The next horizon? The practicalities of turnaround and closure
Authors: Ruth Lesirge and Hilary Barnard, HBRL Consulting
AIM recognises that times continue to be particularly tough for many museums since surviving the pandemic – with staff, trustees and other volunteers managing the consequences. This guide has been written for Trustees and senior staff facing hard decisions over whether their museum survives or closes, and how to plan for either eventuality. The publication sets out to help you address these challenges on a practical basis and in a timely manner.
We recognise that much investment of time, effort and energy has gone into establishing and sustaining your museum. The realistic options available may raise difficult issues particularly for trustees and senior staff. AIM understands that closure or turnaround is being discussed in several museums: in such cases what it requires is not only rational well-planned decision
making, but also engaging with the emotions of key stakeholders, not least staff and volunteers.
We use the term ‘turnaround’ often in this guide. Turnaround is a promptly executed significant improvement in the way your museum operates that enables it to continue delivering public benefit. It embraces short term survival but should be more than that. Turnaround is concerned to put your museum on a sustainable basis for the medium and long term. For
that reason, turnaround includes merger and different forms of collaboration that offers a real possibility of a secure future.
Of course, it is possible that your museum may have reached the end of its viable life, and that orderly closure is the best option. However, in most cases, closure is undesirable involving a significant loss of public access to heritage and culture. Closure is also a time-consuming, complex and expensive process, which will inevitably divert energy from enhancing the
visitors’ experience and enjoyment of your museum. This guide has been written in the belief that Trustees should only ever embark on closing a museum after all other options have been thoroughly investigated and considered and as a last resort.
Our approach in this guide is to:
- Encourage you to explore first how the future of your museum’s purpose might be secured through turnaround whilst understanding that this may involve uncomfortable change.
- Set out a second broad approach to closing well, where turnaround is not possible.
- Offer practical support and guidance in the processes of turnaround or closure for those who have leadership and/or governance responsibility.
- Recognise that each museum will have particular timescales in addressing the threat of closure; we therefore identify where processes can be streamlined.
- Signpost you to other resources that can help you determine and take the best course of action for your museum.
This guide has been written for independent charitable museums but there is much that is relevant and applicable for local authority museums and museums which are a constituent part of larger organisations.
Download the practicalities of turnaround and closure (opens in a new tab) Download the practicalities of turnaround and closure in Welsh (opens in a new tab)If you are an Accredited Museum you will already have in place policies, plans and procedures, particularly around collections, that will need to referred to in the event of museum closure. Where these are relevant they are referenced in this guide. The UK wide Museum Accreditation scheme, managed as a UK Partnership between Arts Council England, the Welsh Government, Museums Galleries Scotland and Northern Ireland Museums Council, sets expectation for how Accredited Museums should be managed and governed. It helps everyone involved with a museum to do the right things,
helping people to access and engage with collections, and protect them for future generations.
Arts Council England also co-ordinates a joint response from 16 museum funders and sector bodies about heritage, museums and collections at risk. This outlines a co-ordinated response to helping organisations at real risk of long-term closure or insolvency.
You can read more about this here (opens in a new tab)