MUSEUMS across Scotland have warned they face permanent closure within months without being handed financial support to ge through the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Industrial Museums Scotland (IMS), a partnership of museums holding almost a quarter of Scotland’s collections recognised as being of national significance has teamed up with the Scottish Community Heritage Alliance (SCHA) and Museums Heritage Highland (MHH) to call for an urgent intervention to prevent closures and redundancies.

Independent museums operate on limited reserves and rely on income from visitors and education programmes over the summer season. Half of independent museum expect to reach crisis point before the end of the summer. Some have already liquidated assets at great loss to support short-term needs.

David Mann, chairman of Industrial Museums Scotland, said: “Closing indefinitely at a time when we generate the bulk of our annual operating income has put the future of many of our independent museums on a cliff’s edge.

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“Current business continuity funding isn’t accessible, adequate or appropriate for the cultural and charity sector. Whilst we are grateful for emergency grant funding from Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) and the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), support for the cultural sector is only at present designed for the short-term.  

“Our growing concern is that this additional support for the independent museum sector will come too late, after some members have closed permanently, staff have been made redundant and charities wound up. Others will need to make redundancies, cut wages, mothball historic buildings and nationally significant collections to try and survive until the 2021 season.  

“The impact of this on the sector will be irreversible - putting nationally significant collections at risk and, most importantly, decimating staff, destroying team dynamics and ending careers.  

“Closures mean collections have to be cared for by other organisations, putting a strain on local and national bodies, at a time when resources are already stretched thin. We believe that additional financial support would be no more costly than redundancies, mothballing and having to rebuild the museum sector in 2021.”

Museums surviving to the start of the 2021 season next April will begin at a loss, with a drastically reduced income for 2021. Concerns have been raised that independent museums are still likely to struggle as far out as the 2022/23 financial year without any help.  

Museum organisations believe a financial relief package would be a starting point in terms of support.  

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IMS museums, including Almond Valley and the Scottish Fisheries Museum, collectively welcome 900,000 visitors a year and contribute more than £9 million to the Scottish economy.  

They employ more than 300 people and offer modern apprenticeships, traineeships and employability training.  

MHH represents museums across the Highlands including Groan House Museum, the Highland Museum of Childhood and Strathnaver Museum. They draw 250,000 visitors to the region and employ more than 20 people.

Dan Cottam, chairman of MHH, said: “Small independent museums in the Highlands are used to contributing greatly to Scottish culture and their own communities from particularly meagre means, working creatively and entrepreneurially to produce an exciting and valuable offer whilst supporting hundreds of volunteers.  

“Whilst the size, self-sufficiency and resilience of the Highland sector has allowed us to react quickly to the initial crisis, the medium to long term picture is daunting. Rural community museums perpetually walk a tightrope in terms of cashflow and the inability to generate income will mean most will quickly be depleting what small reserves we have.  

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“We have worked extremely hard in the last few years, finding ingenious and innovative ways to combat dwindling public funding and maintain quality experiences for our audiences.  It is vital now more than ever that our collections and our valuable work is recognised and supported to ensure survival.”  

The SCHA represents community heritage organisations across Scotland, a third of which are museums but also includes historic buildings, sites, archives and many organisations which run heritage activities and heritage-based tourism services.  

Catherine Gillies from the SCHA, said: "Altogether, we need funders to come forward urgently with financial support that meets not just immediate needs but recognises and secures longer term survival. We need recovery planning and additional funding in place today.  

“What is at stake are both people and heritage - the two are intertwined and are part of the bedrock of successful communities.  

“Scotland is seen as a world leader with its extraordinary wealth of community-run heritage. Losing it – and there is a high risk that we will – would have impacts on the economy, tourism and community health out of all proportion to the cost of saving it.”