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Museums axe 53 jobs as spending cuts bite
£3m savings drive sees staff taken down to the bone
National Museums Liverpool is to axe 53 jobs in the next two months, as its head warned that its cash woes are likely to get even worse.
The organisation, which runs the Walker Art Gallery, World Museum, Museum of Liverpool and Maritime Mueum, among others, has been ordered the Government to reduce its annual spending by £3million.
NML is seeking voluntary redundancies from right across the organisation including curatorial, visitor services, collections management, education, exhibitions, finance, HR and communications.
Two earlier voluntary severance schemes were taken up by 34 people.
Saddened
Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, said: "The loss of key people will undoubtedly have an impact on what we can offer to our visitors.
David Fleming“I am very saddened at having to say goodbye to these staff, each of whom has played a part in making National Museums Liverpool the success story that it is – a museum service that is much loved and valued by the people of Merseyside.”
“The funding situation is very bad and is likely to get worse. We are continuing to work on making savings. We will continue to look at alternatives but further job losses are unavoidable.”
In March, NML announced it was considering closing display galleries, staging fewer exhibitions, and introducing admission charges for special exhibitions and events.
Now that the voluntary severance scheme is complete, senior managers are beginning to look at a restructure of the organisation.
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Flipping heck! The former Liverpool Museums on William Brown Street has been full of pointlessly empty galleries for years.
These big empty rooms aren't paying their way so fill 'em up with interesting stuff like they used to be years ago!
Can we have the model boats and ships back in the Maritime Museum please?
"Whooo would wuuurk in a museeeum like thiiiis?"
Bring back Loyd Grossman!
I know that money is tight these days but it seems ridiculous that the entire Time and Space gallery appears to be lit by a couple of 40watt lightbulbs.
Are we expected to bring our own torches with us?
I hear that the Planetarium is now so dumbed-down they show only stuff less educational than The Clangers.
What exactly is the point of the video in the Museum of Liverpool’s Smithdown Road exhibition of the interview of some gormless plank outside the Willow Bank in darkest Wavertree who describes the area as “Toksduff”?
I suppose the real natives of the Smithdown area aren’t stereotypically ‘scouse’ enough for the Museum of Scousism.
They ought to re-open the proper doors at the top of the steps in William Brown Street so that people without pushchairs can get into the Museum in reasonable time, rather than having to queue for ages in the eighties-style Lethal Atrium for the two inadequate tiny lifts and puny narrow stairs, all clogged with queues of pushchairs and poorly-supervised toddlers.
I’d be interested to know what would happen in the event of the fire alarm going off.
I pity any wheelchair-users who might attempt to visit the Museum.
It seems that anyone over the age of ten is discouraged from visiting our museums these days.
Perhaps they should become a franchise of 'Wacky Warehouse' and start making some money?
Has that David Fleming guy got a gill behind his left ear?
Are you saying he drinks?
That so-called Slavery Museum has rather too much shallow, sensationalist, celebrity tat rather than actual information about the slave trade.