As part of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) the government has cut the revenue funding of English Heritage (EH) by a further 10% for 2015-16.
EH writes:
Last week the future of the National Heritage Collection was secured following the announcement of a one-off Government lump sum of £80 million. The money will fund investment in urgent repairs and enhancements and support English Heritage’s plan to form a charity to manage the Collection. A Charity will have more freedom to generate commercial and philanthropic income and eventually become self-financing. The National Heritage Collection of 420 historic sites and monuments includes Stonehenge, Kenwood, Dover Castle and Charles Darwin’s Home, Down House, in Kent. It is one of England’s most important collections of cultural treasures and the £80 million secures its future for the nation.
English Heritage’s responsibility for planning and heritage protection will remain the same. The cut of 10% in our revenue funding for the year 2015/16 announced today (Wednesday 3 July, 2013) by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is very disappointing. However, this cut will not be effective for two years so we have time to prepare for it. Thanks to the £80 million, and the greater freedom from state control and improved ability to fundraise that comes with Charitable status, the National Heritage Collection will need less revenue funding as it works towards becoming self-financing. We shall use the savings in this area to minimise the effect of the cut on the statutory side of our work. Importantly, our commitment to the National Heritage Protection Plan remains resolute. This is the work we do to identify those parts of the nation’s heritage that matter most to people and are at greatest risk – our advice, research and awareness-raising work.
Over the coming months we want to hear from all those who use our services about how we can take advantage of the opportunity of having a new organisation with a clear, dedicated purpose, to strengthen our expert advice and provide an even better service. In due course, the heritage protection service will be re-launched with a new name and a new identity.
Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: ‘We have re-organised after the cuts of 2010 and our planning and heritage protection services are in good shape. Despite today’s news, it is our intention to enhance the service we provide to owners, developers and the public, ensuring that England’s heritage across the country is understood, valued, cared for and enjoyed.
‘I am grateful to the Secretary of State for fighting so valiantly to secure our extra capital funding and I look forward to working with her to ensure the charity is set up on a sound financial footing. Without the £80 million one-off award, we would have been faced with significant cuts and no prospect of tackling the backlog of urgent repairs to the National Heritage Collection that has accumulated over several decades of below-inflation Government funding for English Heritage.’
The new protection body will speed up research and listing of areas of heritage which are not currently properly protected such as buildings and structures connected to the First World War, pre-1840 shipwrecks, public libraries and post-war schools. It will improve the efficiency of its advisory service to owners and developers who want to know what they can and cannot do with listed buildings or in sensitive historic settings. It will continue to offer grants, run the Heritage at Risk Register, the English Heritage Angel Awards and to fund Heritage Open Days, and it will enhance public access to all kinds of heritage data, including the nation’s archive of 10 million photographs of historic buildings and places.
Edward Impey, Director of Heritage Protection & Planning at EH, writes to the National Heritage Protection Plan Advisory Board:
You will be aware through the media and no doubt many other channels of the recent announcement of changes to the way that English Heritage’s current responsibilities will be discharged in the future. English Heritage Commissioners and management believe that these arrangements will be of benefit to the historic environment as a whole, and we are very pleased that Government has endorsed this move with such enthusiasm. In essence, the lump sum of £80m awarded by the Chancellor on Wednesday will allow the backlog of repairs to the National Heritage Collection, resulting from years of underfunding, to be addressed, and for significant new investment to be made in what we show and explain to visitors. It will also, crucially, allow a new charity to be set up to manage the Collection, to be called English Heritage, which will in the longer term become self-funding. Properties in Guardianship – the vast majority – will be operated under licence from the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (HBMCE), which will retain ultimate responsibility for their successful maintenance and display.
English Heritage’s responsibilities vis à vis the whole of the rest of England’s historic environment will continue to be managed directly by the HBMCE. This will operate under a new name, yet to be identified, but for the moment we are using the working title of the National Heritage Protection Service (NHPS). This will continue, of course, to develop the National Heritage Protection Plan and fulfil all but the properties-related parts of (what is now) the English Heritage Action Plan; it will continue to carry out the functions of the existing Designation, Heritage Protection, and National Planning and Conservation Departments, and include the Resources Group – providing essential corporate services – and the National Advice and Information Group. For a period, corporate services will be provided by the NHPS to English Heritage.
The fundamental mission of English Heritage’s current non-properties work will not change, and it is important to emphasise this. However, the NHPS will need to establish and promulgate its new identity firmly and speedily, and while its business plan will essentially be the NHPP Action Plan, we will be taking formal soundings from the historic environment sector, not simply on the future form of the Plan, but on the services we provide and how we do so. However, it is our intention to take the fullest possible advantage of the opportunity to enhance the remit of the NHPS, actively using our resources of expertise, data and archives to engage the public in the appreciation of the historic environment – in the language of the ‘Heritage Cycle’ to help people understand, value, care for and enjoy it.
You will probably also have heard the DCMS’s announcement today of a 10% cut to English Heritage’s revenue for the year 2015-16. This is very disappointing, but as the cut will not be effective for nearly two years we have time to prepare. Thanks to the £80m, and the greater freedoms that will come with charitable status, the National Heritage Collection will need less revenue funding as it works towards becoming self-financing. We shall use the savings in this area to minimise the effect of the cut on the NHPS.
I hope this is useful. Finally, it remains to say that of course your contribution as a Board member to the workings and decision-making of the NHPS will be vital to its success and we look forward to continuing to work with you.
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