The Kiss Goodnight for English Heritage

[Doug]

" It might be one of the bravest face being put on by EH I have seen as the government has done more than cut the budget, they have cut English Heritage"

"Under current plans, the new charity will be set up by March 2015. It will retain the name English Heritage and in due course, will be completely self-financing and no longer need tax-payer support"

http://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/20...-heritage/

[kevin wooldridge]

This is not a good day for English Heritage, although I have a sneaking feeling that the National Heritage Protection Service (at least from an archaeological point of view) may be a service whose time has come....as regards the properties in care....it seems a little strange to even contemplate setting up a charity whose aim, purpose, organisation and status exactly mirrors that of the National Trust. I suspect that this will dawn on someone even before the ink has dried on the slightly dodgy £80m cheque.... my suspicion is that someone may already have gone down that route, but the NT (off the record) probably estimated that an endowment of £800 million might be closer to the true cost of 'devolving' this asset.....

[Sith]

I have often wondered why Simon Thurleigh and his predecessors expended so much time, effort (and let's face it .. hard working taxpayer's cash) trying to be the National Trust but with worse tea rooms.

[Dinosaur]

Eek!!!!!:0

[Doug]

The release is pretty bad so it is hard to tell what the plan is. It does look like they are splitting EH but it is not clear if the NT clone has to be self funded only or if it and the National Heritage Protection Service have to both be self funded. Maybe they will keep paying for the NHPS?

If anyone from EH knows?

[VGC]

The release is pretty bad so it is hard to tell what the plan is. It does look like they are splitting EH but it is not clear if the NT clone has to be self funded only or if it and the National Heritage Protection Service have to both be self funded. Maybe they will keep paying for the NHPS?

If anyone from EH knows?

It's looking a bit similar to the proposed merger of RCAHMS and Historic Scotland. The current plans seem to result in the policy/statutory/regulatory part of HS being stripped out into a quango or something similar, and the property side being operated as an arms length charity. This model is being opposed by the National Trust for Scotland as a) it's effectively a clone & direct competition and b) because at the moment HS enjoys special tax arrangements and it's not clear if these are going to be passed on to the new body.

"While welcoming the broad thrust of the proposal, the Trust has genuine concerns that, if there is not a level playing field in terms of regulation, taxation and promotion, the new body might unintentionally but irretrievably damage the voluntary and private providers that do so much to care for Scotland’s heritage."

From http://www.nts.org.uk/about/downloads/br...merger.pdf
[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]The new organisation aspires to become "Scotland’s leading heritage tourism provider." As with the aspiration to become self-supporting through charitable donations, there is concern that a new super-body that is both the regulatory authority and a private competitor could use its powers to create an uneven playing field.
The potential conflicts of interest include:
- [SIZE=3]Consents [/SIZE]- Favourable treatment of the new body’s own applications for scheduled monument/listed building consents (should this responsibility be placed with the new body);
- [SIZE=3]Cross-subsidy [/SIZE]- Use of tax-payer funding to compete commercially with the wider sector (a possible State Aid infringement);
- [SIZE=3]Undue influence [/SIZE]- Use of connections with other arms of government (e.g. tourism marketing, skills development, planning authorities) to undertake commercial initiatives not open to private or voluntary sector competitors.
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[Doug]

Got an interesting responses from EH on the subject-

"I know that you are concerned Doug and I’d like to try to convince you that this really is good news for English Heritage and that there is no need to panic! It was actually our idea to ask the Government for a one-off lump sum and permission to form a charity to run the historic properties side of EH so we are in fact really pleased that they have agreed. Our press release obviously didn’t explain things well enough. At the moment, we have to use about £22 million of our annual grant-in-aid to support the National Heritage Collection but we are increasing the income we earn ourselves all the time and with the new freedom being a charity will bring it is absolutely possible that this part of English Heritage can become self-financing eventually. We don’t have to achieve this by 2015, that is when we start the charity and begin the process towards financial independence so not a scary timetable at all – and there is no plan to cut off state funding from the properties unless and until they achieve financial self-sufficiency. Worth saying that all existing EH staff who work on the properties will be transferred across to the new charity under their current terms and conditions.
It is also good news for the other part of EH that provides heritage protection for England’s wider heritage. This will absolutely continue to receive state funding! Although, like other Government-funded bodies, we are suffering cuts, it’s great that in future less and less will have to be spent on the properties and we can focus it more on all the other things we do such as listing, advising on planning applications, giving grants, running the Heritage at Risk Register and research into areas of heritage which are not yet properly understood.
Both parts of English Heritage will continue to report to the EH Commission which reports directly to the Dept for Culture, Media and Sport so no one is being cut loose to float off into the blue! The difference is that instead of worrying about how to tackle repairs to the National Heritage Collection, it now has a much more secure future. And we will be able to use our continuing annual Government grant to enhance the service we provide to owners, developers and the public so that England’s heritage across the country is understood, valued, cared for and enjoyed."

They are trying to make it sound good, I guess time will tell if new EH can stand on its feet and if funding will be slowly removed as they increase income.

[P Prentice]

....it seems a little strange to even contemplate setting up a charity whose aim, purpose, organisation and status exactly mirrors that of the National Trust. I suspect that this will dawn on someone even before the ink has dried on the slightly dodgy £80m cheque.... my suspicion is that someone may already have gone down that route, but the NT (off the record) probably estimated that an endowment of £800 million might be closer to the true cost of 'devolving' this asset.....

and why not? seems to me that substantial savings could be made by splicing into the nt which afterall is more public friendly and better supported!

[Wax]

Might be interesting to look at the sorts of properties EH manage are they actually capable of generating the necessary income? The NT makes its money (covering running costs with little profit) from its membership fees and the endowments that came with some properties. The fees from non member visits are not that great. There are also many properties that do not generate an income. The National Heritage collection may consits of properties the NT would not consider ever managing being too much of a drain on resources. Essentially the Government appear to be looking for a way of dumping their responsibility for the National Heritage Collection.

[Weegie]

Ooh, itching to join in this discussion, but I've been told that I'm not allowed to engage in discussion of the CSR in social media. Very frustrating....