Aberdeenshire Council museums at 'major risk' over poor record-keeping and missing documents

Aberdeenshire Council’s museums service has been found to be at “major risk” due to poor record-keeping and numerous missing documents.

A new report stated it had “limited” assurance over museums operations, particularly around managing historical assets.

Aberdeenshire Council runs three venues across the region that it is seeking re-accreditation for by September.

They are the Museums HQ in Mintlaw, Banchory Museum in Scott Skinner Square, and the Farming Museum at Aden Country Park.

However, an audit report found “various risks” including worrying gaps in strategic plans, policies and procedures, and record keeping.

The worrying paper came after reports of items going AWOL, and as work gets under way on the new Museum of Aberdeenshire in Peterhead.

The matter recently went before the local authority’s audit committee.

Members were told that just 10% of the region’s items have been recorded, while some had incorrect location data and no regular stocktakes were being carried out.

Meanwhile, some item loans had expired, loan agreements were found to be “unauthorised”, and there were also “insufficient” insurance documents.

Head of communities and wellbeing Partnership Allan Rae explained that a new team structure was put in place in 2019.

But his predecessor, Avril Nicol, found the cultural museum service had “real issues and gaps” due to “decades of neglect”.

To try and battle this, new roles were created to combat the backlog and improve the service overall.

He also revealed that the new museum gives the team a chance to look at structures in place and make improvements.

Fraserburgh councillor Doreen Mair queried how certain the council was that it would get accreditation, and what the consequences would be if it didn’t.

She was concerned that only 10% of the collection has been officially catalogued, and asked if extra help could be sought from volunteers such as university students.

“I know there are history buffs who like this sort of thing,” she added.

Mr Rae stated that volunteers will be “absolutely fundamental” to the service over the next few weeks, months and even years.

He noted they have already helped with collating the 25,000 items already in the museum’s central database.

But, he explained that collection records take various formats including paper, floppy discs and memory sticks which can make it hard for items to be found, researched and archived.

Mr Rae estimated that the full collection could have up to 250,000 items, but with current staffing levels, about 1,000 records could be uploaded per year.

Museums development coordinator Amy Miller explained that accreditation is a standard set by Museums Gallery Scotland.

Having it means a museum can apply for various grants and requests to loan items from other museums are more likely to be successful.

In Scotland, accreditation also allows museums to apply for items that go through the Treasure Trove Unit.

But she also admitted that in her 20 years working in the sector, she has never worked in a museum that is in a similar situation to this in terms of backlog.

She added: “Every museum has a backlog, and part of the accreditation process is a documentation plan.

“They are looking for us to outline the issues we have, have we quantified them, and what our action plan to addressing them within the timescale is.”

Ms Miller revealed the team has been working hard on the return, and believes they are “well along the route” to achieving it.

She also explained that museums can get provisional accreditation instead where venues will get extra time to improve weaker areas.

But recording the council’s historical assets isn’t as straightforward as it may seem.

Ms Miller explained its items are an “amalgamation of many smaller museum collections”.

“Some of the museums started in the 1830s, 1840s so we’re dealing with a lot of physical paperwork, accession registers from that time and later on,” she said.

More recently, objects entering the museum service’s collection needed an entry form which recorded data including what it is, where it came from, and whether it was on loan or donated.

“We have thousands of those pieces of paperwork that tell us exactly that information and they’re sitting in about 30 filing cabinets,” Ms Miller said.

“What hasn’t happened as yet is all of that information being translated into a single digital database and that is going to take some time.”

She revealed that objects chosen to go on display at the new Museum of Aberdeenshire have been prioritised first.

This is to ensure the council actually owns them and they aren’t found to be on loan from somewhere else.

Councillor Ross Cassie asked what would happen to the new Peterhead museum if accreditation wasn’t secured.

Mr Rae explained that the council was unlikely to lose the status but if it did, it wouldn’t stop the project from happening.

“We’re not banking on the reaccreditation to achieve the levelling up project,” he replied.

“We want to be best in show in terms of the Museum of Aberdeenshire and we want that to be something that everyone’s very proud of.

“And part of that is also attaining and retaining our accreditation within the standards within Scotland.”

Councillor Moray Grant raised concerns that regular stocktaking was not being carried out, which he believed would make the backlog and cataloguing issues worse.

He also mentioned the £13 million Paolo Veronese’s Pool of Bethesda painting that had mysteriously gone missing after being on display at the Arbuthnot Museum in Peterhead.

“On that point of the lack of documentation and reputational risk, if I was a potential future donor, I might be a little worried about donating a high-value item,” he said.

Meanwhile councillor Craig Miller wasn’t impressed with the rate the database was being updated.

He said: “Based on 1,000 a year, that’s 225 years before we get our database up to date, which is definitely not encouraging.”

Councillors voted to refer the matter to the communities committee for review in a bid to address any problems.