In Section 1.1.4, the literature describes an environment of continual change that surrounded museums and galleries, from their initial development in the Victorian era to present day. By the middle of the twentieth century, museums functioned as educational institutions, and were largely given freedom to espouse their own ideas without significant
290
Arts Council of Great Britain (1987), A Policy Statement from the Arts Council, p.7 291
The precise date of the disbandment of the FVB is unclear, but its future was brought into question in the ACE’s Annual Report for 1996/1997 and was absent from their Annual Report for 1998 (see Arts Council of England 1998; Arts Council of England 1997)
challenge.292 As the century drew to a close, however, arts and cultural policies facilitated considerable change, with critics suggesting that:
Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government (1979–90) radically changed the relationship between government, culture and education. Her attack on public services led to a number being privatised; others suffered severely reduced levels of public funding and were scrutinised by the National Audit Office, set up in 1983 to check that there was evident value for taxpayers’ money.293
The challenge, then, was for the cultural sector to devise a means of measuring value that would ensure access to diminishing public funds, and this led to both government and non- governmental funders requiring museums and galleries to conduct audience surveys that would quantitatively measure their success. Certain criteria began to be measured in order to justify the activities of art organisations294 and, as a consequence, the focus of museums began to shift, with their operations becoming increasingly corporate.
The museum’s role evolved to include the provision of a space which encourages, and includes, those who were traditionally excluded from cultural institutions through educational and social programmes. In 1992, Patrick J. Boylan suggested that museums had four primary objectives ahead of the new millennium, ranging from improved quality of service and conservation to “representing the views, needs and values of the museum community and its users to national and local government.”295 These objectives were supported by the ACGB in 1993, with publication of A Creative Future,296 its future plan for the arts in Britain. Here, the ACGB proposed the following ten-point plan which asserted the importance of placing the community at the centre of arts provision, for mutual benefit, and the promotion of an open, diverse and educative system.
292 Reeve, J. and Woollard, V. (2006), “Influences on Museum Practice” in The Responsive Museum: Working with Audiences in the Twenty-First Century, eds. C. Lang et al, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, pp.5-17 (p.5)
293 Lang, C. et al (2006), “The Impact of Government Policy” in The Responsive Museum: Working with Audiences in the Twenty-First Century, eds. C. Lang et al, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, pp.19-28 (p.24)
294 Buckingham, D. and Jones, K. (2001), “New Labour’s Cultural Turn: Some Tensions in Contemporary Education and Cultural Policy,” Journal of Educational Policy, vol.16, no.1, pp.1-14 (pp.3-4)
295 Boylan (1992), “Museums 2000 and the Future of Museums,” p.3 296
1. The arts, crafts and media are central to the lives of individuals and the well- being of communities. They offer inspiration, pleasure and comfort; and help people to criticise and celebrate society and understand their relationship to it 2. Everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy the arts both as participant and
as audience member
3. Education is at the heart of enjoying and understanding the arts and media. It is fundamental to a vital and varied culture
4. Quality is the pre-eminent criterion for public funding of the arts. Quality is a broad term, encompassing such concepts as fitness for purpose. Work of high quality and originality may be produced in any form, at any scale and from any cultural aesthetic or community
5. Diversity and variety in the arts and media are valuable in themselves and as a reflection of contemporary life
6. It is imperative that the arts of the past be renewed and kept alive
7. The arts and media should be viewed in an international as well as a local, regional and national context
8. Public funding of the arts and media, in people, buildings and equipment, is an investment. Its dividends are creativity, inspiration, civic pride and personal pleasure and confidence, as well as economic benefit
9. The arts should be generally available throughout the country
10.The arts and media funding system is accountable to the public through Parliament. It should seek to represent, be advised by and deserve the trust of the arts community297
Each of these principles was supported by an aim from the ACGB to ensure that this new vision of the future was delivered, and marked a commitment to ensuring quality, value for money and accountability in a publicly-funded industry. This attitudinal shift had to challenge an entrenched hierarchy within the sphere of cultural institutions, however, and whilst a fundamental change could be seen to be starting by the early 1990s, it was not until the New Labour government’s establishment of the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) in 1997 that wholesale change was in evidence. As documented previously, this primarily manifested itself in the provision of a more structured educational service by museums and galleries, although whilst the DCMS abolished admission fees and generously supported national institutions, they were treated primarily as tourist attractions with a gaze far beyond their local environment. Consequently, it is arguably in local museums that the ACGB’s ten-point plan can be seen to have been embraced, with smaller organisations
297 Arts Council of Great Britain (1993), A Creative Future: The Way Forward for the Arts, Crafts and Media in England, London: HMSO, pp.27-29
becoming pioneers of widening participation and more successfully establishing a dialogue with their local communities.298