Thank you for your invitation to submit written evidence to this inquiry. The Heritage Lottery Fund is now a major player in the museums scene in Northern Ireland and this Council is pleased to be associated with its work.

  The Northern Ireland Museums Council was established in 1993 after widespread consultation with museums, district councils and public bodies in Northern Ireland. It is the most recently established of the 10 area museums councils (AMCs) the first of which was established in England in the 1950s.

  NIMC was established by the Minister for Education in Northern Ireland and constituted as a non-departmental public body. It has an elected Chairman and a Board of 14 which represents district councils, regional museums, education bodies and other organisations. It is also a membership organisation with a current membership of almost 60 bodies.

  The mission of NIMC is to support museums in Northern Ireland in maintaining and improving their standards of collections care and service to the pubic and, to promote a coherent framework of museum provision. To this end the Council provides advice, training and grant-aid. NIMC also pro-actively promotes the development of a coherent framework of museum and related provision in the Province.

  Museums are very important within the cultural life of Northern Ireland. They contain the evidence for our identities as both people of Irish and British origin. They are a major resource for education and leisure and are playing an increasingly important role in both tourism and the attraction of inward investment. The museum sector is, however, substantially under-developed and I will refer to this below.

The role of your organisation and its relationship to the Heritage Lottery Fund, including, if applicable, separate information on the role of the organisation as an applicant for funds as opposed to an advisory body

  HLF designated the Northern Ireland Museums Council as a statutory advisor together with the Department of the Environment in Northern Ireland. NIMC provides HLF with formal assessments of museum applications from Northern Ireland. This work is undertaken on a fee-paying basis. In preparing this advice NIMC consults closely with applicants and analyses all the relevant paperwork. The involvement of NIMC in the assessment process has major benefits for museums and heritage in Northern Ireland. Firstly the Council can identify if an application complies with UK standards of collections care and service to the public. Secondly, with its detailed local knowledge, the Council may comment as to whether the application fits within agreed museum strategies, policies and priorities for Northern Ireland. Lastly the Councils detailed knowledge of the operation and finances of our museums allows it to flag-up over optimistic visitor and revenue projections and to recommend accordingly.

  Draft advice prepared by the Director is circulated to the Chairman and three other Board members which the Chairman selects. In order to avoid any potential conflict of interest the Chairman selects different Board members for each application whose museums or interests are not in competition with an applicant. As a government sponsored body the Council is required on many occasions to provide impartial and objective advice to public bodies, government and its agencies. This is independent advice which takes into account agreed strategies, policies and priorities for museums in Northern Ireland.This approach, together with the use of a Board panel ensures that the partisan view of an applicant, who may or may not be a member of NIMC, are not given undue or inappropriate weight.

  This Council has not yet made application to HLF for funds for its own work. Under the new powers which HLF recently acquired, there may well be occasion in future when NIMC may make applications. Such applications would in the first instance have to serve the need of the museums sector in Northern Ireland and could not therefore substitute or duplicate other applications. We would anticipate that the same rigorous assessment currently applied to applicants would also be applied to NIMC and that our role as a statutory advisor (which is primarily a business relationship) would not militate in our favour. We would of course anticipate independent assessment of our applications.

The distribution of funds by the Heritage Lottery Fund, its criteria for considering applications and its procedures

  The recent date of establishment of NIMC is a reflection on the underdeveloped state of the museum sector in Northern Ireland. There are therefore fewer potential applicants from Northern Ireland than from other parts of the UK. In this context the take-up of funding in Northern Ireland is below most other parts of the country. HLF have endeavoured to counteract this position with regular visits to the Province to publicise the funds. They are shortly to establish an office in Belfast which we welcome. We would be concerned, however, that this increased and welcome regionalisation could be seen as an alternative source of advice on applications from the Province.

