Corporate report

Combined Service museums public body review summary and findings 2023

Published 1 March 2024

This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government

Summary of the review and its findings

Context

This independently-led review of the three service museums; the NMRN (National Museum of the Royal Navy), the NAM (National Army Museum), the RAFM (Royal Air Force Museum) was carried out under the Cabinet Office’s Public Bodies Reviews Programme. It considered the governance, accountability and efficiency of the museums. The stage 1 self-assessment identified that the museums are effective in delivering their purpose, therefore efficacy, beyond delivery of core function and outcomes for the public was not examined further.

The service museums’ purpose is to increase the understanding and awareness of the armed forces by offering a world-class visitor experience through collecting, preserving, and exhibiting objects, equipment, artefacts, photographs, and other material relating to the history, culture and traditions relevant to the service they represent. The museums are classified as executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPB) and are registered charities. The National Army Museum and the Royal Air Force Museum are Royal Charter Companies. The NMRN is a Private Limited Company by guarantee and derives a large part of its income from admission charges.

The museums are sponsored by their respective single service - the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force. Sponsor representatives from the single services are responsible for general oversight of the museums on behalf of government, e.g. higher-level representation as key stakeholders at the museum boards and for making payment of the Grant In Aid (GIA) which is used towards museum running costs. Other funding comes from grant providers, most notably the National Lottery Heritage Fund (for larger capital projects) and donations from private individuals and corporate entities. Each museum benefits from its charitable status, in the form of reclaiming gift aid and not being subject to corporation tax other than for their trading companies which run museum shops and other trading ventures but may offset their corporation tax through a gift aid distribution to the charity parent company.

The NMRN was established in 2008 and has six main sites across the UK; the National Museum in Portsmouth; the Royal Navy Submarine Museum; Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower in Gosport; the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton; HMS Caroline located in the Alexandra Dock in Belfast and the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Hartlepool. NMRN income is supplemented by admission income as seen in key facts:

National Museum Royal Navy Key Facts from 2021-22 NMRN accounts*
Annual income*	£27.09M
Annual operating spend*	£15.4M
Number of staff employed*	175
Annual visitor numbers*	482,903
RDEL GIA 2022-2023**	£6.22M
Number of trustees	15
Self-generated income 2021-2022*	£21.48M
Self-generated income 2020-2021*	£9.66M

*As a result of COVID lockdowns visitor numbers are returning to pre-COVID levels, but the reductions were still being felt during FY 2021-22. During this period, the museums attractions opened for reduced hours to support safer working.
** 22-23 RDEL GIA includes additional COVID Departmental funding

The NAM was established in 1960 and has its main site in Chelsea, adjacent to the Royal Hospital Chelsea. It also has a reserve collection store and outreach base in Stevenage and has a presence in Old College, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, notably the Indian Army Memorial Room the original site of the museum. NAM key facts:

National Army Museum Key Facts from 2021-22 NAM accounts*
Annual income*	£7.80M
Annual operating spend*	£2.7M
Number of staff employed*	85
Annual visitor numbers*	147,149
RDEL GIA 2022-2023	£7,181,000
Number of trustees	12
Self-generated income 2021-2022*	£0.72M
Self-generated income 2020-2021*	£0.32M

*As a result of COVID lockdowns visitor numbers are returning to pre-COVID levels, but the reductions were still being felt during FY 2021-22.

The RAFM was established in 1968 as a legacy of the RAF’s fiftieth anniversary, opening on the Hendon site in 1972 and also occupies a public site at Cosford in the West Midlands, with two major storage hangars in Stafford and RAF Cosford. RAFM key facts:

Royal Air Force Museum Key Facts from 2021-22 RAFM accounts*
Annual income*	£15.2M
Annual operating spend*	£14.0M
Number of staff employed*	176
Annual visitor numbers*	549,467
RDEL GIA 2022-2023	£10.35M
Number of trustees	12
Self-generated income 2021-2022*	£4.43M
Self-generated income 2020-2021*	£3.28M

*As a result of COVID lockdowns visitor numbers have returned to pre-COVID levels in 2023-24, but the reductions were still being felt during FY 2021-22.

