23rd May 2006, 05:30 PM
David is right to exert pressure on everyone (except perhaps his mum).
To clarify our situation... 90% of my department's funding comes from external sources in the form of developer-funded archaeology projects. We tender for work just as everyone else does. 10% comes from other sources, included externally-funded Museum capital projects and research grants. This is a complete turnaround from when I took over six years ago; about 90% of my predecessor's funding came from archaeological work on Museum capital projects.
I am not sure of the position vis a vis other Museums which have archaeology units.
However despite the fact that my department is financially independent of the wider museum, and therefore in theory should be able to charge and pay what we like, I still have to submit pay rise 'requests' to our Trustees.
The real problem, and the one that I want to highlight, is that there is a culture in the Museum sector which accepts low pay. So when I make a request to pay a site assistant (say) £14,500, this is in the context of a culture which regards that as a good wage for an assistant curator (ie. an archaeology site supervisor). If I want to pay a field officer the current BAJR recommended maximum for that grade, then that is equivalent to an excellent wage for a curator (someone whose responsibilities are closer to an archaeological project manager). And so on up the scale. So I don't even look at the bit on the BAJR scale that suggests I should be on £35,000.
Your point about heritage value is an important one. A lot of people regard visiting shopping centres as 'leisure' on a Sunday and far fewer visit Museums than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Again I speak from the perspective of a fully independent museum, and not the (relatively) buffered existence of the major Nationals or local authority museums.
Pressure from whom?
I have not followed the Britarch debate closely. However I work in an independent museum which recieves no local authority funding. We think that is a good thing, as it gives us relative freedom to do what we want. It also sharpens our wits considerably as we have no financial buffer to fall back on. Public funding, and local authority influence, is a two-edged sword.
Public support for public funding is another matter entirely. I think if you went down your High Street and asked whether Museum staff should be paid more then people would say 'yes'.
If, on the other hand, you asked them 'Should your council tax go up by another 1% to increase the wages of staff in a non-essential service used by a generally unrepresentative minority of local residents' then the answer would probably be 'no'.
To clarify our situation... 90% of my department's funding comes from external sources in the form of developer-funded archaeology projects. We tender for work just as everyone else does. 10% comes from other sources, included externally-funded Museum capital projects and research grants. This is a complete turnaround from when I took over six years ago; about 90% of my predecessor's funding came from archaeological work on Museum capital projects.
I am not sure of the position vis a vis other Museums which have archaeology units.
However despite the fact that my department is financially independent of the wider museum, and therefore in theory should be able to charge and pay what we like, I still have to submit pay rise 'requests' to our Trustees.
The real problem, and the one that I want to highlight, is that there is a culture in the Museum sector which accepts low pay. So when I make a request to pay a site assistant (say) £14,500, this is in the context of a culture which regards that as a good wage for an assistant curator (ie. an archaeology site supervisor). If I want to pay a field officer the current BAJR recommended maximum for that grade, then that is equivalent to an excellent wage for a curator (someone whose responsibilities are closer to an archaeological project manager). And so on up the scale. So I don't even look at the bit on the BAJR scale that suggests I should be on £35,000.
Your point about heritage value is an important one. A lot of people regard visiting shopping centres as 'leisure' on a Sunday and far fewer visit Museums than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Again I speak from the perspective of a fully independent museum, and not the (relatively) buffered existence of the major Nationals or local authority museums.
Quote:quote:If it really came down to paying museum staff a decent wage or shutting museums down (as was suggested on Britarch) would there not be much more pressure on local authorities to properly fund them?
Pressure from whom?
I have not followed the Britarch debate closely. However I work in an independent museum which recieves no local authority funding. We think that is a good thing, as it gives us relative freedom to do what we want. It also sharpens our wits considerably as we have no financial buffer to fall back on. Public funding, and local authority influence, is a two-edged sword.
Public support for public funding is another matter entirely. I think if you went down your High Street and asked whether Museum staff should be paid more then people would say 'yes'.
If, on the other hand, you asked them 'Should your council tax go up by another 1% to increase the wages of staff in a non-essential service used by a generally unrepresentative minority of local residents' then the answer would probably be 'no'.