THE nation’s museums are at an incredibly low ebb. Having been forced into months of hibernation when the first UK-wide lockdown came into force and hamstrung ever since by limited capacities, many had just begun to plot a route back to a semblance of socially distanced normalcy before the latest tranche of Covid-19 restrictions were announced.
After strong year-on-year growth for Scottish tourism throughout the past decade – and last month’s announcement that Aberdeen Art Gallery and Gairloch Museum were among the five joint winners of Art Fund Museum of the Year – thoughts of what 2020 could have been are both tantalising and painfully sombre.
Independent museums are, once again, bearing the brunt of the hardship. It says it all that a sector which has become so accustomed to self-reliance in recent years has become desperate for any government support possible. There should, however, be no surprise that a proudly autonomous section of the Scottish economy is bereft of all other options.
These organisations are run on a shoestring and generate almost all essential income themselves. Dundee Heritage Trust, for instance, relies on recouping 97% of its annual £2 million running costs from the money spent by visitors at its venues – Discovery Point and Verdant Works. After the toughest year imaginable, many such institutions have had to lean heavily on grants or public donations to survive.
The overwhelming response to Holyrood’s Recovery and Resilience Fund, established so the nation’s independent museums could access vital cash boosts, is a prime example of the sector’s strife. Launched in August with a benevolent pot of £4m, appeals from 116 sites had sought £10.7m by the time applications closed in October.
This unprecedented cry for help “demonstrates an urgent need for continued and responsive support”, according to Lucy Casot, CEO of Museums Galleries Scotland, the organisation tasked with distributing the government-backed fund.
“Already we are seeing the impact on communities as redundancies are being made, outreach activity affected and with many museums simply unable to reopen or operating at greatly reduced capacity,” she adds.
Another state-supported emergency subsidy programme, the Culture Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund, was similarly oversubscribed. Two hundred and three organisations were successful in their bids will share a total of £11.75m, while a further 145 ailing entities were rejected in their pursuit of a collective £10m.
Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop says the Scottish Government is “determined to do everything within our powers to see the sector through this crisis” but has previously acknowledged “there will still be more needed”.
For those institutions that have missed out on funding due to the staggering demand, a fiscal injection from elsewhere will be imperative. Rishi Sunak’s pledge to prolong the furlough scheme until March may offer up fleeting cause for optimism but day-to-day costs such as building maintenance, security and insurance never stop gnawing away at any dwindling reserves that remain.
The latest industry research carried out by Museums Galleries Scotland suggests 46% of the country’s cultural attractions, many of which still haven’t been able to re-open since the first lockdown ended, will remain shut well into 2021 or beyond.
There is “no clear end in sight” for visitor attractions that have “faced unimaginable challenges this year”, according to Tourism Secretary Fergus Ewing. Despite the Scottish Government’s efforts to provide “critical support” it is now incumbent on Westminster, he claims, to “step up and provide the much-needed finance the sector requires to get through the coming winter and beyond”.
No matter where the help emerges from, it needs to do so quickly. If not, a plethora of the nation’s favourite museums and their collections could be lost not only for a lockdown period but forever.
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