Method

The review team was led by an external independent lead reviewer, Mrs Lopa Patel MBE, non-executive director at the Intellectual Property Office; supported by MOD civil servants, independent of the service museums and the service museums sponsor teams. A challenge panel was used to test the evidence base and challenge emerging thoughts and recommendations.  Evidence was gathered through interviews, documentation supplied by the museums, museum visits, public reports about the wider cultural and heritage sector and desk-based research.

Summary

The review found that MOD service museums are effective in fulfilling their purpose and should remain as Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) within the Ministry of Defence. The review found there is no current economic value for any of the MOD service museums to cease their operation; merge with other MOD or national museums; transfer to another department or be transferred into the private sector.

The systems, processes and governance controls for financial systems, boards that provide effective oversight, framework documents, an effective sponsor relationship that gives them adequate oversight of the various committees and boards, including an effective Audit, Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC) and regular performance and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) discussions with the departmental sponsors are effective, though they could be improved in several areas to align with latest best practice and standards.

Sponsorship across all three museums was found to be working well and generally effective, although each worked with different mechanisms in place, depending on a museum’s organisational needs. The sponsor team/museum/department relationship could be strengthened further. All museums and sponsor teams need to ensure that the relationship is designed to benefit both parties and provides sufficient oversight. This may be via building closer working relationships between the museums and the MOD, improving their current governance processes, and ensuring the strategic aims from each single service is effectively communicated to each museum.

It was found that all the museums are already working at pace towards being more efficient and they have all formulated ambitious strategic plans that will add significant value to their respective collections and skills programmes, resulting in a good return-on-investment for the public. All three museums have been making tactical changes to improve how they utilise their funding to deliver their remit. In real terms due to high inflation the GIA value has reduced year on year resulting in the museums making efficiencies, becoming leaner as a business with a greater reliance on commercial ventures to ensure sustainability in the long term.

The review found that the museums should continue to find ways to work more efficiently together, explore synergies and opportunities to maximise partnering and sharing of services across the group; to think differently to maximise commercial income by other means e.g., corporate hires/events with private industry, use of digital technology, explore immersive technology, tours – reach new audiences and collaborate with DCMS and the other national museums on best practice. The museums have all identified potential achievable RDEL savings of more than 5% in nominal terms against their 22-23 budgets coming to a total of £1.187M.

A total of 21 recommendations were identified, with opportunities to ensure that both the museums and the MOD continue to maintain a strong sponsorship arrangement, refresh governance and strengthen the museums’ resilience in the cultural and heritage sector in terms of financial stability, maintenance and preservation of buildings and assets and rapid digital adoption.

Review recommendations and the departmental responses

The following recommendations were made:

Recommendation 1

The sponsor teams should work with their respective museums on their strategies to outline how they link with MOD’s strategic objectives. Agreed priorities should be set out in annual chair letters and reflected in the museums’ corporate strategies and plans. 

Accepted. The department recognises the importance for agreed priorities to be set out in annual chairs letters and to be reflected in museums’ corporate strategies and plans. Sponsor teams and museums will continue to build upon existing work already in place to improve in this area.

Recommendation 2

Museums and their service sponsors should explore where there are opportunities to plan for shared communication and engagement where they support museum activity (such as volunteering, veterans or levelling up) or building more collaboration on events, and support promotion of the museums to serving personnel and the wider department.

Accepted. Museums and their service sponsors will look for further opportunities to improve on communication and engagement to support museum activities and collaborate on events, supporting promotion of the museums, service personnel and the department.

Recommendation 3

Museums should consider accelerating plans to become Independent Research Organisations (IRO) to unlock potential new revenue sources, increasing their financial resilience in the longer term.

