21 January 2016
Charge!
Fading Icons: Free Admission
by J.R.Thomas
As the youth of Britain find its way back to school, and its parents to work, both sides breathing discreet sighs of relief, the galleries and museums of Britain subside back to winter somnolence. And their directors resume their habitual care – which is worrying about money, and how to obtain enough to meet the ever growing costs of operating in a hostile financial climate.
This sort of thing is comparative of course. The great London collections in their mostly enormous Victorian powerhouses worry about money, but it is a different strand of worry to that faced by the often young and inexperienced curators of modest local museums in the remote counties and unfashionable towns. Nobody who relies on public funding (except in the NHS and overseas aid) has escaped the Chancellor’s knife, whittling and cutting and in some sectors, chopping away at budgets. But it has to be said that the great institutions, almost entirely London based, have got away quite lightly. Not so the thousands of regional galleries and museums, who though they may not be direct recipients of central government largesse but look to local authorities, find that they are facing very significant cuts in that financial support.
Local government is in Mr Osborne’s direct line of fire; he wants to slowly transfer tax raising to local hands so that local government will become more responsible self-managers, and so that local voters will feel more directly the pain of profligacy or the warm righteous glow of prudence. Mrs Thatcher had the same urge and it was that that led to the political disaster of the poll tax. George is much too careful to fall into that particular hole, but he is equally certain that local councils are mostly improvident and extravagant and wants to change their underlying culture. So he cuts and cuts and the local authorities try to manage that process as best they can, which is to reduce services and protect their core structures. In this state of play, it is a wonder that there is any support for local culture at all; and in some cases, there soon won’t be.
The great London galleries and museums are seen as centres of excellence and vital attractions for tourists, one of Britain’s boom businesses at the moment. Not only has that enabled them to protect their budgets quite effectively but their galleries are groaning underfoot with people. It may be true to say that the floors groan louder under the footfall on wet or cold days than in warm spring or summer days, but the frequently crowding means that whatever it is the visitor has come to see, he or she is probably only going to get glimpses through the swaying, chatting, munching, phone waving crowds.
Not that this directly helps the galleries. Admission is free and, although the directors of the great cultural icons are very adept at providing obstructions at the entrance in their efforts to solicit donations, most visitors are even more adept at stepping round them with small change and large notes firmly bolted in pockets. To suggest that to reintroduce charges to visit galleries or museums would both raise very useful funding and relieve the wear and tear and discord caused by those who, shall we say, come in to get out of the rain, is akin to one of those H M Bateman cartoons – “the man who…”. Except not even Bateman could depict the horror among the curating classes at the sheer vulgarity of charging to enter a major gallery, a multi floored museum. It was such a move that probably sealed the reputation of the Heath government as hardnosed and uncaring when it imposed them in 1972; and Mr Blair cemented his liberal “I’m a regular guy” image by national abolition of charges in 2001, making them all free. But of course, and as Milton Friedman would no doubt point out if he were around to do so, they are not free. The cost of running a museum does not alter much whether it allows the public in for no charge, or whether it charges a fiver at the door . What is relevant is who is paying for the “free” culture. We all do: the poor, the disabled, the young and old, the sick, the rich, the poor. But if the institution charges for admission, then the cost of maintaining the collections falls on those who derive pleasure from seeing them.
Not only do the major galleries and museums not do badly from the public purse, they are very skilled at further money raising. Anybody who paid £15 a head to visit the recent Goya exhibition at the National Gallery and was then confronted with the massive crowds in the exhibition rooms will ruefully reflect that the National knows how to raise a bob or two, and if they comforted themselves with a Duke of Wellington tea towel or Fuddlewuddle Puppy stuffed toy (Goya relevance not entirely clear, but the Gallery can no doubt explain), they will have helped it raise a little more. And of course London based commercial enterprises (bankers again) will generously sponsor such exhibitions as evidence of their cultured and sensitive natures (the author does not knock it, he has been the grateful recipient of several private viewings courtesy of such sponsors). It is not just commerce either; there are many generous private donors in London who will happily assist with new galleries, air conditioning, redecoration, loo’s, even exhibits, and so on. Give enough and you will be remembered over the door, maybe not for ever, but at least until the improvements decay.
Regional directors and curators can only dream of such generous support. The crowds tend not to flock to exhibitions, however well curated or thought provoking, in Carlisle or Wolverhampton or Plymouth. Local businesses tend to be smaller and subject to their own financial restraints, and local personages even more so (not to decry the immense generosity of the Lever family in Birkenhead or the Ferens family of Hull, to give but two examples. But that was then, and now private money is much tougher in the regions.)
York City Art Gallery, a very pleasant small collection in a Victorian gallery in central York, a city with a strong cultural heritage and lots of tourists, has bitten the bullet. The local philanthropists of the Terry and Rowntree families are no longer around to wield generous cheque books. The local council promised £1.5 million a year for five years and then said it couldn’t afford it and has significantly cut the support each year. The gallery recently spent £4 million of capital on its premises, with great mistiming but mostly tackling vital repairs. The shop generates little, a few events, not much more. Now the gallery is effectively bust – facing imminently not being able to meet its basic outgoings. Yet, the place is packed with visitors in the summer and busy for much else of the year. So what to do?
The trustees have done the obvious thing; they have introduced entrance fees. £7.50 for tourists and for locals, concessions for students and the usual deserving categories. The numbers in the galleries have gone down of course, quite a lot, though the gallery expects them to recover as the tourist season comes along in March. But the difference is between no money, and maybe no pictures, and a modest charge which may save the gallery.
York will not be the last; in fact we are likely to see this become a common feature of small and regional institutions. It may well put them back on secure footings again. It might even generate local interest and support, on the basis, Hayekian and Friedmanite it is true, that people care more about things they value enough to pay for. We do not expect stately homes to give free admission; or free theatres, cinemas, or bookshops. The National Trust does not let us in gratis, neither does English Heritage (owned, as it often proudly proclaims, by us all). In an ideal world we would encourage all and sundry to enter without charge, to enhance quality of life and understanding of the human spirit. But when money is as tight as it is now, surely a modest charge at the local museum, leaving a little more for those sufferers who really need help, would be a good balance to strike?
