Tag: Department for Culture and Media

• Guidance published to advise custodians facing calls for the removal of heritage assets in their care or ownership
• ‘Retain and explain’ policy will see assets kept in place, accompanied by an explanation of their historical context
• Applies to custodians of all public memorials, including statues, monuments and commemorations

Custodians of heritage assets now have access to clear guidance on how to handle calls for their removal or relocation.

The new guidance, published today, follows consideration by the academics and heritage experts of the government-appointed Heritage Advisory Board on how custodians should approach and manage such requests.

This toolkit is intended to ensure that heritage decision-makers can access expert advice and good practice to support them to make better and more considered decisions with confidence when deciding how to deal with a heritage asset which may have become the focus of debate. This will help to avoid future occurrences of the hasty, forced, or ill-considered removal of contested assets.

Decision-makers may include owners, trustees or board members with care and custody responsibility for the asset in question.

The guidance applies to any statue or monument accessible to the public in the local community which faces calls for its removal or relocation on the grounds of changing views about the people or events it commemorates.

Removing heritage assets risks limiting our understanding of the difficult parts of our history, and of actions people took in the past, even if they may not be considered acceptable today.

The starting point for the guidance is for custodians to comply with the government policy to ‘retain and explain’ and keep assets in situ, but to complement them as necessary with a comprehensive ‘explanation’ which provides the whole story of the person or event depicted, so that a fuller understanding of the historic context can be known, understood and debated.

If, after assessing all the relevant evidence and following consultation and careful deliberation, custodians decide that this is not possible and seek to relocate the asset, they must follow the planning application process to do so.

The guidance confirms that the process of deciding how to deal with calls for the removal of a heritage asset should be rigorous, transparent and rooted in a comprehensive assessment of the person or event, not on partial interpretations. It also highlights that custodians have a responsibility to consider the views of those who cannot be consulted, such as past and future generations.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said:

History is nuanced and complex. It is full of grey areas, which is what makes it so interesting and, of course, there are times when statues and monuments depict people or events that we very much disapprove of today.

At the same time, the UK has a proud history as an engine for progress, democracy and liberal values. That is why I want all our cultural institutions to resist being driven by any politics or agenda and to use their assets to educate and inform rather than to seek to erase the parts of our history that we are uncomfortable with.

Creative approaches to contextualising or explaining are also covered. The guidance highlights that ‘explaining’ need not be limited to a textual amendment and that alternative media and approaches can be used.

Also published today by Historic England are a set of case studies highlighting the variety of ways that ‘reinterpretation’ has already been put in practice for various contested heritage assets in the UK and elsewhere.

Duncan Wilson, Historic England’s Chief Executive said:

The case studies we have commissioned are designed to help custodians of historic places hold constructive discussions around uncomfortable and challenging aspects of our history. We hope they will be helpful in informing the process of interpreting and reinterpreting our shared heritage in a thoughtful, long-lasting and powerful way.

This guidance was prepared by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), working closely with Historic England, the government’s adviser on the historic environment, and overseen by a Heritage Advisory Board established by the former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in May 2021. It forms part of wider government action previously taken, to protect historical monuments from unwarranted removal by giving statutes legal protection so future generations can learn from their cultural and historical contexts.

Mukesh Sharma MBE, Northern Ireland Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund said:

Being part of a multi disciplined team creating the Contested Heritage Guidance was a fulfilling experience, allowing me to apply my knowledge of handling multi-faceted contestation in Northern Ireland to wider discussion around how the heritage sector should respond to calls for statues and other memorials to be removed .

Dr Anna Keay, Director of the Landmark Trust:

Maintaining and caring for historic places is a big responsibility; we hope this guidance will be of assistance to owners and custodians in navigating conflicting views about their treatment and in offering broad and balanced interpretation.