Accepted. The NAM and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst are in advanced talks to establish a research joint venture with a view to achieving IRO status, subject to additional funding.  The RAFM’s most recent research advisory board meeting confirmed that the museum strategy to enhance research activity through partnership will continue to be developed, cognisant that more formal IRO status in the longer term remains a consideration. The NMRN recognises the benefits to becoming an IRO but is not in a position to fund the investment required to achieve it.  It will, however, continue work to increase research outputs where possible through partnerships with other institutions and within existing funding.

Recommendation 4

Service museums should enhance and scale their STEM learning and apprenticeship programmes to reach more young people, aged below 18, across the UK. This should be linked to their plans around STEM learning and prioritised given current STEM skills shortage among young people.

Accepted. The department recognises the importance of STEM and the learning and apprenticeship role that museums have in reaching more young people. NMRN STEM programmes have been successfully expanded in 2023-24 with informal and formal learning activities delivered at different sites, frequently with input from the RN engagement team or specialist contractors and funded through corporate sponsors.  NAM is reviewing its learning offer with a view to delivering more STEM related learning programmes, subject to successful redevelopment opportunity. A STEM related exhibition is also planned for 2028. RAFM’s STEM formal and informal learning programmes, events and exhibitions content are already at scale. Facilities are at capacity at the Midlands site, which is being addressed through the Midlands Development Programme. RAFM’s access and learning teams strive for continual improvement to STEM programming across the service informed by learning advisory panels. RAFM has recently appointed a new (externally funded) role to focus on extending its apprentice and work experience programmes and is keen to continually improve in this area.

Recommendation 5

Refresh Single service heritage strategies:

• The Single services should update their heritage strategies, including setting out their strategic objectives and priorities for museum archives and collections.
• Single services with their respective museums should ensure they have clear mechanisms and plans for prioritising and managing the pipeline of future collection items and archives that should be retained.

Accepted. The department recognises the need to refresh and maintain the Single service heritage strategies:

• The service leads will work with their respective museums to review all museum related objectives within their heritage strategies.
• Navy Command and NMRN have a good process in place already, the museum and sponsor will continue to work together to ensure collection items and archives are appropriately retained. NMRN was awarded Archive Service Accreditation by the National Archives in July 2023. Army have a mechanism in place and will work with NAM to better support NAM’s mission to collect objects and archives from contemporary operations. NAM was awarded full Archive Accreditation in November 2019.  The RAF will review and update their current approach for future collections as required with RAFM.

Recommendation 6

Strengthen Board governance:

• museums should ensure that board/council minutes and registers of interests are appropriately published to aid transparency.
• museums should ensure board effectiveness reviews are conducted both internally and externally in accordance with Cabinet Office guidance, and include a skills audit to support board succession planning.
• the status of sponsor and service representatives at the board/council should be formalised to better reflect existing practice, rather than continuing at just observer status.
• for all museums, annual chair appraisals should be implemented, conducted by the senior sponsor, along with annual trustee/member appraisals conducted by the chair.
• the museums should look to share benchmarking data with their MOD sponsor teams, to see how they can help in relation to areas for improvement; this should be shared across sponsor teams, and MOD Head Office.
• the museums should ensure that they regularly review and update their organisation and governance structures against best practice and benchmark against other national museums, particularly NMRN as part of completing their current efficiency and simplification review.

Accepted. The department recognises the opportunities to strengthen Board governance by implementation of:

