As many of us had not only hoped, but also expected, the Danish municipal reform has become precisely the driving force that was required to ensure innovation and development in the Danish public sector. As far as culture is concerned, this applies not least to the museums and their activities. There are many indications that the effect of this development will be so favourable that it will fulfil my most positive hopes for setting up a museum service in Denmark that is both strengthened and viable for the long term.
To briefly summarise the situation, there were 140 state-authorised museums in Denmark at the end of 2006. About 50 of these are currently considering amalgamation, new collaborative configurations or other forms of working relationships.
Initiatives behind these considerations stem from different sources. In many cases, it is the museums themselves that have evaluated the situation and taken the initiative to begin discussions with each other and with the municipalities. In other cases, the new municipalities have found that the actual museum framework – as well as the basic structures of other cultural institutions within the municipal context – should be reconsidered in the light of the new geographical boundaries and reorganised municipal budgets. We also get a clear impression that the larger municipalities nurture political expectations that the field of culture should have greater overall political impact. These expectations will – to an increasing degree – also incorporate the museums.
There are many parties involved in influencing the outcome of the museums’ development processes. In my opinion, there is no one single model that is the best. In-depth discussions in boardrooms, among museum directors and with the municipalities are necessary before decisions can be made, and these will be crucial for the future structure each individual museum decides to pursue.
In a significant number of cases, The National Cultural Heritage Agency has already assisted museum boards, museum directors and municipalities in concrete considerations regarding the development and structure of the museums. It is my hope that this authority will continue to contribute in whatever way possible with the guidance and advice required for continued progress.
Quality strengthened
The overall aim of the Danish government is to enhance quality in the public sector and in the activities financed by public-sector funding. Naturally, this also applies to the museum sector. I believe that setting up larger museum units will boost the quality of museum operations.
As early as 2001, changes to the Danish museum legislation provided political agreement on more rigorous demands regarding the quality of Danish museums, and a strengthened financial basis for running state-authorised museums. We demanded an increase in the minimum subsidy from non-governmental sources as a prerequisite for government funding. In overall terms, this has resulted in a boost to museum operations in Denmark. In a number of cases, the municipalities have increased their subsidies to museums, which has resulted in more funds from the government – as intended by the new law.
The Danish government also wanted ongoing monitoring of whether or not the museums comply with the demands set out in the law as regards the running of state-authorised museums. Since 2004, The National Cultural Heritage Agency has implemented 30 quality assessments of state-authorised museums, particularly the smaller ones.
The results of these assessments show that museums receiving subsidies close to the minimum parameters set out in the law experience great difficulty complying with the overall standards for museums contained in that same legislation. These museums carry out virtually no research, and other aspects of their overall running – collection, registration, preservation and information – are suffering to different degrees. The smaller museums also experience the greatest problems in connection with running the buildings and managing storage. Although some of the smaller museums demonstrate good performance in certain areas, they are not capable of complying in full with the stricter demands regarding quality.
Problems associated with storage are also highlighted in the recently published report on storage conditions in state-authorised museums, prepared by the Association of Danish Museums. I am pleased that this area has now been mapped out, and I place great emphasis on making sure that the museums’ storage facilities are satisfactory. This is why the government has provided support for model projects for setting up joint storage facilities in the County of Vejle and the County of Århus. However, I consider that the responsibility for ensuring acceptable building and storage conditions at state-authorised museums lies mainly with the municipalities, because they are the main providers of subsidies for these museums. I therefore hope that establishing larger municipalities in conjunction with the municipal reform will provide the municipalities with better opportunities for assigning priority to improvements in storage conditions at the state-authorised museums.
This also means there are good grounds for working towards setting up larger units. As we stated earlier, in connection with the museum law of 2001, amalgamating several smaller museums can stabilise these museums’ financial foundations and contribute to raising quality standards. Larger organisational units make it possible to deal with museum-related tasks more rationally and focus efforts on areas such as research, collection and administration. Neither are larger organisational units any hindrance to achieving decentralised exhibition venues and museum units as part of the overall structure. Amalgamating museums does not necessarily – and should not – mean that museum visitors experience a reduction in the experiences made available.
New tasks and challenges
The municipal reform means new tasks and challenges for the museums.
As regards ancient monuments, the supervision previously provided by the counties will be decentralised and distributed to a number of museums. The National Cultural Heritage Agency will very soon publish information about this.
As far as buildings are concerned, we are currently gaining experience in decentralising and handing over to the museums the administrative work involved in building work and supervising listed buildings. The National Cultural Heritage Agency has initiated pilot projects in Odense and Copenhagen, and once the results have been analysed, I will consider whether or not to use this decentralised model in a wider perspective.