Notes to editors:

• This guidance applies to any commemorative heritage asset (statue, monument, or commemoration) which is a structure, or is part of a building or structure, which is on public display or in places accessible to the public.
• The guidance does not include:
  • museums’ and galleries’ collections, including objects on temporary or permanent display, or in storage.
  • items that do not form part of a building or structure, items that may be in place on a temporary basis, or items that are part of an exhibition. This may include items owned by institutions that are subject to restitution claims. Guidance on restitution is published by Arts Council England.
  • intangible forms of heritage such as dialects and dance.
  • heritage assets outside England, as heritage is a devolved matter – although custodians of heritage assets around the UK may like to consult this guidance.
• Membership of the Heritage Advisory Board was determined by the then Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in May 2021. The seven members included:
  • Dr Anna Keay – Director, Landmark Trust
  • Mukesh Sharma MBE – Northern Ireland Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund
  • Sir Laurie Magnus Bt. CBE – former Chairman, Historic England
  • Sir Trevor Phillips OBE – Journalist and Broadcaster and former director of  the Equality and Human Rights Commission
  • Prof. Robert Tombs, Professor Emeritus of French History at the University of Cambridge
  • Martha Lytton-Cobbold, President of Historic Houses
  • Dr Samir Shah CBE, former Chairman of the Museum of the Home

• 5,000 teenagers will be supported with intensive mentoring and one-to-one careers coaching
• A further 2,600 young people to be offered job placements who otherwise may be at risk of involvement in crime
• Builds on the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’, backed by an investment of over £500 million

Thousands of young people at risk of falling out of education, employment or training once they leave school will be given career mentoring and life skills training to help them succeed in life.

A new Building Futures programme will offer 14-to-16-year-olds a ‘guiding hand’ as they navigate leaving school, with coaching, careers and educational counselling, plus support for wellbeing and mental health such as dealing with relationships.

Targeted at up to 5,000 young people at risk of not being in education, employment or training after they turn 18, the £15 million programme will give participants a mentor to offer sustained, personalised help and careers guidance.

The move builds on Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer’s aim to give young people ‘someone to talk to, something to do and somewhere to go’ outlined in a recent keynote speech at the Onward Think Tank.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said:

I want every young person to have the chance to thrive, whether they are already on the right path to success or need a guiding hand.

We need mentors and role models and whilst for most young people that will be their parents, teachers or youth workers – some need additional help. So we are providing intense mentoring to give these teenagers a trusted adult to talk to, through one-to-one coaching, to help them navigate life when they leave school.

The  funding we are announcing here will enable thousands more young people to develop vital skills and build their confidence – helping unlock employment opportunities for them later in life.

This funding is being allocated to Youth Futures Foundation from the Dormant Assets Scheme, which has unlocked £892 million to date. Dormant assets are financial products, such as bank accounts, that have been untouched for a long period. The Dormant Assets Scheme is led by the financial services industry and backed by the Government, with the aim of reuniting people with these financial assets. Where this is not possible, the money is unlocked for important social and environmental initiatives across the UK, such as funding to tackle youth unemployment.

Barry Fletcher, CEO at Youth Futures Foundation said:

We are delighted that we have been allocated funding to deliver ‘Building Futures’, a pioneering programme to develop and test a package of intensive coaching and careers support for 14-16 year olds to improve their education and employment outcomes.

Building Futures will support up to 5,000 young people through early intervention, helping develop a robust evidence base that could transform our understanding of what works to support those preparing for the transition from secondary school towards further education, employment or training.

The Government has also today announced a new Summer Jobs Programme for up to 2,600 young people at risk of becoming involved in youth violence and crime. These young people will be offered employment placements for up to six weeks, helping improve their job prospects and give them something engaging to do.

Working in partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund and Youth Futures Foundation the programme will focus on areas with the highest crime rates, with young people referred to the programme by local authorities and pupil referral units to be provided with a job mentor and additional training opportunities.

To further support young people at risk of falling through the cracks, the Government is also co-funding at least 100 paid work placements for 9 to 12 months via the UK Year of Service. Funded alongside the NCS Trust, the programme gives 18 to 24-year-olds the chance to be set on a positive path towards long term employment, education or training.

