Museums and Galleries (Glasgow)
The members' business debate is on motion S1M-1334, in the name of Pauline McNeill, on funding Glasgow's museums and galleries.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament is disappointed that Glasgow's museums and galleries were left out of the new funding for the arts announced on 2 November 2000; considers that the omission of support for Glasgow in arts funding disregards Glasgow museums' "special circumstances" as outlined in the Scottish Executive's National Cultural Strategy; believes that Glasgow City Council's cultural, social inclusion and educational strategy is second to none in Scotland; notes that the city's museums are the most visited in the UK outside London and that Glasgow holds the greatest civic collection in Europe, all of this being funded by the council tax payers of Glasgow, and calls for the inequity in funding of museums in Scotland to be redressed and the east-west divide in arts funding to be ended.
First, I thank the Parliamentary Bureau for selecting this motion. It could not be more timely, as there have been lively discussions on this subject recently. Secondly, I am sure that I speak for many Labour Glasgow MSPs on this subject. I am grateful for their support and that of others who signed this motion.
What is the motion all about? Glasgow has 14 museums and galleries, eight of which are in my constituency: Kelvingrove Art Gallery, which has the highest number of visitors to any gallery outside London; the Gallery of Modern Art, or GOMA; the Museum of Transport, which has the highest number of visitors to any museum outside London; St Mungo's Museum; Fossil Grove; the McClellan Galleries; and the Lighthouse. Members will see why I feel obligated to raise this issue tonight.
It is incredible that Glasgow's collections and exhibitions have attracted more interest than those in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and all the major English cities. That says something about the history of Glasgow as a centre of culture throughout the ages and the commitment of consecutive council administrations that have continued to preserve and invest in our city.
The director of the National Gallery in London has rated Glasgow's collections as one of the greatest civic collections in Europe. Surprisingly, none of Glasgow's galleries is designated a national gallery, so they do not attract the type of funding that goes with that status. Edinburgh, on the other hand, has three national galleries with the status that attracts national funding and recognition and they are part of the UK national galleries network. On the face of it, that is not fair.
Glasgow's 10 museums, which attract more than 3 million visitors, hold works of great national importance. They are funded with more than £16 million from Glasgow City Council, some of which comes from hard-pressed council tax payers. Anyone can see why there is a need for Glasgow MSPs to raise this matter directly with the Executive. It was disappointing to hear November's announcement that Glasgow had been left out of the new funding arrangements, despite the evidence of its need and popularity.
On national status—I am addressing Allan Wilson, the Deputy Minister for Sport and Culture—Glasgow is simply making the case to the Executive that there are special circumstances, which are accepted by the Executive and referred to in the national cultural strategy. We implore the minister to act soon to give Glasgow the special status it deserves.
Glasgow would prefer to continue to manage its galleries and museums—it has successfully done so—but it is unfair that Glasgow's council tax payers should continue to fund the most visited galleries in Scotland without any commitment from the centre.
I am sure that when the minister replies he will say that there will be new expectations of those who manage galleries and museums in Glasgow, but that is to be welcomed. We should examine in depth how our museums and galleries can more imaginatively sell our assets abroad, to schools and to others. Glasgow School of Art is a major European attraction and contributor to world art. There is no escaping the fact that Glasgow is the unofficial centre of art in the UK.
What are we doing all the work for? A Government that believes in social justice—as we do—is nothing if it does not recognise that we have much work to do in arts and culture. The approach taken by Glasgow's director of cultural and leisure services, Bridget McConnell, has a most refreshing attitude to our goals in local government, where we manage the country's arts and treasures. The strategy should involve not simply selling our investments abroad, but creating in our own back yard the conditions that encourage more people to enjoy the facilities. Art is not only for the professional classes, but for everyone.
Admission remains free. I hope that it stays that way. Liz Cameron, the convener of the cultural and leisure services committee of Glasgow City Council, is to be commended for the work that she has done. I know that there have been positive discussions with the Executive recently and that progress has been made.
Some of the buildings and priceless collections are crumbling. Staff numbers are shrinking in the jobs that need them most, especially those in education. I know that the Executive is aware of that.
Glasgow's assets are to be audited as part of the museums audit. That is to be welcomed. A wider review of all museum funding will be undertaken. We all support that. Progress is being made already, but we will not go away until the unfairness is truly addressed.
