Participating in the Past: Supporting the Role of Statutory Bodies, Museums and Local Authority Provision

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6.9 Supporting the Role of Statutory Bodies, Museums and Local Authority Provision

The importance of national bodies such as Historic Scotland, Cadw, English Heritage, The Environment and Heritage Service in Northern Ireland, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW), and the national and university museums as guardians of the heritage is widely recognised. However, the adequacy of their funding-base for the task laid upon them is frequently an issue, particularly as a broader appreciation of what constitutes the ‘heritage’ comes to be acknowledged. A number of new government initiatives appear likely to lay further responsibilities at the doors of these organisations (eg DCMS 2003b). The impact of decisions made by parliaments and assemblies in relation to funding of specific areas are, on the whole, fairly clearly discernible. The same is not so obviously the case with local authority provision where local-member decisions on the funding of specific departments can have a catastrophic trickle-down effect on sub-sections with a very small staff component, as is often the case with local museums, local planning archaeology, Sites and Monuments Records, and related services. In a number of areas, for instance, there are museums with no archaeological staff, and in other areas no museum coverage at all. Even though the relationship between these local services and those at national level is often administratively tentative, such local services are integral to the activities and objectives of national bodies.

There is much to be said for a clearer recognition of these links and the development of a statutory basis for some of these local services, even if in return for a securer financial base, some loss of local independence occurs. This point has already been made in relation to Sites and Monuments Records (above).

  • Recommendation 18: national archaeological organisations should re-iterate the significance of local archaeological resources including museums, and seek to establish a more secure local-funding base by campaigning for statutory provision.