Participants will engage in socially-beneficial roles such as working within conservation and biodiversity, supporting youth community groups, or helping provide local public services. They will receive tailored support and mentoring to grow their skills, as well as having the opportunity to help their local community.

To date, the UK Year of Service has supported over 300 young people and engaged with more than 80 employers, including grassroot charities, across the United Kingdom.

Mark Gifford, CEO of NCS Trust said:

Through the UK Year of Service Pilot we have supported over 330 young people into the world of work. Through engaging with over 80 employers we have been able to offer socially beneficial roles to young people, giving them paid work that pays back.

We are grateful for this support from the government that allows UK Year of Service to move from being a pilot programme to a fundamental part of the NCS Trust portfolio designed to support young people in becoming world ready & work ready.

Today’s announcement builds on the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’, that every young person aged 11 to 18 years old in England will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home, and volunteering opportunities by 2025, backed by an investment of more than £500 million investment. This includes the Government’s Youth Investment Fund of more than £300 million, of which £160 has been delivered to date. This will allow up to 300 youth centres across the country to be rebuilt or redeveloped, aiming to help 45,000 more young people access regular, positive activities every year.

Earlier this week it was announced that up to 7,500 disadvantaged young people are to be given access to adventures away from home, helping them develop vital life skills and build confidence. The youth work sector is also to be supported with vital funding and clearer guidance for local authorities.

The government also announced plans to help over 30,000 economically inactive 16 -24-year-olds into work by expanding the Youth Offer to a wider group of young people. The support of the Youth Offer, which includes access to Youth Hubs, mentoring from Youth Employability Coaches and more, will give tens of thousands more young people the help they need to get into work.

Notes to editors:

• A primary aim of the Building Futures and Summer Jobs programmes is to help those most at risk with coaching, counselling and educational opportunities. The programme will also look to build upon the existing evidence base on what works best for young people in this position. For example, the programmes will help generate a better understanding of how to identify those at risk of falling through the cracks and how best to support them to achieve their potential.
• On 1 February 2022, DCMS published the summary findings from the 2021 DCMS-led Youth review and announced its ambitious plans to level up access to out of school youth programmes.
• It is backed by an investment of more than £500 million in youth services in England over the next three years, which includes the Youth Investment Fund and ongoing support for the National Citizen Service. This will transform the government’s offer for young people and level up opportunities right across the country.
• DCMS is backing the country’s powerhouse sectors to grow the economy and make a difference where people live.
• The civil society sector is worth at least £16 billion to the UK economy. There are 951,000 jobs in the sector, over 50,000 more jobs than in 2019 before the pandemic.

• Up to 7,500 young people to experience day trips and weekends away from home thanks to new Government support
• Opportunities targeted at young carers and those from deprived backgrounds
• Million Hours Fund opens for applications, providing more than one million extra hours of activities for young people in youth centres
• Builds on the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’, backed by an investment of over £500 million

Thousands of disadvantaged young people are to get access to outdoor learning opportunities away from home so they can develop vital life skills, build confidence and resilience.

The Adventures Away From Home Fund, worth £1.5 million, will allow more children and teenagers to enjoy activities they otherwise would not be able to take part in. The fund will see disadvantaged young people take part in activities to give them new experiences and expand their horizons.

Participants such as young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and young carers will be given the opportunity to try exciting new activities such as zip-lining, kayaking and cooking, supporting the development of skills like teamwork and problem solving. Outdoor learning has also been shown to increase young people’s attainment in schools and their attitudes towards learning.

This builds on last year’s scheme where over 3,500 young people had the opportunity to take part in this programme from across the country. Young people said the experiences helped them overcome their fears and prepare them for real world experiences, with one young person saying “It was only [their] second time away from home” and that “the trip was an adventure from start to finish…we loved every minute of it.”

The move to more than double this programme this year builds on Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer’s aim to give young people ‘someone to talk to, something to do and somewhere to go’, outlined in a recent keynote speech at the Onward Think Tank.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said:

I want every young person to have the very best start in life, and that includes access to exciting opportunities that take them out of their comfort zone and expands their horizons.

