On 6 January, Historic England (HE) was called to give oral evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee as part of their ongoing inquiry into Protecting Built Heritage, with Co-CEO Emma Squire and Director of Policy and Evidence Ian Morrison responding to questions.
Parliament UK writes:
On 6 January, Historic England was called to give oral evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee as part of their ongoing inquiry into Protecting Built Heritage. Co-CEO Emma Squire and Director of Policy and Evidence Ian Morrison responded to questions on the effectiveness of the organisation and whether changes to funding models and the listed building consent process could benefit the sector.
In its written evidence, Historic England outlined how many heritage operators are struggling financially and MPs are likely to want to explore the effectiveness of the organisation’s initiatives aimed at supporting the sector. There could also be questions about its approach to the challenges posed by climate change and skills shortages.
The second panel will feature officials from the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Office as the Committee turns its attention the current condition of the Government estate and how it is being protected. Several submissions to the inquiry have highlighted the growing challenges of maintaining heritage assets on public land, with Historic England suggesting that the Government should develop and monitor new strategies to care for historic sites. Questions are likely on how government departments manage sites, funding for conservation and maintenance, and how preservation is balanced with operational needs.
Select Transcriptions:
Emma Squire: I think there were more opportunities than challenges.
Historic England is a confident, high-performing organisation, full of committed colleagues who are experts and really understand the communities that they serve. Claudia and I, on taking on the co-CEO role, see huge opportunities for Historic England and the historic environment to play an even bigger role in solving some of society’s challenges. We want to dial up the work that we do on heritage and growth, and we specifically see huge opportunities for converting historic buildings to help meet housing supply. We see huge opportunities with heritage skills. We have calculated that the economy could absorb an additional 105,000 roles per year every year to 2050 just to retrofit the fifth of housing that is traditional pre-1919.
We also see a huge opportunity around place and the role of heritage and making characterful places that people feel proud to live in, and helping with community cohesion and pride in place. Finally, we see an opportunity for Historic England to do even more in partnership with the wider heritage sector, sometimes leading, sometimes supporting, sometimes convening, to make sure that we have a seat at the table to boost the voice for heritage in policy at every tier of Government.
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Emma Squire: The biggest challenges for the sector are financial resilience, and that is cash flow but also the maintenance backlog and the skills challenge. We see our role as helping to build the evidence base, providing technical expertise and providing some small grants. We were lucky enough to receive £15 million last year for heritage at risk capital grants, but that fund was 10 times oversubscribed. We believe that the maintenance backlog for three in four heritage buildings open to the public is growing rather than reducing. We are trying to help the heritage sector with guidance on retrofit, for example, so that they can reduce their costs and make interventions that will also help with their sustainability. It is a role in guidance, advice, funding and advocacy to Government.
Ian Morrison: If I can come in there, in addition we have a very strong role in policy, working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to reform the planning system to make it easier for owners and stewards of historic buildings to get permission to change them to generate more income from them. We have been working hard on reforms to the national planning policy framework to encourage more positive decisions from local authorities, which make most of the decisions on changes of use and changes of design for historic buildings, to make it easier for them to approve applications that will bring these buildings back into productive use….
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We are already working closely with our partners across the heritage sector because we know we cannot do this by ourselves. That is very clear. We have been working with National Trust, the Heritage Fund, the Heritage Alliance and other key heritage organisations to develop a resilience plan for the sector, which we published last year. That is built on four cornerstones of development. It is making sure that heritage is relevant. If people do not see the benefits of heritage it will be very hard to get the funding that we need to bring them back into good condition. It is making sure that the policy environment encourages productive re-use of historic buildings and historic places, so getting the policy environment right. One of the things I am sure we will come back to is making sure we have the skilled workforce that we need, which is a massive issue and an opportunity, as Emma said. Finally, it is looking at the financial resilience of organisations. How can we help them help each other by sharing services, for example, and finding new ways to bring in new sources of income to make them sustainable?
