Archived decisions

THE MUSEUMS SERVICE : STRATEGY REVIEW

1. The Executive Member has received a report on the review of the Museums Service, this being one of a sequence of reviews within the Recreation and Heritage Department aimed at ensuring that the services which constitute it make the best possible contribution to the County Council's corporate aims.

2. In common with many services provided through the department any functions of the Museum Service are provided through partnerships with District Councils, independent museums and government agencies and the County Council acts as a leader and facilitator as well as a direct operator. The service embraces a wide range of activities and underlying values and the major issue in the review process has been to take a sufficiently comprehensive view whilst focusing on the key issues in a practical manner. The importance of the service responding very flexibly to needs and opportunities was stressed in the report.

3. The report emphasised that Hampshire contains one of the richest and most diverse sets of collections in the country and an important aim was to achieve the right combination of skills in the department's staff to lead it forward over the next few years. There was a particular need to encourage youngsters to take an interest in the collections and much work would also be carried out on incorporating the story of a particular town into the local discovery centre using exhibits, as "sense of place" is very important in the Hampshire context; the programme involving the opening of local discovery centres will take place during the horizon of 5 - 10 years which is covered by the report.

4. The Executive Member approved the adoption of the conclusions of the review as a basis for implementation, having noted comments made by the Recreation and Heritage Policy Review Committee covering such matters as the importance of research to understand why people do not visit museums, the development of a business plan for each museum building with the aim of sustaining the building whilst providing modern facilities, the importance of publicising museums on the internet and the making of strong efforts to maximise revenue from the service.