The Adventures Away from Home Programme will support 7,500 young people to take part in activities not usually available to them. It will help them develop new skills, build confidence and resilience.

We will support  one million more hours of activity for young people in youth centres and clubs to give them somewhere to go when the school day ends where they can enjoy positive activities

The Government is today also announcing the next phase of the Million Hours Fund is open for applications, in partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund.

Designed to create more than one million additional hours of youth centre provision in areas with high numbers of antisocial behaviour incidents, the £19 million fund will pay for additional youth workers, volunteers, venue hire and activity resources for youth clubs.

The first £3 million of the Million Hours Fund was allocated earlier this year. It helped 400 youth organisations to deliver extra provision over the summer holidays – meaning more young people could enjoy positive activities during the break. In the South West, 34 projects were supported by over £261,000 funding. In Swindon, Central Swindon North Parish Council received £6,500 to deliver a range of sport, dance and forestry sessions and day trips for young people aged 11-18 during the summer holidays. The project aimed to provide positive and engaging activities for young people and reduce the risk of anti-social behaviour.

David Knott, Chief Executive at The National Lottery Community Fund, said:

We’re proud to be working alongside DCMS to jointly fund the Million Hours Fund to bring much-needed additional youth provision and activities to young people living in England. Thanks to National Lottery players, this investment will improve young people’s prospects and support them to thrive – a key part of our strategic mission.

The Government is also committed to giving young adults something productive to do via its partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund on the #iwill Fund, which creates opportunities for taking part in high quality social action projects. The Government is today confirming more than 60,000 new volunteering opportunities, supported by £12 million of investment, specifically supporting those from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Projects include Clarion Futures, which has been allocated over £630,000 to scale up their Intergenerational Social Action programme, providing opportunities to 2,000 young people. The projects will bring older and younger residents together to tackle local issues and explore ways to create more connected communities across generations.

Similarly, funding of over £600,000 to the Diana Award Mentoring Programme will create 1,200 opportunities over two years. Young people aged 14-18 at risk of not being in education, employment or training (NEET) will take part in a twelve-week mentoring and careers skills development intervention, helping them to improve employability skills and general wellbeing.

Since its launch in 2016, a total of 700,000 new youth social action opportunities have been created, supported by £33 million investment in the #iwill Fund by the Government. Young people who reported taking part in social action in the 2019 Youth Social Action Survey stated that it improved their communication skills, their ability to work in a team and their self-confidence.

Giving children and teenagers something engaging to do is a key component of the Government’s ‘National Youth Guarantee’, announced in 2022. This makes clear that every young person aged between 11 and 18 in England will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home, and volunteering opportunities by 2025, backed by an investment of more than £500 million.

This includes the Government’s Youth Investment Fund of more than £300 million that will support up to 300 youth centres across the country to be rebuilt or redeveloped, and help 45,000 more young people access regular, positive activities every year.

Throughout the week the Government is due to announce vital support for the youth worker sector, in addition to mentoring opportunities for the most vulnerable young people.

Notes to editors:

• Organisations can find out how to apply for the Million Hours Fund on the National Lottery’s Community Fund website.
• A competition is live for the intermediary grant maker to deliver the Adventures Away From Home Fund. Further details for the fund will be released later this year.
• On 1 February 2022, DCMS published the summary findings from the 2021 DCMS-led Youth Review.
• It is backed by an investment of more than £500 million in youth services in England over the next three years, which includes the Youth Investment Fund and ongoing support for the National Citizen Service. This will transform the Government’s offer for young people and level up opportunities right across the country.
• DCMS is backing the country’s powerhouse sectors to grow the economy and make a difference where people live.
• The civil society sector is worth at least £16 billion to the UK economy. There are 951,000 jobs in the sector, more than 50,000 more jobs than in 2019 before the pandemic.

Dr Helen Jacobsen

Appointed for a four year term from 1 September 2023.

