1.  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  1.1  The Deep is a Science Centre telling the story of the Worlds Oceans. An educational and environmental charity, The Deep is one of the most successful Millennium Science Centres in the Country.

  1.2  The Deep runs a comprehensive formal science education programme from Key Stage 1 to post graduate, but recognises that its informal role in the public understanding of science is also vital.

  1.3  It is a measure of all the crises facing such centres, that even The Deep, faces an uncertain future.

  1.4  Centres such as ours face a number of issues: a lack of any general management support or review mechanism; a culture which is over reliant on receiving capital grants; increased competition from the publicly-funded museums and arts sector; the burden of maintaining large buildings and the associated on-costs; and tax issues.

  1.5  As a result, Science Centres are moving away from their raison d'etre to become providers of commercial services.

  1.6  We require a raft of support including management support, business rate relief, VAT changes, the continuance of Gift Aid and support on sustainable energy strategies.

2.  THE DEEP

  2.1  The Deep is a science centre which tells the story of the Worlds Oceans through time, depth and latitude, in doing so we explore not only biology, but geology, ecology and physics. Whilst originally a partnership between the City Council and the University of Hull, The Deep is now an independent educational and environmental charity.

  2.2  Since opening in March 2002, The Deep has been visited by almost 3,000,000 people and has won awards for its marketing, exhibitions and personnel management.

  2.3  Almost uniquely amongst the Millennium Science Centres, The Deep has a programme of post graduate research and environmental campaigning which has seen us work on such issues as coral propagation, shark conservation and sustainable fisheries.

  2.4  The project has received over £60 million of positive publicity for one of the most deprived cities in the Country and has become a positive icon for Hull, appearing in National Tourism publications and even on a Royal Mail Stamp!

3.  OUR ROLE IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

  3.1  The Deep employs two full-time, qualified teachers who provide formal education to over 20,000 school children a year, supported by additional part-time qualified teachers when required.

  3.2  Our range of lessons on offer include Maths, English and Art, using The Deep as a facility to provide inspiration, as well as information.

  3.3  However, the vast majority of formal lessons undertaken here are understandably science-based and tend to be for Key Stage 1 and 2.

  3.4  This schools programme is only a small part of our role. Our formal programme extends to those with learning difficulties, hard to reach learners, distance learning (through the BBC and through video conferencing with schools) to vocational training and science foundation courses with the University of Hull.

  3.5  Perhaps our most powerful educational tool is our informal learning programme, whereby over 400,000 people a year are exposed to issues such as environmental degradation, global warming, evolution etc. This is important because if, as a society, we are to have meaningful debates on the increasingly controversial issues which scientific advance presents, then the wider public must have the issues presented to them in an unbiased, accessible way and by organisations they trust.

  Without a foundation of scientific knowledge, the democratic process is in danger of being driven by emotion, prejudice and superstition.

4.  OUR FINANCE

  4.1  The Deep has been very successful financially, having made a surplus in each of its five years of operation, all of which has been re-invested in its content, its educational programmes or its marine research. We have exploited a range of novel income streams from an associated business centre to the hosting of marriages, sleepovers and even funerals!

  4.2  However, it is also true that each year, despite an annual round of economies, our surplus available for re-investment has fallen.

  4.3  It is perhaps a measure of the crisis facing the sector that, whilst The Deep is arguably the second most successful of the Millennium Commission Science and Technology centres, even our finances are delicate and our ability to generate any surpluses in the future is questionable.

5.  REASONS AND SOLUTIONS

5.1  The First to Fail

  So what has caused this situation? Well for some Science Centres, the seeds of the problem were no doubt of their own making and lay in their original, unrealistic business plans. No doubt some allowed the "possible" to be confused with the "probable". These projects have been amongst the first to fail. Those which remain face a range of other problems which include:

5.2  Inappropriate Management Cultures

  The culture in some Science Centres can be old-fashioned and hierarchical: their management can be top heavy and inward looking.

  This is not entirely surprising as each operates entirely independently with no external scrutiny or peer group review process to bring an outside perspective, or to illuminate any management weaknesses which exist.

  The Science Centre community should establish a simple peer group review which would provide for transparency and bench marking between centres. Something like the old Sports Council management award would be an economical way of providing this.

  Whilst such a review would be voluntary in nature, the results of a centre's peer group review could then form an important part of any bid for future capital (or revenue) funding. Such a review would ensure that support was directed to those who were most able to exploit its full potential, rewarding success rather than supporting failure.

5.3  The Great Capital Funding Chase

  Whilst the general operational management of Science Centres could improve, the reality is that no matter how good the management of a Centre is, the fundamentals of their finances are often such that they are unsustainable in the medium-term.

