"Enfield 229" has issued a second bulletin with information about its campaign against drastic reductions in Enfield Council's Museums and Archives Service (see this earlier article). The campaigners are now expecting a decision by the end of November, but say that there have been contradictory indications about the proposed scale of cuts to the service.
Despite reassurances that "nothing has been finalised yet", the campaigners claim to have learnt that plans are in place to delete all current archive and museum jobs and say that the "move upstairs" of the museum would in effect mean its closure.
The bulletin is dated "October" and it is unclear exactly how current the information in it is. The complete bulletin can be downloaded from this link. The entire lead story is reproduced below:
Cuts: "Nothing has been finalised yet"
Suggestions to cut Enfield’s Museums and Archives services have created huge concern amongst people and organisations across the Borough, as well as professionals within the national Heritage sector. As Enfield Council’s consultation questionnaire drew to a close last week there is still some confusion over exactly what is being proposed and who will make any decision.
The mismatch between the public proposal and information being discovered elsewhere does suggest the whole thing may be an idea intended to test the water. Yet we also understand plans are already in place to delete all the curent museum and archive staff posts - an action that will have devastating consequences.
The threat to the museums and archives also seems to have been missed by those ultimately responsible for the decision. Some councillors have acknowledged that they missed these proposals. It seems most likely because they were lost within the context of wider cuts to other services. Thankfully Councillor Ayfer Orhan, whose cabinet responsibility includes museums and archives, has indicated in the press that ‘Nothing has been finalised yet’. So we remain hopefully that they will pull back from the closures, loss of staff and fatal cuts to the services.
Since our first newsletter lots of fascinating facts have come to the surface and it is clear there is a big difference between what the public proposal suggests and what is actually on the cards. One member of the public made inquiries about the proposed digitising of the Archives service. They were told by a council officer “We have no intention of digitising our entire local studies collection - only those items where it makes sense to do so”.
The Council’s prioritisation for the digitising of local history materials will focus on statutory obligations, items of high value to the local community and items where copyright is not an issue. They continued ‘Once we have undertaken this exercise, we will estimate the cost in staff time.’
So in fact, they have not as yet costed the resources necessary to digitise the service even though they have proposed to do it. An interesting approach to making financial savings.
We also now understand that the proposal about ‘moving’ the downstairs museum is actually about closing it. By default this also means cutting the main programme of exhibitions. It looks like the ‘Just Married: 150 Years of Enfield Weddings’ exhibition currently on show will be the last exhibition at Enfield museum.
What is most infuriating about this conversation the Council is having about ‘operational arrangements’ is the lack of any mention of the small staff teams and the cuts to jobs.
In another response to an inquiry the Council’s resident engagement team (responsible for the questionnaire about the cuts) said “The accompanying document was written to provide an overview of the proposals, providing enough information to enable respondents to make an informed judgement.” Our judgement may have been better informed if there had been reference to the number of staff being cut and less spin had been given to closures and loss of service. If the questionnaire had asked ‘would you prefer an open archive or a partial digital service’ or ‘should we close the downstairs museum and exhibition programme’. Then we might have given better informed answers.
Moreover this shows a professional lack of understanding about how an archive and a museum works. The current staff have decades of local knowledge. That in itself is a resource. To throw it away without mention seriously suggests those making the proposal have no real idea what they are doing.
We are prompted to ask which officer recommended these cuts? And what advice did they give Councillor Orhan? It continues to be deeply troubling to discover a number of councillors knew nothing about the original cuts. We have even met a member of the council cabinet who did not even know there was a ground floor museum at the Dugdale centre! The overall public response we have picked up is dismay. That seems privately reflected amongst councillors who knew nothing of the cuts and threat to two small staff teams. One councillor responded to us mentioning that “The staff with their expert local knowledge are irreplaceable”.
We just hope that message goes around and that other councillors say something now. We also want councillors from all sides to work together and save this small part of Enfield’s service. Please save the party politics for another time.