Dr Helen Jacobsen is Executive Director of The Attingham Trust, a charitable educational trust that organises study programmes on historic houses for professionals in the heritage sector. Formerly Senior Curator and Curator of 18th-century Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection, where she was responsible for furniture, porcelain, clocks, gilt bronze and gold boxes, she has curated exhibitions and published on eighteenth-century decorative art and collecting history. She is a member of the Council of the French Porcelain Society and of the Grants Committee of the Furniture History Society, and is a trustee of the Leche Trust.

Dr Caroline Shenton

Appointed for a four year term from 1 September 2023.

Dr Caroline Shenton is the former Director of the Parliamentary Archives and a former senior archivist at the UK National Archives. Originally a mediaeval historian, she has an MA from St Andrews University and a doctorate on the court of Edward III from Worcester College, Oxford. She qualified as an archivist at UCL, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Historical Society. Caroline taught Public History to postgraduates at the Centre for Archives and Information Studies at the University of Dundee for a number of years, and in 2017 was a Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library. She is now Secretary to Council at Girton College, Cambridge.

As well as writing various academic and technical publications during her professional career, in 2013 she began to specialise in popular histories of heritage in peril. Her first trade book The Day Parliament Burned Down (OUP, 2012), won the Political Book of the Year Award, beating Alastair Campbell, Nick Robinson and Andrew Marr to top prize. It was also shortlisted for a number of other prizes, and was a Book of the Year for The New Statesman, Daily Telegraph, Mail on Sunday and Herald Scotland.

Its highly-acclaimed sequel, Mr Barry’s War (OUP, 2016) about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine. Her third book, National Treasures, about the evacuation of London’s galleries and museums in the Second World War, was published by John Murray in November 2021 and was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Non-Fiction Crown, and was a Book of the Year for London Historians.

Christopher Baker

Reappointed for a four year term commencing 1 October 2023.

Christopher Baker is an Hon. Professor at Edinburgh University and holds a number of non-executive roles and trusteeships. He served for ten years as a Director of the National Galleries of Scotland, where he was responsible for the collection and programme at the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Yale Centre for British Art and the Paul Mellon Rome Fellow and worked at Christ Church, Oxford, and the National Gallery in London. Christopher is a member of the Spoliation Advisory Panel, the Recognition Committee (Museums Galleries Scotland) and the Advisory Board of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UKRI).

He has organised numerous exhibitions in the U.K. and internationally on aspects of British art pre-1900, drawings and watercolours, and old master paintings. His publications include: Fuseli, The Realm of Dreams and the Fantastic (2022, co-author); J. M.W. Turner: The Vaughan Bequest (2018); Landseer: The Monarch of the Glen (2017); Jean-Étienne Liotard (2015, co-author); John Ruskin: Artist and Observer (2014, co-author); Catalogue of English Drawings and Watercolours 1600-1900, National Gallery of Scotland (2011); and The National Gallery [London] Complete Illustrated Catalogue, (1995, co-author).

Stuart Lochhead

Reappointed for a four year term commencing 1 October 2023.

In 2018 Stuart set up his own firm dealing in European Sculpture from the late Mediaeval period to Rodin based in St James’s, London and has since sold a number of important works of sculpture to various international museums, including a sculpture by Giovanni Pisano to the Musée de Cluny, a rare portrait bust by François Girardon to the Château de Versailles, and the original model of Why Be Born a Slave by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Upon graduating from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1994 Stuart Lochhead joined Daniel Katz at his newly opened gallery in Jermyn Street. In the following years Stuart mounted numerous exhibitions in New York and London on European Sculpture. He organised three major loan exhibitions at the gallery on Renaissance and Baroque bronzes from The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Stuart was formerly on the board of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, The Sculpture Journal and Chairman of the Courtauld Association. Stuart organised the first gift by a UK company to a museum through the Cultural Gifts Scheme.

Remuneration and Governance Code

Members of the RCEWA are not remunerated. These appointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments. The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Christopher Baker, Dr Helen Jacobsen, Stuart Lochhead and Dr Caroline Shenton have not declared any significant political activity.