I congratulate Pauline McNeill on securing the debate. She raises an issue of considerable importance to Glasgow and Scotland. The Glasgow collections are some of the finest in Europe. They have usually been well managed and they are eclectic. Much material has been drawn together, most importantly in the Burrell collection, which is the most extraordinary magpie collection that one could want to see.
The museum sector in Scotland has enormous difficulties. As the minister will no doubt say, Glasgow museums must be considered in that context. We have not developed the right structures to preserve the artefacts and the items that are held in a range of collections.
How do we safeguard and support the collections in Scotland? That question is not primarily about buildings. Sometimes, we get hung up on buildings and do not look far enough into the collections they hold. From the day it was announced, I supported the idea of developing a national audit. I do not think that that has moved far enough or fast enough. A national audit implies that there is a national collection. A range of items exists that it is probably the responsibility of the Scottish Government, in partnership with many bodies, to protect, preserve, exhibit and share with the communities in Scotland.
Pauline McNeill is right to say that the items are not hidden away or there because they are there. They should live and be accessible. People should learn from them and celebrate and enjoy them. We must move towards having a national collection that is held in partnership. In Glasgow, the partnership is skewed against the local authority and the people of Glasgow, who meet a disproportionate part of the cost. The cost-sharing arrangements must involve a better partnership. Relationships are skewed in other places, as several museums must meet high costs and hold items that are of national significance, because they exist in Scotland, as well as international significance.
The long-term solution is to establish a national collection that is held by a range of partners. Some precious items can be in only one place. For example, Brownsbank—Hugh MacDiarmid's cottage near Biggar—holds a valuable collection of the items with which MacDiarmid surrounded himself in the last years of his life. It would make no sense to hold the collection anywhere else in Scotland because its particular significance is that it is in the cottage in which he and his wife lived in their declining years. There are items like that in the Glasgow collection; there are other items that, from time to time, it might be wise to share more widely round Scotland and the world.
The difficulty with the national cultural strategy is that we are not moving fast enough or far enough. There are good parts of the museum sector that are falling out of national significance because they are not being supported. There is a risk in Glasgow—a risk that I am sure will be avoided, but which it is wise to point out—of damage to collections, of access closures and of a decay in the value it can put on its collections and its museums because it cannot support them financially.
I hope that the minister will say what the vision is of the national collection, of the partnerships that he hopes will take place and of the finance—regrettable but essential—that will be necessary to sustain, build and develop the national collection. The funding of museums in Scotland is historically low. We have the problem in the Royal Museum of Scotland that neither the exhibits nor the exhibitions are being renewed quickly enough. Museums are a big challenge—a challenge that I enter into in the spirit of supporting what is being done and perhaps speeding it up a little. I am sure that that is what we all feel, because there would be nothing worse than finding that what we hold precious is dying and decaying before our eyes.
As Pauline McNeill said, this is a timely and useful debate—she is to be congratulated on securing it. The first thing to say is that Glasgow is not just another Scottish city; it is Scotland's largest city and central to Scotland's image. Along with Edinburgh and other places, it is a major magnet that attracts visitors to the country. Glasgow's museums and art galleries have a unique ethos that reflect the social and political history and the milieu—that is a good word—of the city.
Glasgow's museums and galleries are well patronised. They offer free access to local people and the millions who are so important to our economy. That is reflected in the council's cultural and leisure service's key objectives, which include
"enhancing and promoting the City's national and international image as a creative, cosmopolitan city—a centre for arts and sporting and cultural excellence."
Such objectives are easy to spew out and they appear in many documents, but nobody can deny that Glasgow's collections—in Kelvingrove and the Burrell, for example—are of national importance. As Mike Russell said, they are based on the city, on the council and on how they have been collected.
An interesting aspect of the collections is that although there are items of importance throughout the country, they cannot be divorced from their local context. I have some qualms about the idea of a national collection as opposed to collections. It would be almost impossible to distinguish a definitive list of items that are national, as opposed to regional or local.
Glasgow supports its art collections from a financial base that is inadequate for the job. The city is pressed by the extent of its social problems and by the need to provide regional—and in this instance national—services. While that is reflected to some degree in the level of Glasgow's central Government grant, the national museums, which are primarily located in Edinburgh, receive £14 million in direct financial support. Glasgow receives more support for leisure and recreation through its grant-aided expenditure, but that is broadly proportional to the population base it has to support. In effect, Glasgow's collections do not receive specific support for their national status.
