Our response to the Mendoza Review

We welcome the publication of the Mendoza Review by DCMS. We have been providing detailed support to Neil Mendoza and his research team since it was announced in the Culture White Paper (Spring 2016) and thank him for the care with which he has conducted his work.

Our focus as the national development agency for museums has been to provide the Review with access to as much evidence as possible relating to the full range of extraordinary museums that we have in this country and to ensure that differences in size, governance, location and collection type were taken into account during the deliberations of the Review team.

We support the recommendations of the Mendoza Review, particularly in seeking better alignment of investment in museums, and we will continue to work collaboratively with DCMS, Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), national museums and the whole museum sector in taking the recommendations forward. We will immediately start work with DCMS and HLF on developing a Museums Action Plan.

We will also put in place an memorandum of understanding with HLF in order to improve clarity for the museums sector on how the two organisations will work together to implement the recommendations of the Review.

We have announced significantly increased investment in museums from 1 April 2018. 57 museum NPOs, nine Museum Development Providers and six Sector Support Organisations are joining our National Portfolio for the first time, including collections from dinosaurs to tanks, horse racing to LGBT history, the Pre Raphaelites to insects.  

Over the period 2018 – 2022 we will invest £36.6 million per annum in museums which is nine per cent of the total National Portfolio spend. 91% of this funding is outside of London. In addition we have also committed to open up from 1 April 2018 our redesigned Grants for the Arts funding programme to museums, enabling hundreds more museums to apply for Arts Council support for a wide range of projects. 

We also believe that there are significant opportunities for closer working between museums and arts organisations and we will be using our advocacy, development and investment functions going forward to encourage closer collaborative working across the entire arts and cultural footprint.   

In addition, we’ve already started work on a number of the specific recommendations from the Mendoza Review:

• Our review of Accreditation is underway and will report in 2018.
• We have commissioned new research on museum data.
• We are investing an additional £150,000 per year into the Museum Development programme in 2018-22 to support it becoming a nationally consistent; regionally responsive programme
• We are developing a protocol about how we, HLF and other relevant sector bodies – like Historic England or other stakeholders would respond in such cases where a museum or collection is at risk of closure or loss of public access.
• We’re investing in professional development, working with the Museums Association and on diversity initiatives working with the Association of Independent Museums.

We recognise the distinct challenges faced by the sector and, as the national development agency for Museums in England,  we will play a leading role in delivering the priorities identified in the Review .  The Arts Council is committed to working with all accredited museums to support them to develop their business models, strengthen the care they provide for their collections and offer even greater experiences to audiences across England.