Museum Training (Hansard, 17 March 1988)

§ Mr. Luce

The Museums and Galleries Commission working party report on museums training and career structure was published in July 1987.

I am grateful to the working party and to its chairman Sir John Hale for the thoughtful and detailed consideration which they have given to the important subject of the training which is required by those who work at all levels and in all sectors and all aspects of our museums. At a time of opportunity for museums, and when the number and diversity of museums, and the number of those who visit and use them are increasing, it is important that staff employed in museums are equipped with the skills they need, in management and marketing as well as in the more traditional and still essential areas of museum activity.

The Hale working party produced a wide-ranging report, and I thought it appropriate for my Department to consult widely on its findings. I am grateful to all those who submitted their views. I have now considered the report's recommendations in the light of the comments and advice which my Department received.

There is general agreement about the need for a fresh look at training for museum work to make that training better reflect the skills which are needed and will be needed by those working in museums. The necessary first step in this process is an examination of the needs of the museum industry for key skills and competences. It is desirable, in order to facilitate the development of new provision for museums training, for such a study to proceed quickly and on an industrywide basis taking account of the needs of the main sectors of the museum world and of the relevant areas of the heritage sector. I am pleased to announce that my Department with the Manpower Services Commission will be providing support and financial assistance for a needs assessment study for which the principal agent will be the Museums Association. This six-month study will represent phase I of a programme which is intended by the Museums Association to result in the production of new modules for the training of those currently or prospectively working in museums.

The needs assessment study, to be carried out by consultants experienced in the field of training assessment and provision, will be overseen by a steering committee on which the major interests in the museum community—the Museums and Galleries Commission, the Museums Association, the area museum councils, the national museums and galleries, the independent and the local 624W authority museums—will be represented. The steering committee will be chaired by the Office of Arts and Libraries.

Beyond the first phase of this programme, I shall take a continuing close interest in the development of museum training. I think it right, however, that the primary responsibility for museums training should rest with the museums industry itself, and that the continuing developments in this area should be overseen and guided by a consortium representing the main sectors of the museums industry. It is not my intention to set up a museums training council with regional panels in the form recommended by the Hale report. I shall be consulting further about the composition of the consortium of interests which I have in mind, with a view to its establishment later this year. I should be prepared to provide limited funding on a pump-priming basis for a museums training consortium, for a period of up to five years, but I should expect the museums industry and employers to contribute an increasing share of the costs of this group and, following a substantial public investment by my Department and the MSC in an initial programme of development of museum training. I shall expect the provision and further development of museum training to become self-financing. I attach importance to the development and application of skills in management and marketing within the museums sector, and to the transfer of skills between institutions. I hope that the development of new training modules which are relevant to all sectors of the museums industry will help to increase the scope for mobility and exchanges of staff between museums.

The Museums and Galleries Commission working party report on museums training has provided a useful foundation on which the various sectors of the museums world, with the Government's help, can build in partnership. I am pleased that an ambitious but realistic programme of development of museums training, with the Government's backing, is now under way.