Looking to the future by making most of the past
David Anderson, Director General, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, describes how the organisation is meeting the challenges outlined in a recent independent review...
EARLIER this month, the Welsh Government published an independent review of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.
Undertaken by Dr Simon Thurley, former chief executive of English Heritage, its purpose was to look at the relations between the organisation and Welsh Government; policy and governance; opportunities for commercial development, and future vision.
In undertaking this work, Dr Thurley visited each of our seven sites – which include the National Slate Museum in Llanberis, the National Wool Museum in Drefach Felindre, the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea; National Museum Cardiff; St Fagans National Museum of History; Big Pit National Coal Museum; and the Roman Legion Museum in Caerleon.
He also met with a number of staff, stakeholders and trade unions, which culminated in a report that offers some helpful observations and recommendations to ensure that this much-loved national institution continues to thrive and deliver for Wales.
And we are delivering. The Review found Amgueddfa Cymru to be a “successful and thriving organisation”, and it is on this basis that we are now working with Welsh Government to take the recommendations forward.
This is not to say that our journey in recent years has been easy.
As a result of austerity, we, like many other public bodies in Wales, have experienced a significant decline in our funding. It has been challenging, especially when we have had to reduce our number of staff to meet the savings.
The strain that this placed on the relationship between management and the unions is captured in the Review, and is something we are investing a lot of time and effort to rebuild.
Alongside this, we have also worked hard to generate more income.
In the past financial year, 2016/2017, we raised £10.3m – nearly twice as much as any other national cultural organisation in Wales – meaning that we now bring in a third of our total income from non-government sources, whilst maintaining free admission for every visitor to every one of our sites.
This was achieved by winning funds for research projects and consultancy work, successful bids to trusts and foundations for support of projects, individual and corporate sponsorship, fees from loans of exhibitions to major museums in the United States and Japan, income from our shops and cafés, sales of tickets for events and temporary exhibitions, and hiring out of our facilities.
However, we are not complacent and have plans to do even more in this area. This will be led by a commercial director – a new role which we hope to advertise and appoint in the nearby future – as recommended in the review.
Further, with 42% of our visitors coming from beyond the borders of Wales, we also have a huge economic impact, assessed by Cardiff University as £83m of Gross Value Added to the Welsh economy.
At the same time, we are clear that as a national institution, our first and foremost priority is our core purpose as Wales’ only national museum, and our commitment to engaging the public with the cultures of the nation, through the medium of both Welsh and English.
This is reflected in our publiclyfocused vision, Inspiring People, Changing Lives.
It is also brought to life in our hugely ambitions redevelopment of St Fagans to become the National Museum of History for Wales, which will be completed later this year.
The project has received £11.5m from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and £7m from Welsh Government, with the remaining £11.5m raised by the museum from other sources.
The project is currently one of the most significant and innovative heritage projects in the UK.
It is a distinctively Welsh – and globally significant – model for museums, one rooted in social engagement and cultural democracy.
This October, new galleries will open at St Fagans combining Amgueddfa Cymru’s history and archaeology collections for the first time.
The range of objects on display will cover a 240,000-year time span including objects from the collection which has never been on display before.
The greatly anticipated Welsh Medieval Prince’s Hall, Llys Llywelyn, based on archaeological excavations at Llys Rhosyr in Anglesey, will also be completed this autumn and schools and community groups from across Wales will, for the first time, be able to stay overnight at the museum.
Plans are also progressing to explore how best we deliver further recommendations from the review, including the redevelopment of the National Slate Museum.
This has long been an ambition of Amgueddfa Cyrmu, and we will now be working with Welsh Government and local partners to see how this can be taken further.
With financial uncertainty remaining, our challenge in future years will be to look at how we build on this review to ensure that Wales has in Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales a national museum service that in quality and creativity is worthy of its global reputation.