;
Unable to take into account the
uneven capacity of communities to
organise themselves to deliver
services.

Museums are vulnerable in that they are

discretionary and poorly understood in
terms of their value. After a period of
salami slicing and delivering efficiency
savings, a number of local authorities
have transferred the management
responsibility for one of their museum
buildings to an external organisation. At
present, there is little knowledge about
the nature and extent of these changes.
Unlike the formalised arrangements
which saw third sector organisations
delivering statutory services such as
health and social care from the 1990s
onwards (Macmillan 2010), the
involvement of what are loosely termed
civil society organisations in the delivery
of museum services is much more
precarious and challenging to
understand.
This research found limited evidence that
these examples of community-managed
museums had developed as a positive
response to the political project of
localism or the Big Society (although this
is not to say that this has not lead to
examples of what many feel is positive
change). It was widely acknowledged that
these arrangements would not have been
sought out if the financial pressure on
local authorities did not exist. The
rhetoric of creating communities with
oomph (Cameron 2010) that are capable
of doing it for themselves when local
government can no longer afford to was

Page 1 of 5

2
viewed negatively by the majority of
respondents.
In a subversion of the national rhetoric,
and in many ways of their own policies
and media statements, the people
interviewed recognised that it was simply
not a priority for individuals to get
involved in delivering services. Either
they were too busy dealing with a
challenging financial landscape of their
own, or they were just not interested.
The principle of involving a broader
range of people in the delivery and
design of museum services was
acknowledged and welcomed on a
number of occasions, however many
respondents expressed regret at having
to shift responsibility onto individuals
and organisations under these
circumstances. The term communitymanagement or other cognate terms
found in the policy documents and the
media may appear to link these
developments to broader reconceptualisations of the museum as
spaces for participation, democratic
decision-making and the blurring of
boundaries between insider and outsider,
but this link exists only on the surface.
Although there is potential for this type
of practice to be initiated by new
organisations, it is certainly not part of
the essential criteria.
This research has analysed the process
by which three museum buildings were
transferred to bodies other than the local
authority. These were all difficult,
challenging buildings in need of
significant investment, both in terms of
restoration, improvements to displays
and to facilities provision. They were too
difficult for the local authority to cope
with. Although this is understandable
given the current financial climate, there
are serious questions to be asked about

whether a building that is too much for a

large public sector body to handle is a
realistic prospect to transfer to a newly
formed community organisation. Are
communities being set up to fail?
The use of the term building here as
opposed to museum is intentional.
Local authority museum services are
delivered to the public from a building
but that building does not form an
intrinsic part of the service. The asset is
separated from the service. The former is
the remit of asset management, the later
the remit of the museum service. This is
an important distinction as it explains the
decision-making of council officers. It
also offers an explanation as to why the
negotiation period between local
authorities and external organisations
are currently protracted and problematic.
The administrative separation of the
service from the asset was poorly
communicated and articulated. First and
foremost, these local authorities needed
building managers: people, or
organisations, who were willing to take
full responsibility for these buildings in
order that they could deliver cost
savings. This much was clear. What was
uncertain was the remit of these
organisations: could they use the
building for any function provided it was
of community benefit or was it a
requirement that the building continued
to serve a museum function? Participants
were often confused as to whether what
needed saving was the museum function
of the building (where one was
necessarily related to the other) or
whether divestment of the LA from the
building was the endgame.
There are two consequences of this
ambiguity. First, potentially interested
groups may be deterred from expressing
an interest in managing the building

Page 2 of 5

3
because they do not feel capable of, or
do not have an interest in the museum
aspect of the building. Second, and of
greater concern, local authorities need to
be attuned to the possibility that it is the
buildings function as a museum that
communities value, not just as a building
that is open to the public. The long-term
consequences of removing collections
and museum activity from a building that
forms an important part of the imagined
public realm needs further consideration.
One of the threads that tied together the
experiences of individuals who became
involved in the process of transfer (it
should be noted that the involvement of
community members progressed along
vastly different lines) was a feeling that
to manage a museum requires certain
capabilities and skills that individuals
without training and/or experience
cannot possess. In short, the learning
curve from one profession to the
museum profession was perceived to be
sufficiently steep to make community
management of museums more
challenging than of community halls, or
swimming pools.
This research suggest this is one of the
reasons why the current evidence base
for community management of museums
is so small, and why the level of interest
local authorities receive when they
advertise for organisations to come
forward is so low. It may also explain the
many examples of museums that have
closed before community management
was explored. This suggests that the
traditional conceptualisation of the
museum as a sanctuary of expert and
authoritative knowledge and truth acts
as a barrier to the development of
organisations who, unbeknown to
themselves and many museum

employees, may be more than capable of

operating a building as a museum.
From this perspective, the interviews with
a particular group of individuals who
make up one of the studied community
management organisations were
particularly revealing. Their desire to
direct their pre-existing knowledge base
and skill-set towards the goal of
managing this particular museum was
motivated by a complex set of local
circumstances, their emotional
attachment to the building included. This
suggests that categories of
professional/amateur, expert/non-expert
are not particularly helpful in
understanding who might be capable of
managing a museum in practice. This
should be not be taken as an assertion of
the importance of local knowledge over
professional knowledge but as a
suggestion of the value in expanding
current debate on who has the
knowledge and characteristics required
of a museum professional. Ethos and
emotion may be more essential than
expertise.

