Britain's 'hidden £3.5bn art collection'
September 7 2015
Picture: art-handling.co.uk
There was much excitement in the news here in the UK on Monday over a report published by the 'Taxpayer's Alliance' on how much art is in storage. The Alliance's 'research' showed that Britain had an art collection worth £3.5bn, and that only 3% of this was on show. The Alliance's Chief Executive Jonathan Isaby said that:
"Public bodies and local authorities should make an effort to display more of their art for people to enjoy, and they also need to take a good, hard look at their art portfolio and think about what does and does not need to be retained."
And he also said here that:
The public sector has a role to play in preserving Britain’s artistic heritage, but that’s not a reason not to look at the possibility of using some of the assets to fund frontline services. With a budget deficit of more than £60bn, nothing can be off the table.
The clear implication is that deaccessioning should be considered, and that the sale of art is a justifiable way of funding public services. Which of course is silly. Try and fund the NHS by selling the UK's art, and you'd empty the nation's museums quicker than you can say Philistine.
Now regular readers will know that I'm often going on about the scandal of how much art we have in storage in this country. You can read more on the question from me here in the FT (and listen to the podcast here).
But the suggestion here that the matter should be seen in monetary terms, and one of assets ripe for the selling, is a mistake. Many councils hardly need encouraging that deaccessioning is a justified option. And besides, the reality is that it isn't the relatively valueless, rarely seen print collection (for example) that councils decide to sell, but the more valuable oil paintings and sculptures.
You can look further at the Alliance's research here. It's not exactly thorough, and relies on a blizzard of 859 Freedom of Information requests, many of which were unanswered. We can be sure, therefore, of two things: that the £3.5bn figure is a significant undervaluation; and that the Taxpayer's Alliance wasted a whole heap of taxpayer's money in cobbling together these statistics. The average cost of answering an FoI request is £293 (according to this research here).
A better way to calculate the value of the nation's art would be to look at the annual reports of museums, which, under new accountancy rules, must now list the value of their collections as 'heritage assets'. But that would be a lot of work - and certainly more than sending the same FoI request out over 800 times.