As Pauline McNeill and Mike Russell said, the audit is a mechanism for making progress. We could consider the idea of recognising the national significance of certain collections and designating them appropriately. In that way, we could open access to central funding. I have heard it said of Glasgow that there are more items of importance in basements and stores than are exhibited in the museums. I think that that is correct. This issue has an air of elitism and being above the level of the average person, but it is important and reflects the aspirations of the city and the spirit of the Scotland we are trying to promote.
It is important that the city is given proper support. Its collections must be seen in a national context. I hope that the Executive is able to respond positively to an issue that, by the end of today's debate, will have attracted wide-ranging, cross-party support. I hope that there will be some action on this problem. I support Pauline McNeill's motion.
Pauline McNeill is quite correct to highlight the status of Glasgow's museums and to lodge the motion so that we can debate this issue. There can be no doubt that Glasgow's museums bear favourable comparison with those of any comparable city in Europe.
I am not above making some criticism of my former colleagues in Glasgow City Council—
Nor they you.
Nor they me, I am sure, but I am not above making some criticism of how my former colleagues have run the museums. They have at times shown a tendency towards the esoteric. Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art was, I think, a gallery too far by any standard.
Glasgow is entitled to look to the Scottish Executive for some assistance for a number of reasons. Glasgow's metropolitan status has never been recognised in the level of grants. Those of us who come from Glasgow know that the vast majority of the visitors who cross the thresholds of our museums are not Glasgow citizens and are not committed to paying council tax in Glasgow. Glasgow's museums are also a tremendous tourist attraction. We could see that even before 1990, which was Glasgow's year as city of culture. Year in, year out, the museums attract a lot of tourists and a lot of revenue to Scotland as a whole. That should and must be recognised.
I have no wish to stir up any east-west divide, but there can be no doubt that specially favoured status with regard to grants in cultural directions appears to apply to the east coast of the country. The Executive should look at Glasgow's situation with some sympathy.
In summing up the debate, the Deputy Minister for Sport and Culture may criticise Glasgow City Council for being one of the few that does not charge for entry to its museums and he might suggest that that could be a way of remedying the lack of revenue. He may or may not take that line; it will be interesting to hear what he says. It would certainly be a tragedy if there were any withdrawal of access to those worthwhile museums.
Glasgow needs some help in this respect. The people of Glasgow, and indeed Glasgow City Council, need a leg up. They are supporting, with few resources, a museum service that would be the envy of anywhere else in the United Kingdom and doing so against a backdrop of considerable economic disadvantages. I appeal to the minister as candidly as I can, and as calmly as one must in a debate of this type, to examine the situation and see whether any assistance can be forthcoming.
Several members still wish to speak. I can accommodate all of them if they limit their comments to just under four minutes.
I congratulate Pauline McNeill on securing this topical debate, which allows us to express views on an important matter. It is easy to approach the debate by wondering just why the funding of Glasgow's museums matters; surely Glasgow has more pressing priorities. Well, yes, it has. We have spent many hours in this chamber and during our time in Glasgow discussing such matters and I hope that we spend many more hours in future doing just that. The Parliament has demonstrated a commitment to the national cultural strategy, which is demonstrated nowhere better than in the museums of Glasgow.
It is crucial that Glasgow does not lose out on funding for its museums. As we have already heard, they are among the best in this country, if not Europe or the world. As a Glaswegian, I hate to say this, but I have to admit that the three national museums in Edinburgh are very impressive and are well worthy of public funding. However, perhaps the Executive should look more at providing funding for local museums in the way that countries such as Denmark do. Glasgow's museums are far more than municipal facilities that attract only local interest. Their collections are of national importance and should be recognised as such.
It is interesting to note that, in launching the national cultural strategy, Rhona Brankin, then Deputy Minister for Culture and Sport, said that the
"arts and culture have a central role in shaping a sense of community and civic pride in the new Scotland."
I am sure that no MSP in the chamber disagrees with that, but by failing to give Glasgow the funding it deserves and needs, the Executive is selling the citizens of Glasgow short.