Further thinking and

recommendations
The future for the three case studies this
research has followed is uncertain.
Speaking with council officers,
councillors and employees of newly
formed management organisations, there
was a clear discrepancy between how
these three groups saw the future
funding of their museums developing.
New organisations need to be supported
to develop a portfolio of funding so they
can sustain themselves when local
authority funding ceases.

Page 3 of 5

4
For other local authorities, and for ACE
considering if and when to support local
authorities in exploring this option, an
immediate conversation needs to be had
regarding what is required of community
organisations. What are the limits of the
relationship between LAs and community
organisations? What do LAs and
audiences want: to keep museums open
or to keep public spaces open? In a time
of scarcity, audiences need to be given
the opportunity to debate, discuss and
share what services, buildings, functions
they prioritise. At the moment, local
authorities are making these decisions
for them and often behind closed doors.
There would also be a value in reexamining where these opportunities are
advertised: do the majority of the public
know how to navigate their councils
website, do they read the local paper or
attend public meetings? Anecdotal
evidence suggest only a few small
minority do.
Needless to say, provision should be
made to facilitate the training and
development of organisations and
individuals who have the potential to
function as museum managers. Without
adequate community support it is going
to be (on the whole, not always) the most
affluent and able communities who are in
the driving seat.
In the instance that no resources are
available for this type of work, ACE
should continue to fund the Museum
Development Officers and encourage
them to develop closer working
relationships with newly formed
organisations. This research found these
connections, and formal and informal
mentoring to be a crucial factor in
making individuals feel supported and
confident to undertake the museum
work they felt underprepared for. In a

similar vein, Major Partner Museums

could be encouraged to establish links
with fledgling community organisations
to help them develop links with the
sector or to act as knowledge and
guidance hubs.
During the observation undertaken for
this research, knowledge-sharing took
place between experienced and new-tothe-job museum staff. This was a twoway dialogue. For example, swapping
collections documentation guidance with
tips on income-generation. This is exactly
the type of conversation that
characterises the objectives of the
Museum Resilience Fund. At present,
many of these exchanges stem from the
generosity of individuals. The public
service ethos of museum staff should not
be expected to compensate for the
appropriate training and development of
staff. A resilient museum is necessarily
made up of resilient, and supported staff.
There is a pressing need for more
networking opportunities: both between
local authorities who are exploring these
options and between newly formed
organisations finding their feet as
museum managers. As a researcher, I
was often asked to share ideas,
opportunities, experienced and
troubleshooting techniques from one
organisation to another. A formalised
network to allow these conversations to
happen needs to be established. This
network should encourage a focus on the
process and practice of management
transfer: how exactly does management
transfer happen and who is involved? The
broader research project that this report
summarises goes some way to answering
this question.
This is a dynamic context within which to
write a report of this nature. Cuts to local
government funding are likely to

Page 4 of 5

5
continue, and the question remains as to
whether these new forms of local
authority museum management
represent a cynical, temporary approach
to staving off museum closure, or
whether they will be early examples of a
reconstruction of their entire
architecture, and a re-categorisation of
what it means to be a museum
professional.

Brief methodology
This research is based on three case
studies of local authorities in England.
The research is based on analysis of
documentation, interviews with council
officers, councillors, and members of the
community and participant observations
conducted between 2013 and 2015.

Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to all of the individuals
who participated in the wider research
project that this reports stems from.
Their generous sharing of time and
insights made the research possible. This
work was supported by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council.
This summary draws on a more detailed
report by the author which is available on
request.
Release date: August 2015

Contact the researcher

Bethany Rex
International Centre for Cultural and
Heritage Studies
Newcastle University
b.rex@ncl.ac.uk

References
Cameron, D. (2010) 'Big Society Speech',
19th July,
http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/spee
ches-andtranscripts/2010/07/bigsociety-speech53572 last accessed 12th August 2015.
Macmillan, R. (2010) The third sector
delivering public services: an evidence
review. Third Sector Research Centre:
Birmingham.

Page 5 of 5