Declarations of interest:
None
Witnesses:
Barrie Higham, Heritage
Manager
Nowal Shaikhley, Archaeological
Operations Manager
Julian Pooley, Public Services
and Engagement Manager
Michael Page, County
Archivist
Peter Milton, Head of Cultural
Services
Key
points raised during the discussion:
- The Chairman
explained the Board that the meeting was being held at the Surrey
History Centre (SHC) in Woking so that Members could have the
opportunity to experience what the service provides Surrey’s
residents first-hand.
- A Member questioned
Officers regarding income generation, asking for Officers to
clarify SHC’s current position, particularly around room
hire, and for the Officers to expand on any ideas of future income
streams in the future. It was explained that SHC has two rooms
which generate income from room hire. The spaces are available to
external organisations and individuals, as well as internally for
Surrey County Council employees and teams. Officers emphasised that
they receive lots of room hire enquiries and gave examples of
organisations that have expressed their interest in the
rooms.
- Officers highlighted
some concerns with regards to room hire. Firstly, the SHC rooms
were frequently booked by internal Surrey County Council teams and
officers without charge. It was also noted that SHC was unable to
generate income from tea and coffee refreshments from internal
bookings either.
- The second concern
was regarding out of hours booking enquiries, which were very
frequent. Due to the original setup of the building, for any out of
hours bookings, the whole building would need to be opened up,
operational and staffed. As these costs would need to be recovered
by a prospective hirer, these limitations often acted as a
deterrent for business.
- The Heritage Manager
proposed making the meeting rooms and foyer independent to the rest
of the building in a move to maximise the business potential of the
Centre. Continuing, Officers advised Members that the alarm system
would need to be modified for the rooms and foyer to be separated
from the whole building alarm system, allowing this section to be
used out of business hours by other organisations.
- The Board recommended
that Officers prepared a business case including: the projected
cost of the modifications to the building’s alarm system;
projected income from room hire, both during and out of operational
hours; projected costs for caretaking of the building for outside
hirers.
- Members proposed the
following suggestions for Officers to explore:
a)
Withdraw the SHC from the Surrey County Council
booking system so that the rooms cannot be booked free of charge
for common use.
b)
Restrict internal teams to specific days for booking
the SHC rooms so that so that the SHC can accept additional
external bookings at prime times in the working day.
c)
Charging internal teams at a full or discounted rate
for hiring the SHC rooms.
The
Cabinet Member for Localities and Community
Wellbeing expressed support for the
suggestions raised, provided that the business cases for each
option were assured and that any changes made were after
consultation with the appropriate Council policies around room
booking.
- A Member expressed
concern with the delays the service may encounter from Property
Services in retrieving a quote and suggested that Officers
approached the independent company who installed the original alarm
system and to obtain a quote from there.
- A Member asked for
clarification on what geographical area the SHC covered within its
archive. Officers explained that although the County’s
boundaries have altered over time, there was no hardened rule for
the archive. Most new records received were according to the modern
County border, though for some major projects and other statutory
depositories the ancient County borders were used.
- A Member queried
accessing records and whether there was a charge for this service.
Officers explained that free of charge access to records held
within the archives was a statutory right. For some subscription
services, such as Ancestry.com, for which Surrey Libraries held a
corporate licence, Surrey Libraries users received free access when
using IT equipment at the Centre or other Surrey Library branches.
It was noted that income from royalty fees from Ancestry.com was
also a good supply of income to the Service.
- A discussion was had
around the draft Heritage Strategy, exploring details within the
three key themes identified in the strategy: Discovering,
Preserving and Celebrating. The Board commended the work completed
on the draft Strategy and fully supported the key themes identified
within it. The Board also recommended that Officers worked to
receive Cabinet Member sign-off for the Strategy in time for the
April 2017 submission deadline for The National Archives
Accreditation Scheme.
- It was noted by
Members that events organised by the SHC took bookings in advance,
therefore it was put forward to the Officers to have advertising
material also distributed to Members who may also publicise the
event to raise more awareness and maximise numbers.
- Officers informed the
Board that Cultural Services had made a lot of improvements in
cross promotion of their services; it was also noted that Surrey
Heritage was very successful at “piggy-backing” major
County and National events and generating a presence and platform
for self-promotion.
- Members suggested
that Surrey Matters should consider running a feature article on
the Surrey History Centre to raise awareness and promote a wider
understanding of its services
- The Heritage Manager
informed the Board that the service had links with BBC Surrey
Radio. Members commended this relationship and suggested that this
resource continued to explored and used to help broadcast the
promotion of the SHC and to inform residents of the high quality
service it provided.
- The Chairman invited
Officers to raise any concerns of their own with the Board before
closing the meeting. Officers highlighted that the Council
strategies and policies regarding the management of modern County
records were in need of thorough review and improved
implementation. Officers continued to express that manual and
digital record management was not robust enough. As an example,
records of Council decisions may only be kept in email form.
Officers did not feel confident that records were being kept as
thoroughly as they ought to be.
- The Board noted the
concerns raised and recommended that Officers pursue a refresh of
the Council’s modern record keeping strategy.
- The Cabinet Member
explained that when taking proposals to Cabinet, it was helpful to
have support from scrutiny Members, as a collective voice was
stronger than a single voice. The Board agreed and suggested that a
visit by Cabinet to the SHC might be beneficial.
Recommendations:
The Board
recommends;
- Officers explore
options for generating further income from room hire at the Surrey
History Centre (SHC), including:
1.
withdrawing the SHC from the Council internal
booking system;
2.
restricting internal teams to specific days for
booking the SHC rooms;
3.
charging internal teams at a full or discounted rate
for hiring the SHC rooms;
to
allow better public availability throughout the working
day.
- Officers prepare a
business case including: the projected cost of the modifications to
the building’s alarm system; projected income from room hire,
both during and out of operational hours; projected costs for
caretaking of the building for outside hirers.
- That Surrey Matters
runs a feature article on the Surrey History Centre to raise
awareness and promote a wider understanding of its
services.
- That when Surrey
Matters runs any article with historical content or references that
they contact the Surrey History Centre for materials or quotes,
whenever possible.
- Officers supply
Members with promotional materials for Surrey History Centre events
and for Members to spread the word locally for these
events.
- That Cabinet pursue
an update of the Council’s born-digital records strategy, to
ensure the long term preservation of key decisions given
electronically.
·
Officers continue to develop the Heritage Strategy
on the agreed key themes of Discovering, Preserving and
Celebrating Surrey's Heritage in conjunction with the
Cabinet Member, and with a shared target for completion in time for
the April 2017 submission deadline for The National Archives
Accreditation Scheme.