Art collections in national museums

Introduction

As part of the Delta Plan for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage, which terminates at the end of 2000, NLG 216.5 million extra has been made available to national museums and galleries over the past ten years to eliminate registration and conservation backlogs and to improve preservation conditions. The registration and conservation projects of the national museums - all of which have now become autonomous - are financed entirely from Delta Plan funds. Museums classified as 'non-national' are entitled to claim a maximum of 40 percent of the cost of a conservation project, but only if the basic registration is in proper order. A draft evaluation of the Delta Plan for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage shows that, on the basis of the backlogs estimated at the beginning of the Plan, the registration and conservation backlogs at the former national museums and galleries have now been completely eliminated. On the basis of the adjusted, higher backlog estimates of 1995, at the time of writing there is still a small registration backlog and a 36% conservation backlog according to the evaluation. The report 'Management of national art collections 1994-1999', issued by the Cultural Heritage Inspectorate of the Ministry of Education, Culture & Science, is slightly more optimistic. It concludes that the vast majority of items in the collections of the autonomous national museums and galleries are properly registered and well conserved.

As a follow-up to previous audits of the management and conservation of the Netherlands' cultural heritage under state ownership, the Netherlands Court of Audit has again investigated a number of institutions. Since the Delta Plan emphasises national museums and galleries, the Court of Audit has selected seven 'non-national' museums and two former national museums. The second part of the audit focuses on the supervision of the management and conservation of national collections. Four ministers share responsibility for national collections: Education, Culture & Science; Defence; Finance; and Agriculture, Nature Management & Fisheries. The Court of Audit has investigated their supervisory methods.

Findings

The audit shows that national collections housed in 'non-national' institutions are in a poorer state than those in national museums. Five of these seven 'non-national' museums have substantial backlogs in the registration of their collections. This is a serious matter: where registration is incomplete, it is impossible to check if all objects are still present. Furthermore, in many cases, the registration fails to give the objects' correct whereabouts, making them difficult or impossible to find. In general the institutions have too little money or human resources to eliminate these backlogs with any speed. Four of the seven institutions studied have unsatisfactory preservation conditions: some of the buildings are unsuitable, and temperature and humidity too leave much to be desired. Nonetheless, the objects were in general in reasonable condition.

Conditions are better at the two former national museums. Both have virtually completed the registration of the part of their collection that is being investigated. In one case, work on the state of conservation too is almost completely up to date, but in the second museum about one third of the objects are damaged or incomplete.

Of the four responsible Ministries, the Ministry of Education, Culture & Science is the only one with specific procedures for supervising the collections' management and preservation. Although the Ministries of Finance, Agriculture, Nature Management & Fisheries and Defence also receive policy and management information from the institutions as part of their internal financial audits, they do not use this information to monitor the progress of the collections' management and conservation.

Since the national museums and galleries became autonomous in 1993, the Ministry of Education, Culture & Science has had a special inspectorate - known since 1996 as the Cultural Heritage Inspectorate - whose task is to monitor the management of these museums' collections. It does not inspect the 'non-national' institutions that come under the Ministry's auspices or institutions that operate under the auspices of one of the other three ministries. In its report 'Management of national art collections 1994-1999', the Inspectorate advocates subjecting all national collections to the same regime. New regulations are currently under preparation to govern the supervision of part of the cultural heritage under state ownership. The State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science has made it known that collections housed in institutions operating under the auspices of the other three ministries will receive special attention.

The inspection methods used by the Cultural Heritage Inspectorate were developed in collaboration with the national museums and galleries themselves. Each year several sub-collections have been inspected at each museum, the aim being to publish a general conclusion on the entire collection after a number of years. These conclusions were in due course published in the form of a survey of all 26 national museums in the report 'Management of national art collections 1994-1999'. The Court of Audit would note that the sample inspections are often too small to justify sweeping conclusions on the state of management and conservation of the sub-collections. This obviously undermines the overall conclusions as well. The Inspectorate deliberately avoids drawing harsh conclusions, because its supervisory work is intended to serve a preventive and advisory function and to help in formulating policy. The Court of Audit appreciates that this inspection method may have proved its usefulness in what has been essentially a start-up phase, but thinks the time has now come to tighten up the method and set rather higher standards. There is a need for reliable information on the condition of national collections, and the Inspectorate cannot provide it with its current inspection methods. The Inspectorate intends to adjust its methods after the evaluation of the Delta Plan for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage.

Recommendations

On the basis of its audit, the Court of Audit makes the following recommendations:

· The State Secretary for Education, Culture & Science should instruct the Cultural Heritage Inspectorate to include all institutions housing national collections for which he bears responsibility in its inspection programme;

· The State Secretary for Education, Culture & Science should take the initiative to exchange views with the Ministers of Finance, Defence, and Agriculture, Nature Management & Fisheries and to agree a uniform procedure for monitoring all national collections;

· The four responsible Ministers should draw up a plan for eliminating the remaining registration and conservation backlogs;

· The Cultural Heritage Inspectorate should expedite the implementation of its plan to tighten up its inspection methods, so that within the next few years it can start providing periodic overall assessments of the state of the country's national collections. Only then can problems be detected in good time and the creation of fresh backlogs be avoided.

Response of the responsible ministers

The Ministers and State Secretaries for Education, Culture & Science, Defence, Finance and Agriculture, Nature Management & Fisheries responded to the report in October 2000. They very largely endorsed the Court of Audit's recommendations. The State Secretary for Education, Culture & Science has pledged to consult with his colleagues in the light of his general responsibility for the museum heritage. The Court of Audit is pleased with the undertakings given by the government members concerned.