  We have also noticed in recent times an increased tendency on the part of HLF to take less and less detailed advice from bodies such as NIMC. This is deeply regrettable as there can be no substitute for properly informed advice, delivered from the local perspective which takes account of existing and changing strategies, policies and priorities. The breadth of HLF's remit is such that it cannot hold in-house expertise of sufficient depth and number across all the areas of its remit. We see an important and continuing role by outside advisory bodies such as NIMC. A reduction of such advice is not advisable and could lead to support for ill-advised and inappropriate applications.

  The welcome establishment of the new "country committees" of HLF (which will deal with applications of £500,000 or less) must also be seen as an important additional source of comment and advice but one which cannot either substitute for the detailed professional advice which can be provided by experts in the field. Again the wide remit of this committee (reflecting that of HLF itself) will not place it in a position to provide fully informed assessments or comment. There has been much pressure on HLF to regionalise its procedures since, unlike the arts, sports and charities in Northern Ireland, the heritage lottery is centralised in London for all of UK. The country committees must not be seen as equivalent in any way to the existing arts, sports and charity lottery funds within Northern Ireland which have full lottery assessment procedures and officers at their disposal.

The impact of the Heritage Lottery Fund on the heritage sector with which our organisation is concerned

  The impact of HLF funding has been extremely positive in Northern Ireland where previous museum capital funding was only available through economically and tourism driven funding. HLF is the first major capital resource whose primary function is to support the care and use of heritage assets. This is a long overdue recognition of the importance of heritage to the fabric of life and, in the Northern Ireland context, it is much needed indeed.

  Only 27 per cent of district councils in Northern Ireland currently provide Registered museum services. This can be compared to approximately 75 per cent in Scotland. Only 15 of our 26 district councils are committed at the moment to providing any form of museum service. The museum infrastructure in Northern Ireland is substantially underdeveloped in relation to any other part of the United Kingdom. The Heritage Lottery Fund is the only potential source of capital funding available to develop the museum infrastructure here to a normal and sustainable level. This gap in provision in the regional museum sector means:

—  That large sections of the Northern Ireland population do not have access to a museum service of an appropriate quality;

—  That the neglect of local heritage and identity continues in large measure;

—  That the exploration through museums and their collections of local culture and identity is not open to many communities.

  While therefore welcoming the new wider powers which flow to HLF from the National Heritage Act 1997 this Council has cautioned on the need to continue providing adequate capital funding for infrastructural development in Northern Ireland. As stated above, one of the reasons for the low take-up in Northern Ireland has derived from the absence of sufficient applicants on the ground. NIMC has developed a stratetgy for the expansion of regional museums in the Province which is sustainable and widely supported. Developed in consultation with district councils and other agencies, the NIMC strategy proposes the development of a selected number of strategically located regional museums which are operated as partnerships by groups of district councils. We have brokered such partnerships in two parts of the Province already and are pro-actively discussing such developments elsewhere. The key to the success of these partnerships will lie in two areas—their management structure and sustainable revenue commitments and more importantly in this context, the potential for accessing HLF funding for the construction/extension etc of museums.

  The NIMC strategy for the development of regional museums is both government endorsed and has been verbally and publicly supported by HLF. Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that Great Britain has sufficient museums and that new museum developments will be rare. This is not the situation in Northern Ireland and we have corresponded with HLF and sought reassurance that our regional needs will be taken into account.

Any proposals or recommendations relating to the future work of the Heritage Lottery Fund

  The varying needs of the different countries and regions of the UK require formal recognition by HLF. Consideration should be given to ring-fencing capital funding for Northern Ireland in recognition of its under-developed museum infrastructure. We are also aware at NIMC that the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland require considerable extension and expansion. This Museum, recently formed by the merger of three other centrally funded museums, is also concerned that the new HLF powers will greatly reduce its potential to fund much needed expansion. NIMC does not act on behalf of the National Museum and we are not therefore in a position to go into detail in this letter.

  NIMC would be content to provide a representative to give oral evidence if required.

June 1998