  Knowing this, but in the absence of any more attractive option, some management teams have their attention diverted from the need to address high fixed costs to an increasingly desperate capital funding chase. They begin to chase ever decreasing capital refurbishment funds for new displays in the belief that success will turn around their fortunes and generate the massive new markets needed to survive; markets which, of course, then fail to materialise (eg Plymouth and Bristol).

  Whilst the provision of capital funds for refurbishment is useful, it is not the complete answer: it is all too tempting to cynically structure applications for funds to appeal to whatever is a political flavour of the month, an approach which creates worthy but unattractive (and therefore unvisited) displays. Indeed the granting of "free" money can in itself all too often mitigate against achieving best value. For example, our most entertaining and educational new displays over recent years have tended to be when we have conceived, financed and delivered them from our own resources.

5.4  Practising What We Preach

  We all use considerable amounts of energy and yet "preach" the sustainability message. Science Centres lack the ability to invest in capital projects to reduce our energy demands and fail when competing with industry for the limited funds available under such schemes as Clear Sky's.

  A capital fund to allow the Charitable Science Centres to invest in sustainable energy solutions (even when not justified entirely by a simple pay-back calculation) would have many benefits: firstly, it would help with Science Centres long-term financial sustainability, but would, if married to associated exhibitory, make the Science Centre into a shop window for the technologies and a public educator in this regard.

5.5  Competition

  Less than 300 metres from The Deep, a recently-refurbished Council-run Museum Quarter of equivalent capital spend offers free entry and has all of its costs covered by the Local Authority. Furthermore, within our neighbouring cities of Leeds and York, outreach centres of the National Museums also offer customers free entry and also have access to large capital renewal funds.

  Crucially, it is the quality of the competition provided by the museum sector which has increased so significantly over recent years as the museum sector itself has moved on. Learning from the growing use of inter-activity and multimedia, they have (quite rightly) moved from being repositories of artefacts to become centres to explore their subjects in a holistic way. Thus a family visiting an inter-active centre exploring the History or Art, of Warfare or of Transport can enjoy free entry whilst the equivalent centre dealing with the sciences remains a "paid for" attraction.

5.6  Large Buildings, Small Businesses

  The capital spend associated with science centres bears no relationship to the business' ability to pay for their upkeep. Business rates and other fixed costs associated with a large building (for example energy) have doubled in the last 12 months, a position which is exacerbated by the fixed cost nature of Science Centres and the relative inelastic nature of our charges. Local Authorities which host such Science Centres should be encouraged to exercise their power to provide the maximum 100% rate relief.

5.7  VAT

  The large initial capital investment that the public purse put into these facilities has meant that we are unable to opt to be VAT neutral. As a result, The Deep pays out £350,000 (net) a year of VAT to HM Treasury. A practical way to support these centres would be to use the Treasury's powers to make Science Centres entry fees vat-able at only 5% (as I believe waiving them entirely may be against EU regulations). This would encourage Science Centres to remain entrepreneurial in their approach. If this concession were linked to support from the Science Centres own Local Authority in relation to rate relief (see above), this would also encourage Science Centres to engage more with their local (often educationally disadvantaged) communities.

5.8  Gift Aid

  The current Gift Aid regulations are achieving much greater accessibility to Science Centres for those on low incomes (through the more widespread availability of affordable, annual tickets from those Science Centres that are charities), and the gift aid regime has kept many afloat over the last few years. This, at least, must be maintained. However the reduction in the basic rate of income tax from 6 April 2008 will lose us approximately £50,000 per annum in Gift Aid benefit. We understand other charities are already lobbying for this issue to be addressed and we would support that.

6.  CONCLUSION

  6.1  The commercial realities described above have prompted a number of reactions from the Science Centre Community: they either close (Doncaster, Bristol, Irvine) or they gradually move away from their original purpose to become centres of commerce providing business space, banqueting, conferencing etc (Rotherham and Newcastle). Whilst such strategies are good up to a point, too often the reason for the original public investment becomes a side-line and is seen as a financial burden to a centre's operation.

  6.2  Perhaps, surprisingly, The Deep is not arguing to be funded centrally to the same extent as our "competitors" in more prosperous cities such as Leeds (the Royal Armouries) or York (the National Railway Museum) are. Neither do we accept that public support should be used to cover for inefficient management.

  6.3  However the reality is that the nation has already lost a number of multi-million pound science education assets for want of relatively trivial amounts of revenue. Those of us that remain, focus more and more on our commercial activities, drawing understandable criticism from the purely entertainment-based visitor attractions.

  6.4  The relative funding positions of the Science Centres, the Heritage sector and the Arts sector is surely indicative of the relative educational value we still place in Britain on the humanities as opposed to the sciences, a position which must be changed if we are to remain competitive in the modern world.

June 2007