As recently as yesterday, the UK Government announced that entrance fees to all national museums in England will be scrapped. That is recognition of Labour's commitment to the arts in Britain. Why, therefore, do Glasgow's museums, which attract more visitors than those of any other city outside London, have to be funded solely by council tax payers? The burden on Glasgow's council tax payers is already significant. It seems grossly unfair that they should pay £17 million towards the city's museums when so many other museums and galleries throughout Britain receive national funding. The situation is, I believe, discriminatory and, unfortunately, it has engendered a feeling among people throughout Glasgow that, as the motion suggests, there is an east-west divide in arts funding.
We are not arguing for Glasgow's museums to become national museums. As others have said, we are arguing for Glasgow, with its wonderful collections and diversity of exhibits, to be designated as a special case. There is a specific case for that. The city provides much of Scotland's arts and culture and so should be adequately assisted. At the moment, it is not.
This is an important issue for those of us who represent Glasgow constituencies. The people of Glasgow are being short-changed by the Executive. As their representatives, we ask that the Executive address the blatant inequalities that exist and give Glasgow's museums the funding that they deserve.
I add my congratulations to those of colleagues across the party divide to Pauline McNeill on securing this debate.
I first raised this issue with Allan Wilson's predecessor some 18 months ago when the Parliament and most of us were a lot younger. When the Parliament met in Glasgow, I raised the matter directly with the then acting First Minister, Jim Wallace. I did that because it is an important issue.
Glasgow is extremely lucky in that, over the past couple of hundred years, not only the city council but members of Glasgow's population have contributed significantly to enhancing the city's collection of arts. That is why we have such a wonderful variety of museums and such rich and varied collections in our galleries. Glasgow is also lucky in that its city council has, in Bridget McConnell, a director who is extremely energetic and enthusiastic about enhancing the collection and, where possible, presenting and retaining the best of the works that Glasgow has.
A lot of work has been undertaken by elected representatives in Glasgow City Council, such as Liz Cameron, who has led very much from the front and is another great enthusiast for the city—I see Bill Aitken smiling; we all know why. Liz is a wonderful person and a great character who has done a tremendous job in her role as convener. Other individuals, such as Chris Mason of the Liberal Democrats, have also contributed, as has my mother, who has played a significant part in Glasgow City Council's best value review.
Just over a decade ago, Glasgow was European city of culture. That was partly because of the superb collections that we have in our museums. Without those wonderful collections and the way the city council has presented them over many years, we may not have been able to win city of culture status. However, much more money is needed. If we are to attract exhibitions such as the recent Dead sea scrolls exhibition, which broke all records, it is important that we get funding from the Scottish Executive.
Other colleagues have spoken about the money that Edinburgh museums get. There is concern in the west of Scotland that Edinburgh appears to be favoured over the west coast. I do not want to go down that line, as it has already been touched on.
If Glasgow is to make the most of its museums—if it is to display some of the treasures that are at present in its basements, if it is to have the money in coming months and years to restore some of the works that have fallen into a state of dilapidation and if it is to attract more tourists and enrich the lives of Glaswegians young and old—it needs more money from the Scottish Executive. I urge the minister to consider the matter sympathetically.
I wonder why Bill Aitken smiled when Kenny Gibson was going through his litany of good wishes and back-slapping of Labour politicians. I am sure it was because it is not usual to see so much unanimity in the chamber. It is, however, good for the city of Glasgow that all members are speaking in the same tongue and pulling in the same direction.
I echo the comments of members who said that although they are concerned that Glasgow is ostensibly losing out on funding compared with other cities, they do not want to make this a Glasgow/Edinburgh thing. That would not necessarily be productive. I want simply to ensure that all the good work that is done and the impressive exhibitions that are shown in Glasgow museums and art galleries are recognised and adequately funded.
Liz Cameron, the convener of the leisure services committee of Glasgow City Council, and her staff met Sam Galbraith last week. I have seen no official report of that meeting, but the matters that we are discussing are being raised elsewhere. It is important that Pauline McNeill has supplemented that work by securing today's debate.
Liz Cameron has been mentioned. I should also mention John Lynch, her deputy. Bridget McConnell has also been mentioned. They and Martin O'Neill—director of museums—are all working tirelessly on behalf of Glasgow. They are working for the diversity of Glasgow's collections and for the good of the people of the city.
