2002 hubris

In early 2002, within the UK national museum community, an amount of distinct Schadenfreude could be detected over the ailments being endured by the British Museum (budget deficit, shorter opening hours, staff cuts et al).

Finally faced with the legacy of pompous inefficiency in its management, and burdened with the costs of its grandiose millennium schemes, the British Museum had finally found itself facing the sort of financial hardships most other London museums had had to grapple with twenty years earlier. And like a would-be beneficiary of the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Association it was feebly looking round for someone to help it retain the style to which it had become accustomed. The Schadenfreude amongst museum colleagues was occasioned not by lack of empathy with the BM’s plight – financial stringency was by now commonplace amongst museums – but by its argument that it had been especially harshly treated by circumstances and so deserved special treatment. It’s not fair, went the BM song. Welcome to the party, pal, came back the chorus from others.

The British Museum had been an organisational basket-case for decades, a fact masked by its wealth and worldwide reputation. Some seven years earlier, it had commissioned a management report which it hoped would present a strong case for additional government funding (always the BM’s preferred solution to its ills). Instead, the Edwards Report had presented the BM with a catalogue of its inefficiencies, overstaffing, and financial waste, together with a raft of proposals for the better management of the museum and major cost savings. Astonishingly the BM had published the report anyway, in 1996, and were apparently taken aback to find that it had had exactly the reverse effect to the one they hoped for. The report was swiftly withdrawn.

That was the only rapid action that had happened. Even the placid Chris Smith, then Secretary of State for Culture, eventually became so fed up with the obvious inaction of the BM’s management that he parachuted in Suzanna Taverne to be Managing Director of the BM alongside Robert Anderson the, erm, Director of the BM. Two top dogs (with very different views of what was required) was hardly a recipe for harmony, coherence and focus. Taverne was no soft touch, but had anything but an easy time, her ambition eventually to be put in sole charge being firmly squashed by the museum’s Trustees. Neil MacGregor from the National Gallery was chosen instead as successor to Anderson.

So what did the museum put its current misfortunes down to? Anything but its own ineptitude, that’s for sure. But from outside the Bloomsbury comfort zone the signs had been there to read for some time. The new Great Court was carrying huge ongoing costs with it, £4.5 million a year. The BM complained that it had had to absorb virtually this entire sum, omitting to point out that it was a condition of Lottery project funding that capital projects should impose no added burden on the taxpayer. Presumably the BM had happily agreed to this condition to get the Lottery money in the first place.

Fewer people than expected had visited the museum following the Great Court’s opening. The BM’s risk analysis did not seem to have included the possibility that their new “public space for London” might not attract the necessary additional 1.5 million visitors with their cash. Or that anything like September 11 might happen to reduce the numbers of overseas tourists, even though the lesson from the Gulf War was still fresh.

Or... that it might have based its attendance forecasts on inaccurate data. After years of proclaiming yet more record-breaking attendances – “6.7 million in 1996” – the museum had had to admit that when it installed a proper counting system it found it had been over-counting previously by about 20%. Oops. As noone else in the museum business had believed its previous claims, this didn’t come as a surprise, except of course to the BM.

Nor did the BM appear to have wondered if universal free admission to national museums, for which it had lobbied so hard, might add to its direct competition. Instead it felt it had lost out because DCMS was now compensating the charging museums which had gone free. Even Suzanna Taverne repeated the mantra: “We were penalised twice. First, we lost the revenue we would have earned by charging. Now, to add insult to injury, we are missing out on a pay-off which could be worth some £8 million to us which the DCMS is giving to museums that used to charge. That’s a real double whammy.”

Well, no it wasn't, actually. First, the BM benefited from now being able to reclaim VAT. Second, the £8 million pay-off was never on offer. And third, the BM had chosen (because it could afford to, as well as on principle) not to introduce charges. Up till then the BM had been spared having to consider charging. It’s a very well-endowed museum, with property, bequests, and wealthy donors. Instead of using this money wisely, it had used it to paper over the systemic problems that the Edwards Report revealed. Now those problems had finally got too big, with annual running costs having soared from £65 million in 1998 to over £100 million.

Other museums without the same financial safety net had had to get to grips with similar issues long before. Costs were cut, staff numbers were reduced, activity was scaled down, better systems were put in place, sources of revenue were explored and yes, admission charges were introduced. A wholly unsympathetic government ear was turned to the arguments for increased grant, and various hapless museum directors were labelled as Thatcherite stooges as a result. The British Museum’s stance while this was happening was patronising and critical. When it finally found itself also in need, it should have just bitten the bullet, got its house in order and stopped moaning. It may be a special museum, but there was no case for special pleading.