“Former Conservative minister Michael Portillo is to chair a scheme to help arts and heritage organisations build long-term funding. A new £55m Endowment Fund will award public grants to match funds raised from private donations. The fund is being set up with money from the Lottery and the Arts Council, as part of a wider government scheme to encourage philanthropy.”
RESCUE says: While we welcome new funding for the arts and cutural sectors, the question that must be asked is how will this plan fund the essential infrastructure costs that have not been met over the last 20 years (or more) in respect of the archiving and curation of archaeological archives. And how will such funding be used to support key staff posts in our major national and local museums? In short, will this money be used to supplement the core funding that has been and continues to be stripped away from our museums or will it be purely for high profile exhibitions in a few major institutions?