The civic value of Glasgow's museums and art galleries has been mentioned, but that is often under-appreciated by the citizens of Glasgow. I remember speaking not so long ago about the city chambers to an elderly resident of the city. In a sense the city chambers is a museum—if anybody has visited the building to see its design, they will know that it is extremely impressive. I asked whether that elderly resident had ever been to visit the building. She said, "That's no for me—I can't go in there." I said, "It's the city chambers. It's open to any visitor to Glasgow or any citizen of Glasgow." Neither had she ever been in any of the city's museums. "They're for visitors and tourists," she said.
We must dispel that sort of idea. Extra money can be generated not only by asking the Scottish Executive for additional support. One of the main ways in which that can be done is by encouraging more people to go to the museums. We must not raise the money through charging—that must be avoided at all costs and no member has advocated it. If we increase the number of people who go through the doors, we can raise money through the sale of various artefacts and books and through catering facilities. Additional money can be raised through the small but not unimportant contribution of those means. Many of the publications that are available for sale in the various museums are extremely impressive, such as books on the Burrell collection.
Not only the national and international collections of the museums are important. Many aspects of the museums are particularly about Glasgow's history, Glasgow's culture, the city's development and the various influxes of people from different cultures over generations—I am thinking especially about the People's Palace and St Mungo's Museum of Religious Life and Art. Those are very much Glasgow museums in a parochial sense, but they are strengthened by that parochialism and it is not in any sense pejorative to describe them in that way. We want to see that extended if possible.
The point that we often miss—as Janis Hughes said—is that there are, of course, more important priorities, which have been mentioned in the chamber many times. However, the many museums and galleries contribute to the general quality of life of people who live in the city. They act as a magnet for many visitors and they are not going to go away. They will be strengthened and I know that the Executive will play its part in that.
The city council—as anybody will acknowledge—contributes disproportionately to the upkeep of the museums and galleries. I am hopeful that some of that burden will be lifted and that because of that, the value of the museums and galleries to the city, to Scotland and—indeed—to the wider world will become more fully appreciated.
I congratulate Pauline McNeill on lodging the motion for debate tonight. It shows the true strength of the Parliament that an exclusively Glasgow matter can be debated—that would never happen in Westminster.
I would like to reminisce a little. Perhaps folk who are near my age will remember this. I remember getting the ferry from Govan to go on school trips to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. I wonder how many people know that the only place they can see the inside of a honeycomb is at that museum. I am not talking about an artsy-fartsy museum and art gallery—it is a good old-fashioned museum and gallery in which school kids can participate.
The beauty of Glasgow's museums is that they are diverse. As Mike Watson said, there is the People's Palace and the Kelvingrove, but there is also the Burrell collection; there is something for everyone.
I will take up Pauline McNeill's point—what exactly do we want to get from this motion? I think that we want fairness and equity. Edinburgh has three nationally funded galleries. Galleries in the south of England, such as the Tate Gallery, are nationally funded. In Glasgow, none is nationally funded; that is the crux of the problem. I hope that the Executive can give us some answers on this.
People talk about Glasgow having problems, but what city does not have problems and what city does not have museums? Dundee has problems, but it also has excellent museums; the McManus Galleries in Dundee is excellent. As far as I am concerned, Glasgow is the first city—not the second—in Scotland, so its museums should be nationally funded. In Glasgow, we cannot afford to continue to charge council tax payers to keep the museums running. I do not usually praise the council, but it does a marvellous job with the museums. As Robert Brown mentioned, artefacts sometimes languish because there is not time to find out exactly what is in storage—and an audit has not been done—and to exhibit them.
On the whole, the museums have moved with the times. For example, the Kelvingrove moved with the times by introducing a cafeteria area in which new pictures are put up every so often. The public can tick off which picture they would like to be hung in that area. The picture that gets the most ticks is hung there: it is a people's museum.
Glasgow deserves better, so I hope that the minister will tell us that Glasgow should and will get national status for its museums. In Glasgow, we have never charged for people to enter museums. As Janis Hughes rightly said, the Government in Westminster announced yesterday that 17—not all of them, but 17—national galleries in the greater London area and Manchester will no longer charge, yet Glasgow museums get more visitors than the science museum in Manchester. It is only fair that Glasgow should get national status for its museums.
I do not always agree with Glasgow City Council; indeed, I do not always agree with the leisure services department. I suspect that Liz Cameron crosses the road when she sees me coming, unlike her response to Bill Aitken.
