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NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
BUSINESS PLAN 2004/05 - 2006/07
1 Introduction
The National Portrait Gallery
holds the largest and most distinguished collection of portraits
in the world. As an institution it fulfils a number of roles
relating to the historic and contemporary aspects of this collection:
a research and academic role, an educational role, and a wider
role within public life. Following a period of unprecedented
growth, the challenge is to give greater strength to the organisation
for the longer term, consolidating what has already been achieved
and reducing areas of risk. At the same time the Gallery must
further develop the imaginative and distinctive aspects of its
display, exhibition, education and access programmes, with a
greater national presence and an increased recognition of the
quality of its work and its collection, and the skills and knowledge
of its staff.
Following the launch of the Ondaatje
wing in 2000, the Gallery has retained its level of visitors
despite the unfavourable economic climate and difficulties with
international tourism and travel. The Gallery has also demonstrated
its ability to make acquisitions of national importance, such
as the Balfour and the Omai, Banks and Solander portraits, to
revitalise its regional work at Bodelwyddan, to complete the
buildings at St Martin's Place with the opening of the Regency
display in the Weldon Galleries, to establish new sponsorship
partnerships with Schweppes and Deloitte, and to collaborate
on major projects such as Great Britons with the BBC and the
new Dictionary of National Biography with Oxford University Press.
To continue with such successes, while coping with limited staff
and resources, requires a determined sense of direction, clear
planning and continued efficiency across the institution as a
whole.
2 Aim
The overall aim of the National
Portrait Gallery as defined by the 1992 Act of Parliament remains:
To promote through the medium
of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and
women who have made and are making British history and culture,
and ...to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture
in all media...
This can be summarised as three
key terms: people, history and art. In developing
the new visual identity for the Gallery several key concepts
emerged, particularly the Gallery offering a changing 'portrait
of the nation' and emphasising 'the human factor' in all of its
work.
3 Strategic Objectives
Six strategic objectives for
the period 2004 to 2009 have been identified:
1. To extend and broaden the
range of audiences for the National Portrait Gallery and its
work
2. To develop the Collection, creating opportunities for acquisition
and commission
3. To increase the understanding of and engagement with the Collection
and its subjects through bringing more of the reference collections
into use, and through outstanding research, displays and exhibition,
education, access, publishing, information, regional and digital
programmes, and a higher national and public profile
4. To increase the financial resources available through both
public and private sector support, trading and licensing
5. To develop staff as an essential resource through the extension
of staff training, development and learning programmes
6. To bring the buildings, technical and managerial infrastructure
of the Gallery to the highest standards, including processes,
systems, storage and staff accommodation
4 Resources and Methods
To meet these Strategic Objectives
the Gallery must increase its resources over the five year period
and develop improved methods of working, including:
1. Investing in the future: in
buildings, staffing, management and programmes
2. Developing wider leadership by the National Portrait Gallery
with regard to both portraiture and biography and linking regional,
national and international perspectives for the Gallery's work
3. Creating more effective partnerships with external organisations,
and improving the management of relationships with a range of
important individuals, including supporters, donors, politicians
and community leaders
4. Balancing the loan exhibitions programme between the popular
and the academic
5. Managing existing resources more efficiently, including outsourcing
work wherever appropriate and effective
6. Being imaginative and employing appropriate innovation in
the Gallery's work, while embedding consideration of risk in
all aspects of planning and budgeting
7. Ensuring that the wider uses of the collections are balanced
by a concern for their long-term conservation and the improvement
of conditions of storage
8. Selectively using new technologies through an overall IT strategy
9. Developing clear and effective lines of authority, levels
of delegation and project management methods, rigorously evaluating
projects, programmes and testing the interests of our current
and potential audiences
5 Context
Over the next five years there
are a number of external factors positively supporting the Gallery
in achieving its objectives:
- Museums have a strong position
in an information-led society, as part of a culture of life-long
learning and within a burgeoning e-learning environment.
- The DCMS recognised the lack
of sufficient resources for the Gallery in the Quinquennial Review.
- Portraiture, the study of history
and biography, and an interest in what constitutes greatness
remain popular and of considerable interest to the media.
- Work already undertaken to widen
the audience for the National Portrait Gallery, including the
recognition of diversity issues, provides a strong platform from
which to find new visitors as well as to increase the number
of repeat visits.
- The opportunity exists to strengthen
relations with academics, writers and artists across a range
of studies of art and photography, biography and British history.
- The television and digital environment
offers further channels for disseminating the Gallery's work.
- Government's agenda for de-centralisation
provides a supportive framework for expanding the UK-wide work
of the Gallery.
There are also some concerns:
- The economic downturn may continue
to restrain corporate and individual support for some years.
- Competition among the London
museums may grow: for visitors in central London, for donors,
for those willing to support endowments, and within some particular
areas of programming such as photography exhibitions.
- Terrorism may make further inroads
into international travel and may affect central metropolitan
locations in ways that are hard to predict.
- Demands from government may
increase, in targeting the use of funds and regulating the way
that the Gallery operates.
6 Themes and Criteria
A number of themes have emerged
which provide the criteria for the relative priorities within
the programme of initiatives which follows:
1. Extending the way the Gallery
acts and is seen as a national organisation
2. Reinforcing the distinctiveness of the Portrait Gallery's
particular role and programmes through emphasising questions
of cultural diversity as well as issues of achievement, greatness,
identity and celebrity
3. Researching, developing and sharing the primary and reference
collections as the central axis of the Gallery's work
4. Extending interpretation, education and audience development
work as the natural corollary to the extension of the Portrait
Gallery buildings and facilities
5. Understanding better and improving the value and effectiveness
of the Gallery's work and making the programmes more responsive
to audiences' needs
6. Stabilising the organisation through investment in both
facilities and processes
7. Giving emphasis over the next two to three years to those
activities which contribute net income
7 Conclusion
The past decade has been dominated
by physical renewal and extension of the galleries. The challenge
for the next decade is to make the National Portrait Gallery
famous for its ability to bring history to life, to connect to
contemporary issues, to communicate with different audiences
and to share its work with the country as a whole. In 2006 we
want to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gallery with great
confidence. By 2007 we want to be able to demonstrate a higher
national profile, a wider range of visitors and participants,
an increase in our resources and assets, and an imaginative development
of our collection and public programmes while working as a more
integrated and better focused institution: a demanding but achievable
goal.
- STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVE ONE:
To extend and broaden the range of audiences for the National
Portrait Gallery and its work
- STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVE TWO:
To develop the Collection, creating opportunities for acquisition
and commission
- STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVE THREE:
To increase the understanding of and engagement with the Collection
and its subjects through bringing more of the reference collections
into use, and through outstanding research, displays and exhibition,
education, access, publishing, information, regional and digital
programmes, and a higher national and public profile.
- STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVE FOUR:
To increase the financial resources available through both public
and private sector support, trading and licensing
- STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVE FIVE:
To develop staff as an essential resource through the extension
of staff training, development and learning programmes
- STRATEGIC
OBJECTIVE SIX:
To bring the buildings, technical and managerial infrastructure
of the Gallery to the highest standards, including processes,
systems, storage and staff accommodation
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