As regards teaching, the museums will to a greater extent contribute to the programmes provided by the state schools and youth education services. In collaboration with the Danish Ministry of Education, we have developed an e-museum that provides a wide range of educational and training programmes from museums and science centres. I have also just announced a plan for developing the information services provided by museums. This plan includes funds for developing new educational programmes and setting up a joint network and collaboration between the museums and teaching activities throughout Denmark.
All these new projects and challenges will contribute to displaying the combined qualities of Danish museums in such a way that they take up a strong position as working partners for the new municipalities.
Developing the museums’ information services
In the information services plan, we have succeeded in allocating significant funds for the community-focused part of the work carried out by the museums. Such efforts to provide information ensure that the museums impact and benefit everyone – children, young people and adults alike. In addition to the funds for free admission for children and young people, the plan provides more than DKK 40 million (approximately EUR 5.4 million) to ensure the continued development of the professional information services at the museums. This development focuses on building up experience and knowledge-sharing, as well as drawing on the benefits of international experience to a greater extent. We must become more familiar with the public and learn more about what they expect from us. We also need to know more about all the people who never visit a museum. In my opinion, the museums play a very important role as a repository of knowledge within our society, and the population at large must therefore be provided with a highly qualified selection of exciting, informative museum experiences.
I have heard it suggested in several quarters that the funds for the information plan should be distributed to the museums as operating subsidies – rather than as pooled grants. However, I have to say that I feel that such pools are a good development tool, in general. I also have to admit that politically, it can be somewhat easier to ensure funds for initiatives and major efforts via pool arrangements rather than via a general increase of the operating subsidies the museums already receive. With the information services plan, however, I have chosen to distribute part of the funds as operating subsidies to some of the museums that make special efforts to provide information at an international level. The background for this is that the information services committee recommended that we strengthen museums that work to a significant extent with large, international exhibitions because they contribute to creating interest for museum exhibitions at a more general level.
I have also decided that we are to develop new, shared tools that can ensure focus and development opportunities for all museums, partly by means of differentiated museum statistics, teaching, surveys and research. This thus includes a number of activities that will jointly benefit all the museums. It also includes activities that will hopefully strengthen our museums’ profile in general, particularly in the new municipalities.
Future subsidies
The municipal reform shifts the distribution of responsibility for public subsidies allocated to running museums. As of 1 January 2007, the counties’ subsidies will be taken over by the state. Intense efforts are currently being made to get all the pieces of this financial jigsaw to fall into place, so that the subsidies for 2007 can be announced.
For the museums covered by the provisions in section 16 of the Danish museum law, this means a permanent transfer of the funds available from the counties to the state. Some of these museums will subsequently even be entitled to very large state subsidies. This means that we at the Danish Ministry of Culture will, in a number of cases, consider closer dialogue with these museums regarding strategies and aims for their activities.
For museums covered by section 15 of the law, and for conservation centres, the state takeover of the counties’ subsidies is an interim arrangement that expires at the end of 2010.
To make sure that these structural changes and the amalgamation of museums do not have an immediate effect on the state subsidy to the individual museum, I had a change to the museum law adopted just prior to the 2006 summer holiday. This change means that museums that amalgamate can retain their previous combined state subsidies.
We have previously had a simple arrangement for determining the state subsidy for running museums, but this subsidy structure has now become quite complicated. The combined state subsidy for each individual museum – permanently or in a transitional period – will thus be made up of a number of different state subsidy schemes in future. There is not necessarily a direct connection between the extent of the tasks carried out by each museum and the size of the state subsidy it receives. I believe we ought to have further discussions on this topic.
The conclusion of the interim financial arrangements, combined with the changes to the museum structure, provides an occasion for reconsidering the state subsidy schemes associated with state-authorised museums. This reconsideration should take place well before 1 January 2011, and will no doubt already be launched during the course of 2008. By this time, the first wave of museum amalgamations will have been completed and shed light on the nature of the museum structure that a future subsidy scheme must match.
By this time, we will also be able to get an impression of the kinds of experience some museums have acquired while carrying out new tasks for the state and the municipalities.
In spring 2008, I therefore intend to summon the museums, municipalities and other interested parties to a combined discussion on how the subsidy structure, museum legislation and the overall museum environment should appear by the end of the municipal reform’s four-year transition period on 1 January 2011.
Until then, I hope that the structural changes already implemented can form a starting point for discussions between the individual museums and between the municipalities and the museums about the future museum structure.
The aim must be the same for us all – that we constantly strive to establish a museum environment in Denmark that can provide the greatest benefit in the combined effort to maintain our shared cultural legacy. We can be pleased that we have got off to a rapid start, and I have no doubt that we will succeed.
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