However, on this occasion I am totally persuaded by the case that Glasgow has made. I was interested in Mike Russell's speech; I do not pretend to have that expertise and I certainly do not pretend to know the answer to how we deal with the situation. I do not understand the nuts and bolts of that. However, I have a commonsense and simple approach. If Glasgow has a civic collection that is one of the greatest in Europe—and who am I to disagree with the expert who said that; if it is not a Glasgow resource but a national resource—and it is that; if it is for the whole of the United Kingdom and attracts valuable international tourism, it cannot simply be funded by the local council. It is all of those things. I recently examined visitor figures for Glaswegians, people from the rest of the UK and those from overseas—it is a resource for all those people. If that is true, it seems obvious that the collection cannot simply be funded by the local council.
It is worth mentioning what will happen if we continue in this way. The Burrell collection is in the Govan constituency—"Think Govan, think Burrell" might be a new slogan. It is a marvellous place to walk, a marvellous building and a quirky collection—if I am allowed to say that—in that it has all kinds of odd things that a visitor would never expect. I am told that any day now the roof is going to let in. We need about £1.7 million to keep the roof in a good state of repair. It beggars belief that the roof at a resource such as the Burrell is letting in.
I also recently saw a comparison of staffing levels with museums and galleries in Liverpool, which, one might say, is broadly comparable. I forgot to bring it, but it is worth looking at. If one looks at the varying staffing levels of people whom good art collections need, such as curators or researchers, Glasgow is falling miles behind a city such as Liverpool.
How we solve that, I do not know. Mike Russell had ideas about the national audit of the national collections, all of which I found interesting. I am interested in what Allan Wilson will say about what the Government will do. I do not know the answer, but Bill Aitken is definitely right in saying simply that Glasgow is entitled to help.
How will Glasgow get that help? The minister will tell us. Like Pauline McNeill, I hope that he will come up with an answer.
My colleague Mike Russell talked about widening the debate into the Scottish context. Smaller museums are being threatened all the time. For example, Balnain House in Inverness is dedicated to Scottish music; it receives some money from Canada but no national funding and is about to close this very month. Furthermore, the small Springburn museum is due to close in March. The museum is one of the area's very few public attractions left and commemorates the greatness of its railway history—the great engines were produced in Springburn. I draw the minister's attention to that museum, which is staffed partly by gallant volunteers. Surely to goodness some rescue package is possible that might save it.
A newspaper cutting last year sums up Glasgow's plight compared with other cities:
"The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and the Tate Gallery in London have jointly acquired, at a cost of £2.1 million, a Surrealist masterpiece by Spanish painter Joan Miro."
Liz Cameron is begging and pleading for very little more than £2.1 million to save Glasgow's museums and galleries. Those two galleries—one in Edinburgh and the other in London—can afford to make such a bid because they are national galleries. Meanwhile, the Kelvingrove museum cannot even afford to repair its roof. That is a shameful situation.
I must confess that, as a Glasgow MSP, I have a chip on both shoulders—it helps to keeps one's remarks balanced—and feel the same way about this matter. It is pretty shameful that there is no proper national funding. We—and everyone else—call Glasgow a European or an international city. However, when the chips are down—which means blue chips, as far as money is concerned—it is a question of, "Hail, Edina, Scotia's darling seat." London is currently weighed down with a glut of money for galleries such as the Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Somerset House, which jointly receive hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds. In fact, because it is saturated with such galleries and museums, the funding that London receives is far out of proportion to the size of her population.
I urge the minister to consider not just the great and the good—and the ultra-famous—of Glasgow's galleries, but the smaller museums and galleries that local people love and which are among the few attractions in certain areas. If anyone asks, "What do museums and galleries matter nowadays?" I say to this Parliament, "If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going."
In response to Dorothy-Grace Elder's final point, I know where I come from—I was born in Glasgow.
But where is the minister going?
I am just about to tell the chamber that. Mike Russell should be patient—it is a virtue.
I join my colleagues in congratulating my good friend and colleague Pauline McNeill on securing this debate on Glasgow's museums and art galleries. I have been interested to hear members' views and I welcome their interest. Mike Russell's point is significant and I hope that we are all engaged in pushing sport and culture up our respective political agendas—I certainly need all the help I can get.
