Thinking people in the QVMAG's Community of Ownership & Interest (COI) are deservedly in utter dismay in regard to council’s apparent abdication of the trust invested in you as the default governors/trustees of the QVMAG and its collections.
It is also a matter of dismay that in the Council and Councillors in their collective capacities as the default trustees, on the available evidence, you have collectively:
• Allowed the council's operational management to be essentially self-referential, self-assessing and by-and-large self-serving;
• Allowed the operation to function without critical oversight – councillor's in particular – and critical review thus rendering it 'functionally unaccountable' to those who fund its operation and support its recurrent budget and collection building – the city’s ratepayers, the State’s taxpayers, donors and sponsors, et al.
• Allowed the operation to function without meeting credible reporting standards to its governance – the Councillors –thus opening it to unwelcome speculation;
• Allowed the operation to function largely without being exposed to independent external expertise and peer review thus limiting its professional standing;
• Allowed council management to commission expert advice at significant expense to ratepayers and consequently disallowed any kind of public access to it, again opening the operation up to unwelcome speculation and functionally reinforcing its opacity;
• Allowed the operation’s management to blur and amalgamate the functions of 'governance and management' thus allowing for rudderlessness and discretionary accountability that places both the institution and its collections at risk;
• Allowed the operation’s management to determine self-serving strategic priorities – the function of governance not management – in isolation and insulated from meaningful criticism and critique;
• Supported the notion that as a council that as the QVMAG’s governors – representing the institutions constituency – the notion of 'conscripting funds from ratepayers', and without open disclosure, for the recurrent cost of the QVMAG operation is viable, ethical and morally sustainable. Moreover, that 'Council' does so without providing access to credible fiscal reporting or indeed any kind of meaningful access to critical review. This is fundamentally untenable;
• Allowed the operation to dispose of assets without credible public or appropriate oversight. And Council/Trustees also support an accession and deaccession policy that is far removed from ‘best practice’. This too is fundamentally untenable;
• Allowed the operation to acquire collection material, and/or dispose of it, without appropriate independent oversighting or indeed any meaningful reference to them as ‘trustees’ – trust invested in them by ratepayers, taxpayers, donors, et al; and
• Allowed the operation to function without credible and measurable performance indicators.
Moreover, against this concerning background there are reports that ‘Council’ is entertaining a notion that the State Govt. might take over, or fully fund, the operation thus saving ‘Council’ the obligations that as 'Trustees' they have collectively renounced already essentially.
It would be extraordinary for any funding institution to fund an institution such as the QVMAG – government, corporate or other – given the operation’s:
• Record of discretionary accountability; and• That the operation has – reportedly and recently – been essentially been restructured to maintain and basically to reinforce the status quo.
The notion that the QVMAGI is to be "overhauled under the [Stretton Plan], with Mr Stretton saying the council is too small to cater for the asset's future. ... The future success of both of these vitally important institutions may require new arrangements which cannot necessarily be provided by remaining part of a local government organisation," and he said all this in Mid-August. It turns out that this is nothing more than hollow rhetoric. There has been nothing canvassed in Council, no meaningful engagement with the QVMAG's COI, not the slightest hint of 'community engagement'.
It is particularly disturbing that the city’s recent AGM, the Councillors/Trustees collectively, had nothing to say about future plans and aspirations for the QVMAG as an operation. Not a mention, let alone open up any kind of critical discourse relevant to the operation and its relevance – socially, culturally and economically.
You would be aware that a ‘network of concerned citizens’ has facilitated a review of the QVMAG’s Annual Report – See https://qvmag20182019.blogspot.com/
.
That as the operation’s ‘governing body’ as Trustees, Council/Councillors THEY not openly responded to either the QVMAG’s Annual Report or the ‘citizen’s review’ is a clear and unambiguous demonstration of their disinterest and abdication. They must act immediately to turn this institution into a 21st C operation that is trustworthy and accountable.
All this said, it needs to be acknowledged that arguably the QVMAG is one of the region’s most significant cultural assets – especially so in regard to cultural tourism. The support the institution receives from Launceston’s ratepayers is justifiable just so long as the operation delivers commensurate dividends – social, cultural & economic – and it is truly accountable to its constituency in a 21st C context. Indeed, given appropriate governance, such ongoing support would be justifiable.
The somewhat arrogant silence coming from the QVMAG’s ‘Trustees’, City of Launceston Councillors must not be overlooked. They must be held to account and required to act immediately as they have abused the trust invested in them. Not soon, not when this or that has been done, right now please, the time for dilly dallying about is well and truly over!
It is time for the QVMAG's Community of Ownership & Interest (COI) to be engaged with rather the background of ongoing sidelining that the 'STRETTON PLAN ' has put in place.
It is time for the QVMAG's Community of Ownership & Interest (COI) to be engaged with rather the background of ongoing sidelining that the 'STRETTON PLAN ' has put in place.
CLICK HERE TO ACCESsS THE STRETTON PLAN DISCUSSED https://lcc63.blogspot.com/p/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo_20.html
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