Luton Borough Council (LBC) agreed to establish a trust for the museums service in 2006 with a view to considering a wider cultural trust to encompass other services. In 2007 the formation of a trust to transfer the museums, libraries and arts activities to a charitable trust and company limited by guarantee, in order to protect and enhance the services, was agreed.
The establishment of a trust was designed to protect and enhance cultural services in the environment of local authority spending cuts. As cultural services are discretionary they are always under pressure from cuts. The trust serves as a form of protection and ensures that thorough consultation between the council and the trust takes place prior to any major funding decisions.
Luton’s cultural services have seen improvements and expansions as a result. Investments have been possible in the development of infrastructure, IT services - such as RFID in libraries - and in involvement with programmes linked to other local strategic partnerships, such as the Migration Impact Fund.
Importantly, the ability to be more flexible and respond more quickly to opportunities, coupled with their more entrepreneurial ambitions, will support the trust in working towards a new business model over the next 10 years where it moves from 73% of our funding coming from the local authority to 50% from the local authority and 50% from other sources.
Third sector partner
It has transpired that the benefits of operating in this manner to the relationship within Luton Borough Council have been far greater than anticipated. The Luton Cultural Services Trust is now viewed as a strong third sector partner of the council and as such it has an improved strategic working relationship with these bodies. This means that the trust can work with the council on shared community agendas.
In addition to this, the trust has its own identity and a place on several Local Strategic Partnership groups. This would have been unlikely as a local authority service because LBC is just one partner in these groupings and so has limited seats at the table. For example, Luton Cultural Services Trust is represented on Luton’s Health and Wellbeing Management Group, Children’s Trust and Safer and Stronger Communities Board, meaning that it can contribute to improvement outcomes across the community.
Cllr Hazel Simmons, Leader of the Council said of the Trust: "The transfer of the council's cultural services to a charitable trust was the best way forward to enhance libraries, museums and arts for local people and has put Luton on the map as the cultural capital of the south east. A charity running the services on a not-for-profit basis has meant resources not available to the council have been accessed and speedier decisions made, meaning the focus has been on providing first class services to customers."
She added: "The strong working relationships formed by the Trust have encouraged involvement by all sectors of the community to improve Luton's economic, educational and cultural profile. You just have to look at the huge increase in the number of people using the services since the transfer to see how successful it has been."
For more detailed information please visit the case study section on the MLA research website.
November 2009