I go along with much of what has been said about the city's museums and their collections and pay tribute to the successive city councils that have added to and cared for those collections for the benefit of citizen and visitor. Their legacy is a number of splendid buildings housing comprehensive, important and—dare I say it—exciting collections. The success of Glasgow's museums and galleries is not in question, as the figure of 3 million visitors a year testifies. The council deserves great credit for that and I want to emphasise that that is how it should be. Glasgow has statutory responsibility for funding and operating its museums and galleries.
I understand the point that has been made about the east-west issue and I agree with Bill Aitken and disagree with Mike Watson—I do not think that there is an east-west issue. All local authorities have the same responsibility and all of them receive substantial support for their museums and galleries from the Executive through standard local authority grants.
The motion misunderstands the Executive's announcement of 2 November, which was clearly about funding for the national bodies for which the Executive has direct statutory responsibility. As Minister for Finance, Jack McConnell had announced on 20 September an overall increase in funding for local authorities of 10.5 per cent in real terms over the next three years. Any expectation of additional funding for local museums in the announcement of 2 November was misplaced. I think that that is now understood.
That does not mean, however, that we do not value local museums. As Mike Russell conceded, the national cultural strategy fully recognises the central role of local authorities as providers of cultural services, and the objectives could not be met without their major contribution. This morning, Sam Galbraith and I had a productive meeting with representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss how best we might work in partnership with local authorities to secure the joint objectives in the cultural strategy. That strategy identifies the need to protect and preserve museum collections that are important to the nation and acknowledges for the first time that the present framework lacks consistency and strategic direction. We and COSLA are committed to addressing those issues across Scotland.
I welcome the pragmatic support of the Opposition for the national audit of museums and their collections to establish their relative importance. We are providing £3 million over the next three years to help restructure the non-national sector and place it on a sounder footing. I stress that that is new money for local museums and galleries and that the initiatives have been widely welcomed across the sector, as they have been in Glasgow.
The strategy recognises Glasgow's particular position, and we undertook to work with Glasgow City Council to examine the circumstances of the museums and galleries in Glasgow. As members may know, as there has been some press comment on the matter, we made a start on that last Friday when Sam Galbraith met Bailie Cameron, the convener of Glasgow's cultural and leisure services. I can assure Pauline McNeill and any other interested member that the meeting was constructive and positive. I emphasise, however, that no substantive decisions or agreements were reached at that stage.
There can be no quick fixes in these circumstances, and Mike Russell's point about the timetable of the national audit is important. No one, least of all the citizens of Glasgow, would be served by a quick and shoddy national audit. The national audit must be well planned and soundly prepared and it must be robust, not least because the museums have to rely on its outcome.
I entirely endorse what the minister says about the nature of proceeding with the national audit, but I am sure that he is aware of the surprise of many in the museum sector who know of the work done by John Compton and others to undertake essentially a national audit; the work has already been substantially done. That work can be enhanced, but our going back to basics and redrawing the national audit will slow things down. Does the minister recognise that it might be possible to speed things up by taking advantage of the work already done in the national museums?
I can confirm that a preparatory audit is under way, and there is a timetable to which we are operating.
I do not think that Glasgow's museums are in crisis, but the service has clearly become overstretched in recent years. It is equally clear that Glasgow City Council has recognised that itself—it has already undertaken a great deal of important work and firm action to address the problems, not least through a robust best value review.
More work requires to be done, and, to answer Sandra White's point, the Executive is committed to co-operating with the council. We have agreed to get down to the work and to further discussions at official level, and I am confident that that will offer a productive way forward for both the council and the Executive.
We fully recognise local authorities' major role in Scotland's cultural life, including their provision of museums and galleries. Responsibility for funding them lies with the authorities themselves. We have acknowledged the fact that there are difficulties in the museum sector in general, and we are already addressing them through our national cultural strategy commitments. I referred to the national audit, and to the £3 million that is available for restructuring.
Critically, we also recognise that Glasgow faces particular problems, which we are committed to addressing. I hope that, during the short time that I have held my current post, we have made a sound and positive start to addressing those problems. We look forward to working with Glasgow City Council to establish the way ahead for Glasgow's museums and galleries, and I thank all the members who have spoken in the debate for their contribution towards achieving that.
Meeting closed at 17:52.