Great House
Treoes
Vale of Glamorgan
CF35 5DH
4th October 2016
Ms. Bethan Jenkins
Chair CWLC
National Assembly Wales
Cardiff
CF99 1NA
Dear Ms. Jenkins,
I am writing to you and members of your CWLC Committee regarding the recently published statement by Cabinet Secretary Ken Skates about the review of Heritage Services in Wales. I express my views as a previous Trustee of Amgueddfa Cymru (AC) and as Chair at the time of the Enterprises Group which oversees retailing and catering for internal needs and external functions.
May I persuade your Committee to urgently consider these following points:
a) The pwc report focuses on the needs for CADW. Additional training and improvement of skills for CADW is recommended in Option 1 on page 13 of that report and this seems a pragmatic and modular approach.
b) The announcement by the Cabinet Secretary goes further by merging the commercial arms of CADW and AC run directly by a new body. This is fraught with difficulties of merging commercial activities and is not what pwc recommend. I write from considerable experience of my roles in the commercial sector at Board level and within AC of the risks of merger without consultation and that the necessary skills must remain in house as each body promotes its aims of retailing and catering.
c) There are many aspects to the dedicated and proven work of the AC curators which concern areas other than history and this work does not appear to be addressed in the implications.
d) Given the way forward in the Cabinet Secretary's written statement I would seek assurance that adequate consultation has been conducted with the teams within AC; otherwise I would expect a more balanced argument.
e) Indeed on page 4 within the Scope and Objectives to "creation of a separate commercial organisation" reads as if the conclusion has been drawn and then pwc asked to find some supporting evidence - not an objective analysis or process. Such an outcome is rightly described by pwc on page 12 as "lengthy and complex."
Given these initial observations I would ask your Committee to urgently review these four aspects:
I will be pleased to provide further input to your Committee and look forward to your analysis of what has occurred to date.
Yours sincerely,
Gareth J. Williams O.B.E. F.I.o D.
Trustee Marie Curie UK
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