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Hello Gemmers,
I asked for some info about funding an education service a while ago and this is a summary of the information I got. I haven’t managed to contact all the people who offered to chat, so this response is somewhat incomplete, but I wanted to thank everyone who responded and post my story so far.
I’ve taken out the detail where respondents requested that I do so – I hope no-one else minds me pasting their responses up. I‘ve taken organisation details out of all responses.
I have two very specific problems in that our schools workshops are already very expensive (to buy and to run) and so not necessarily a great way to generate extra income and that schools learning is only a part of the learning service here. My remit covers various bits of project work related to exhibitions, access and community engagement that can’t necessarily be funded through charges to schools.
My response to the challenge of looking at a new model for learning was to present my manager with four options:
1. Reduce costs Scale the service down and reduce salaried staff.
2. Increase income Diversify the income streams for the service.
3. Submit a growth bid to the council Develop a case for increased funding directly allocated by members based upon the key fact that the reduction in the grant from schools represents a saving to the Council. A growth bid following this model could still achieve an overall net saving in the Borough of Poole’s budgets.
4. Pursue a model of alternative service delivery Devolve the learning service away from the council to unlock funding not available to local authorities.
After discussion my manager said he didn’t want to reduce salaried staff (phew, no promises though) and he felt that the learning service was too small on its own for ASD. So we decided that we would submit a growth bid (and cross our fingers) to fund core costs, look at reducing costs of the schools workshops (in order to maximise the margin) and develop some new income strands. Income will be generated through a mixture of charged events and activities (such as birthday parties, adult learning courses and special events), consultancy work and corporate hire activities (i.e. the museum equivalent of painting balling). We are also starting to look at the idea of developing income through commissioning. Within the Museum we have started to offer reminiscence sessions targeted towards people in receipt of direct payments and I am working on positioning us to be able to pick up strategically commissioned project work. We haven’t put an income target against funding from this source as I haven’t been able to effectively assess its potential yet and our feeling is that we need to do a bit more to make ourselves ready for this important new area of business.
So basically we are trying to spread our eggs across a few different baskets. It will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next year, as this is the time we’ll be able to test our model in relative safety, but heading out into stormy waters.
Other people’s responses.
Try and get in touch with the learning team from Hull (manager is Jane Avison) they have been creating a self funding model for learning delivery.
I'm pretty sure Doncaster are in a similar situation moving from SLA to fully traded. Not sure how common it is - Donny's the only one I know of on 'my patch'.
I'm not sure if Fiona Spiers is still around as Education Officer, but you could try Carolyn Dalton, who's head of service.
we use an external agency to manage our pool of Learning Facilitators who deliver schools workshops at 3 of the 9 sites. The figures work like this:
£50 per 2hr workshop charge to schools paid to xxx through cheque or invoice. This goes into a designated income code.
£30 (approx) for 2.5 hrs to the Learning Facilitator (inc 1/2 hr set up / close down). This is approx as it depends on their tax bracket - £30 is if they do no other work and are in the lowest one.
£12 to the external company as management and tax / holiday for the LFs.
£8 surplus for us.
We had a lot of teething problems with the external agency and we did most of the admin at the start. It's taken 18 months, but those are ironed out and the agency now does the admin. It was stressful! They also couldn't get their heads around what we do until they had seen a session etc. We had to use an agency as the LA recruitment freeze meant we couldn't have casuals, and, because they work regular (ish) hrs they aren't really casual anyway.
I run an entirely self financing service (including my own salary since January 11!!) I also have a large income target on top of this.
http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/policylobbying/culturetourismand2012/lcip/heritage.htm
This is a bit heavy and full on but you might find aspects of it useful. As we mentioned, this kind of issue does bring the whole "What is the Museum for then?" question to the fore.
Some of the guidance here can help with that. It's not a recipe for a business model for learning services, but it is useful for a longer-term perspective on what kind of organisation a Local Authority Museum should be.
As an independent museum we charge per pupil for school visits. I would suggest looking at your costs i.e. what you pay your freelancers, cost of materials etc and then divide that by the typical number of pupils that visit in a class to work out your breakeven/ cost-covering point. If this is not too high then you can increase the charge per pupil to insure an income for service development as well.
I can tell you that our prices range from £3.50 per pupil to £10 per pupil depending on which session options are booked (at the moment I am redesigning the pamphlet/ information booklet, once it is done I’ll send you a copy so that you can see how this system operates), this covers for 3 -4 workshops in a visit.
We are looking at entirely self sufficient visits (it some gallery resources in a box, but no staff support other than a warm welcome) or DIY visits, where schools turn up entirely of their own volition and to their own thing (which they do do sometimes). Also become effectively a venue in which external suppliers run school days – but supplier does bookings, contacts schools, does H&S, risk assessments etc – we are entirely a venue hire with a basic duty of care to provide a safe site and that’s it. Also looking at videoconferencing with schools at a reasonable cost to them, but we already have the kit so no capital set up there.
The MR is to see what kind of reaction to these proposals we get, but also to establish what is the per-pupil cost they simply could not pay – no matter how brilliant the session.
The other option is to run an outreach service but with petrol, van and driver costs we would have to charge more, but it will be less than schools have to pay for a coach on top of session costs.
In my heart of hearts I think FCR on a day to day basis will not work, or at least only for some schools – and not enough to sustain employed posts. I think we’re looking at one-off projects, subsidized or covered by grant aid costs on particular themes (say a Darwin versus God week). Or something……
In essence we go for full cost recovery – schools pay the actual rate for staff time OR we use freelancers who get a set fee – agreed with them, paid to them (currently) directly by the school. We charge museum admission of £1.75 per child on top of this (1:10 adults free)
I wouldn't say we make much if any profit on this – but I have a feeling things may change in that direction.....
The casuals run the school sessions (I just deliver the one off sessions like special needs groups)
It is just me taking the bookings hence I am not going to deliver any sessions from this financial year.
We charge £30 for one session at school, £50 for 2 and £75 for 3 (as long as they are the same in the same day). Free mileage under 10 miles from the museum.
Our all-day activity sessions at the museum are £60 a day, or a half day work shop is £30 (£50 for 2 of the same in the same day)
We do not receive any grant aid at all. All our revenue is derived from our visitors. We also offer workshops which are paid for at a rate of xx per hour for a maximum of 35 students.
I hope this is useful.
Best wishes
Trudie
Trudie Cole
Learning and Access Manager
Culture and Community Learning, Borough of Poole
Poole Museum Service
+ 4 High Street, Poole BH15 1BW
( 01202 262 623
: www.boroughofpoole.com/museumlearning
P Do you really need to print this email?
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