A local National Trust

Fiona Reynolds speaks this morning about the curious dichotomy that is the strength, a local treasure looked after by a National Organisation. Last night after dinner Ellen MacArthur spoke about sustainability. And Fiona today talks about how for an organisation like he, sustainability is the only option. She talks about how we should use renewable resources.

She reminds us that some years ago (when I started) the big issue was “20% net gain”, which was the need to make a “profit” or operating contribution of 20% of turnover. She wonders whether now, we should have a carbon net gain. Part of the way to to that might be to become even more local.

A vision for the future

Simon Murray is our Director of Operations. He’s talking now about putting properties at the heart of everything we do, and strengthing the operational line, that is to say the cline from the properties themeselvestjrough the property managers, area managers, regional directors, and Simon himself, to Fiona Reynolds, the Director General.

He thinks the functions (Enterprises, Conservation, my own department) feel accountable for the delivery on the ground. But, he reminds us, they are not. Yet property managers still feel they are being made to deliver everyone else’s objectives.

If stretching targets (for example 75% visitors find their visit very enjoyable, rather than 55%) are required they will want, need, demand, functional advice.

If you delegate power to properties, you need to reduce all the guidelines to an absolute minimum.

He talks if the property manager coming into a Dragon’s Den of functional advisors. S/he comes with with their ideas if how to support the strategy, and seeks the function’s support. If the plans are good enough the he gets guaranteed funding for three years (or whatever) and then is let off the leash.

He also says there are too many projects, not enough little and often funding for continual improvement.

Sounds good, it does to me, and it’s the way I’ve been thinking since the talk about General Managers started. I’m glad, because it suggests I’ve been moving my own team in the right direction.

There’s a challenge, discussed afterwards, about how properties might be rewarded for acheiving those stretching targets. And how complicated must that reward structure be, when four out of five places don’t generate a surplus? If it is too complicated it becomes another layer of burocracy.

One property manager asks what happens to their head of department, for example Visitor Services Managers at properties. Ideally the General Managers should have the freedom to spend their wages budget where it suits the property best. But there is also of course the current economic climate to consider.

I think another question sums it up: as we go forward we’ll be making it up as we go along.

Leadership Conference

Arrived late for the conference, so we listened to the end of Fiona’s speech before our new Chairman, Simon Jenkins, got up to speak.

Simon started by talking about why he took the job. And right now he’s making us feel good by comparing us favourably to English Heritage. Almost all things to almost all men and women, he says, balancing the high art with the working farm. He senses moving from an era of protecting and preserving places for the nation, to one where we are almst handing the places over to the nation, engaging people in the work so much that we should almost put places at risk.

Now his knocking us off our pedestals, telling us that we present our houses to art historians, while people actually want to know what it’s like to live in the house. We should treat our houses like we treat our industrial heritage. Putting the houses to work: “if it’s a dining room, people should eat in it”.

He says we shouln’t shy away from controversy, but we should be carefull. We should respect the diverse views of our members, embrace those diverse views, not alienate the members that hold them.

His last point is about beaurocracy, and quotes Adam Nicholson saying “is the Trust slow because it’s big, or big because it’s slow?” He is shocked by the quality of the language in internal papers, too full of the jargon of large organizations.

He is followed by Peter Nixon. He onteiduces the theme of the conference, Conservation. He talks about it being the the carefull managementnif change, and highlights the uncertainty of the current times. He would like all staff to feel that conservation us their objective, not just the remit if the conservation department.

He mentions the controversy over Erddig, and talks about the lessons learned from that controversy. Especially, not assuming that if every who comes to meetings agrees, that everyone in the community also agrees.

He goes on to talk about how conservation (and other) advisors need to be supportive, to be realistic, to be positive and to be aware that the advice they give will have an impact beyond the specific area they are looking at, and beyond the properties too.

Interestingly he says it’s no longer acceptable that when there’s a irreconsillable conflict between access and and conservation, then conservation will prevail. Instead, he says, the irreconsillable has to be reconcilled.