Governance

A group of 250 community volunteers has taken over a Worcestershire theatre after its operator collapsed in 2020.

In the intervening years, the Artrix in Bromsgrove became a Covid vaccination centre and then the temporary home of the Solihull Core Theatre. However, it is now run by Bromsgrove Community Arts Group, a charitable incorporated organisation created specifically to manage the theatre.

After Solihull Core Theatre did not renew its lease on the Artrix, the community group sought a short-term lease of the venue to gauge a community-led model’s viability.

Chairman of Bromsgrove Community Arts and Worcestershire County Council Kyle Daisley told the BBC: "It's all about providing a place for the community and providing opportunities for members of the community.”

"Some volunteers are so thankful we've given them a chance and a purpose in life - that's absolutely what we're all about.

"It's not just a theatre; it's a community hub for everybody. It makes the stress and the sleepless nights all worthwhile."

Ministers have had to restart the process of recruiting a new chair for the V&A Museum, according to a report from Sky News.

It claims that Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has had to restart the search for a successor to Sir Nicholas Coleridge after the original frontrunner, Samir Shah, accepted the opportunity to Chair the BBC.

The original recruitment opened last April, with interviews scheduled for early July. Shah was named the government's choice for the new BBC Chairman in December.

Coleridge, who has been appointed Chair of Historic Royal Palaces, has been replaced on an interim basis by Nigel Webb.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has launched an online consultation on the government's plans to ratify the UNESCO 2003 Convention for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. 

The consultation seeks responses from the public to help it define and create an “inventory” of UK heritage that is “living and practised”. Intangible heritage can include oral traditions and expressions, including language, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe and traditional craftsmanship. 

Similar to the World Heritage List, UNESCO maintains a global list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In its endorsement of the convention, the government says it will not initially seek to nominate items to this list and instead create its own inventory. 

The government says this will “[raise] awareness of all the Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK…to lift all rather than list a few with UNESCO”.

DCMS proposes creating inventories for the four nations and overseas territories, which will be collated into a National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK.

Communities, groups or individuals can submit items to be added to the inventory, reflecting traditions from anywhere in the world and any period currently practised in the UK. Submissions will then be subject to a “light-touch approvals process”, with new entries expected to be announced quarterly.

Arts Minister Lord Parkinson, said: “The UK is rich in traditions which are passed down from generation to generation. These crafts, customs, and celebrations have helped to shape our communities and bring people together, who continue to shape them in turn.

“By ratifying this convention, we will be able to celebrate treasured traditions from every corner of the UK, support the people who practise them, and ensure they are passed down for future generations to enjoy.”

An independent review into thefts at The British Museum has made a series of recommendations on risk management, auditing, governance and security, as well as introducing a comprehensive register of all eight million items in its collections.

The proposals insist the museum should “have a policy which defines what comprises its collection” and that it “should identify the unregistered or inadequately registered objects within the collection and register them fully”.

Efforts to document the museum's entire collection were announced in October and are expected to take five years to complete.

The review also advised changes in governance that will see The British Museum’s Director and Deputy share power. Collective decisions will be made by a management committee formed of the director, two deputies and four other senior staff.

It suggested trustees be granted more involvement in the day-to-day running of the museum, including being paired with individual departments and having oversight of staff issues, while also giving staff more representation through board members.

The independent review was led by Sir Nigel Boardman, a former corporate lawyer, Lucy D’Orsi, Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, and Ian Karet, a deputy high court judge. The museum has unanimously accepted the review’s recommendations.

The theft of around 1,500 Greek and Roman objects by an employee between 1993 and 2022 first emerged in August, causing considerable reputational damage.

The thefts were mainly of unregistered items – gems and jewellery. The museum said 351 items have been returned, with 300 further missing items identified.

In addition to the missing or stolen artefacts, 500 items were damaged, with 140 found to have tool marks, while 350 had portions removed, such as gold mounts for gems, which had likely been sold for scrap.

Details about the timeline of the museum's investigation were also included in the report, which said: “The museum was alerted to suspicions of thefts in 2021 by Dr Ittai Gradel. The museum’s investigation incorrectly concluded that there was no basis to the claims.”

Later that year, a spot check during an internal audit revealed an item not in its proper location within the Greece and Rome strongroom, triggering a more comprehensive collection audit in April 2022. Concerns arising from the audit were brought to senior management in December 2022.

Sir Mark Jones, who became Interim Director following the resignation of Dr Hartwig Fischer, said: “No one can pretend this has been an easy period for the Museum, but I have the utmost admiration for the commitment of the staff to building a stronger future for the Museum we all care so deeply about.”

George Osborne, Chair of Trustees, said the review, which was not published in full, “shows the British Museum is putting our own house in order".

"Indeed, we commissioned it because we were determined to learn the lessons of what went wrong. The British Museum was the victim of thefts over a long period, and we apologise again that this was allowed to happen.

"The ongoing police investigation means the full report cannot be published today, but we have accepted the recommendations in full and have started to recover hundreds of the stolen items."