QUESTION 3 ... Response due July 8 2024
CONTEXT NOTE
Given that the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery being a City of Launceston Cost Centre with the elected Councillors effectively being the institution’s ‘governing body’ and with ‘the institution’being allowed to operate without Councillors’ playing a governance role. This is demonstrated by:
- Councillors allowing the city’s ‘Executive Management’ to deem that it has a blended management cum governance function without the appropriate delegated authority; and
- The ‘Council’ appointing an advisory body upon whose advice may or may not accepted as having governance or management relevance if-and-when it reports to Open Council; and
- The advisory body NOT being either required to nor enabled to report to Open Council within a set timeframe; and
- The institution NOT reporting quarterly in regard to the instruction’s financial performance to an Open Council; albeit that
- The institution expends ‘public monies’ provided by the city’s ratepayers and Tasmania’s taxpayers by-and-large without appropriate accountability.
Against the background that the ‘elected representatives’ asCouncillors are functionally ill equipped to be the Governors/Trustees of a cultural intuition (QVMAG) in exactly the same way as the Tasmanian Government’s Ministry is ill equipped to be the Governors/Trustees of a cultural intuition, namely the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG Hobart). The status quo is unsustainable against the background that shift to the QVMG transitioning to being a Company Limited by Guarantee is the advice provided to Council on the record in June 2022.
Acknowledging this, the Tasmanian Government ‘appoints’ a Board of Trustees for the TMAG. Launceston’s Councils over time has not followed this model. Therefore, the QVMAG operates as a cultural intuition that functions ‘without a functional governing body’ that has a membership with the appropriate expertise and domain knowledge. Arguably this puts the QVMAG’s priceless collections at risk by extension. Clearly this is an unsatisfactory and untenable circumstance brought about by Council’s Management for unfathomable reasons over time.
OPTIONS FOR CHANGE
- Appoint a Board of Trustees with the City of Launceston retaining ‘ownership’ of the collection and bearing all the cost of providing the infrastructure, staffing the institution and maintain the collection. This is expensive and demonstrably unsatisfactory as is currently the case; OR
- Transfer the Trusteeship of the QVMAG to the TMAG along with its collections whilst supporting program funding on site’s in Launceston, OR
- Establish a QVMAG ‘Company Ltd by Guarantee’ with the infrastructure and collections belonging to the CoL and the QVMAG operating as a standalone institution funded in part by the CoL and State Govt and the institution generating funds via entrepreneurial activity, sponsorships, and donations. In essence this is the circumstance the current STRATEGIC INSTRUMENT documents – presented as a limited edition, weighing in at an extraordinary 1.8 Kilo, and presented as boxed set in16 parts – albeit;
• Without a timeline for implementation, and without the appropriate engagement with Councillors or a governance body, thus designed to fill a vacuum the institution has created for itself in order to maintain the status quo.
• Without other options have being openly canvassed while there is the possibility that something other the three options above would/could be sustainable.
THE QUESTION
Will Council NOW take immediate steps to ensure the appointment of a qualified Commissioner to:
- Enact the advice to Council in 2022; and
- Accordingly ensure that public monies, donations, and sponsorships are used for their intended purpose; and
- Accordingly protect the priceless QVMAG collections; and
- Ensure that researchers – academic and citizen researchers – have appropriate access to the QVMAG collections and be formally engaged with the institution; and
- That cultural producers can engage proactively with the institution at multiple levels.
Ray Norman
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