Underfunding of UK sector has weakened safeguarding of collections, museums body says

The UK Museums Affiliation (MA) has issued an announcement insisting that “inside job” thefts at museums are extremely uncommon within the wake of the thefts scandal engulfing the British Museum. The MA, an influential membership and advocacy group which represents greater than 10,000 individuals, additionally says that lack of funding within the sector within the age of austerity has led to the collapse of safeguarding procedures.

“The current theft of a considerable variety of gadgets from the British Museum has targeted consideration on the safety of our collections and has led to hypothesis that theft by members of employees is a widespread however hidden downside in museums,” says the MA assertion.

“Theft by members of public, as in some other sector, does occur, however ‘inside jobs’ are extraordinarily uncommon. Stealing from the gathering goes in opposition to our moral code which clearly states that museums staff ought to act within the public curiosity, maintain collections, and act with integrity,” it provides.

Artwork Restoration Worldwide, a London-based firm that tracks lacking gadgets, posted on X (previously Twitter) in response: “I can recognize your help for museum staff however theft from insiders shouldn’t be as ‘extremely uncommon’ as you assume.”

In the meantime nameless museum employees lately informed The Guardian that theft from museums is widespread and practically at all times an inside job, citing a former member of employees at a high-profile London museum who mentioned that the appropriation of sure gadgets is regarded as “honest recreation”.

The MA provides that procedures put in place to safeguard collections have been “undermined by the systemic underfunding of the sector over the previous ten years”. Restructures and redundancies have led to a lack of experience and a weakening of the conventional methods of checks and balances that happen inside establishments, says the affiliation, which requires extra funding.

Peter Higgs, a senior curator of Greek and Roman artwork who was employed on the British Museum for 30 years, was recognized in UK press studies because the particular person alleged to be chargeable for stealing priceless artefacts from the museum’s assortment. Higgs’s household has denied the allegations in opposition to him.

Current studies state that the variety of gadgets taken is assumed to whole greater than 1,500. A spokesperson for the British Museum informed The Artwork Newspaper: “We can’t be commenting on any particulars of the thefts whereas they’re topic to a police investigation.”