Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Museums Manager & Culture Lead.

Scrutiny Committee – Economy considered the report at its meeting on 5 March 2015 and its comments will be reported.

The report of the Museums Manager & Culture Lead was submitted detailing a proposal to set up a shop at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and, through its operation, generate income which would help support service delivery in the likely scenario of a reducing core budget.

The Museums Manager & Culture Lead advised that independently commissioned visitor research suggested that half of the RAMM’s visitors would be quite or very likely to purchase from a specialist RAMM shop, supporting the view that this visitor ‘secondary spend’ could be an important source of income for a Museum.   It would also be following a successful operating model used by another local authority that ran a number of very profitable shops and had created a unique brand of merchandise that was only sold from the Museum. The profit and loss forecast showed that return on investment was predicted to be achieved by month 21 of operation.

Scrutiny Committee – Economy considered the report at its meeting on 5 March 2015 and its comments were reported.

RECOMMENDED to Council the addition of £68,000 to the Capital Programme to enable the fit out and set up of the new shop at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.

To consider the report of the Museums Manager and Assistant Director Economy. 

The Museums Manager presented the report, which outlined a proposal to set up a shop at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and through its operation, generate additional income to increase the sustainability of the Museum.  Independently commissioned visitor research suggested that half of the RAMM’s visitors would be quite or very likely to purchase from a specialist RAMM shop, supporting the view that this visitor ‘secondary spend’ could be an important source of income for a Museum.   It would also be following a successful operating model used by the local authority regional museums service in Leeds, as they run a number of very profitable shops and have created a unique brand of merchandise that is only sold from the Museum.   A  Member welcomed this proposal, and hoped that the RAMM would follow such an example and include items that were pertinent to Exeter.  The Museums Manager confirmed that they would seek to include a range of items unique to the RAMM.

Scrutiny Committee  - Economy recommended approval of the following to Executive and Council:-

(1)    to set up a shop within the Royal Albert Memorial Museum;

(2)    the five year forecast Profit & Loss figures and the payback period for the investment requested; and

(3)   a supplementary request for an additional sum of  £68,000 to the Capital Programme to enable the fit out and set up of the new shop.