The financial resilience of DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries

DCMS should: as part of its review of KPIs, ensure that it is able to measure M&Gs? progress against each of its priority outcomes and that the measures provide a balance of cost, quality and delivery ? it should also use these KPIs to enable a clearer view of whether M&Gs are performing in line with its expectations

DCMS should: identify a set of indicators of M&Gs? financial resilience, which it will monitor on a regular basis to identify potential early warning signs of financial difficulty, with accompanying plans for how it will use this information to prioritise its oversight and engagement with M&Gs that are most at risk ? its indicators should include a mix of financial measures, such as cash and reserve levels, and non-financial indicators, such as the timeliness of production of annual accounts for audit and leadership turnover in M&Gs? finance teams

DCMS should: communicate to the M&Gs the factors it considers when deciding their annual funding allocations ? it should also encourage M&Gs to share information about their operating costs to enable comparison and benchmarking of key cost data between the M&Gs

DCMS should: communicate a plan to the M&Gs setting out how it will support sharing of good practice and development of capacity to address cross-cutting challenges that are affecting M&Gs? financial resilience; this could include identifying, and potentially funding, one museum or gallery to pilot shareable solutions that can be disseminated across the sector ? current cross-cutting challenges include cyber threats, storage, digitisation of collections, insurance and shared services

Museums and galleries should: take the opportunity provided by the current multi-year Spending Review period to establish financial plans that reflect the greater certainty over government funding provided and factor in uncertainty about other income streams due to wider economic factors ? these should include plans for managing a range of scenarios for income generation

Museums and galleries should: agree collectively how they can capture data on key costs, such as staff, insurance, energy and security, on a consistent basis in order to facilitate more insightful comparisons between M&Gs

Museums and galleries should: review whether their financial management capability is sufficient to manage future risks and seek to address any gaps they identify