• Supporting the government transparency agenda goals and to align with best practice for public bodies and as applied to other DCMS national museums and consistent with Financial Reporting Standards, NMRN shall share summaries of the key decisions taken by the Board, and that are appropriate for publication in the public domain, on its website. Registers of interest shall be made available upon request. NAM publishes minutes of Council on their website and their register of interests can be made available upon request. RAFM Board minutes are published on their website and will include their register of interests to aid transparency.
• NMRN are already compliant in board effectiveness reviews and skills audits, and they are currently arranging an external board effectiveness review. NAM already conducts internal board effectiveness reviews and will now extend this to include external reviews and skills audits. RAFM are already compliant in all board effectiveness reviews and skills audits.
• Work on this governance improvement is already underway. All museums working with sponsors will review and clarify the status of sponsor and service representatives at the board/council which will be reflected within the appropriate governance artifact (e.g. framework document).
• Annual chair and trustee appraisals are already in place for NMRN and RAFM. All museums and sponsors will refresh their appraisal mechanisms to align with best practice.
• Benchmarking data is currently shared across the museums sector. NMRN will review with sponsor and seek agreement for any additional areas (if any) beyond those which are already benchmarked and monitored through Trustee basket of KPIs and specific Navy Command KPIs. NAM and RAFM will also review benchmarking data shared with sponsor and across Head Office to identify any areas for improvement.
• The department recognises the need to regularly review and test organisation governance structures. As part of their current efficiency and simplification review the NMRN Board will continue to review and consolidate its structure, as far as it is able, within the constraints of relevant legislation and the interests of its stakeholders and funders. NAM conducted a governance review in 2023 and their sponsor found the structures are simple, effective and efficient. The department conducted and approved a full governance review of RAFM during the move to Royal Charter Status in 2020-22; committee structures were reviewed in 2021 and 2023. Air Command was consulted and advised on the recent review and committee streamlining, which were informed by benchmarking committees across National Museum Directors’ Council museums.

Recommendation 7

Strengthen performance and risk management by:

• a formal process should be established for all three museums to escalate risks into their service areas and higher within the MOD
• by 31 March 2024, the three museums should review their board performance dashboard KPIs to ensure they remain fit for purpose to monitor their strategic objectives, track benefits and introduce:
  1. Diversity and Inclusion KPI(s), to monitor how they compare against the current national figures, and setting a benchmark target to aim towards
  2. Digital Environment KPI(s), to monitor implementation of their digitisation goals

Accepted. The department recognises the opportunities to strengthen performance and risk management by implementation of:

• NMRN shares its risk registers with Navy sponsor, who will review current risk processes to ensure an escalation mechanism through to higher Defence Audit Risk Assurance Committee (DARAC) is in operation.  NAM will ensure their risk register is shared with Head Arms and Services and with support of Home Command establish an escalation mechanism to escalate risks higher, where appropriate. RAFM strategic risk register is discussed at Board with RAF representative involved. Air Command will also attend the Audit and Resources Committee to escalate anything of concern to MOD DARAC and will review Shared Services to consider if existing departmental risk tool can be utilised as part of the RAFM strategic risk register and process.
• Navy sponsor will review existing NMRN ‘Digitisation’ KPIs (social media data and digitisation of collections is reported in annual reports) and work with the museum to research, benchmark and develop this further including identification of appropriate Diversity and Inclusion KPIs.  NAM Diversity and Inclusion KPIs will be measured and assessed at the newly invigorated People Committee and Digital KPIs will be reviewed at the Enterprise Committee. RAFM KPIs were reviewed at November Audit and Resources Committee to include an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and digital environment KPI. Changes to KPIs will be introduced to align with financial year establishing a baseline for 2023-24.

Recommendation 8

All framework documents should be updated using the charity non-departmental public body template provided in Managing Public Money, and reviewed/updated every 3 years, with a target completion date of 31 March 2024 at latest.

Accepted. All sponsors are working with museums on updating their framework documents and the department will ensure that these are regularly reviewed according to Managing Public Money standards. (i.e. at least every 3 years unless there are exceptional reasons that render this inappropriate that have been agreed with HM Treasury and the Principal Accounting Officer of the sponsor department).

Recommendation 9

Strengthen public appointments systems by:

• by 31 March 2024, all three museums should follow the MOD’s appointment system and standards for their public appointments, and be advertised on the Cabinet Office public appointments website.
• the department should consider a consistent approach as to whether all museum public appointments should be regulated or non-regulated.
• the department should test and confirm approving authority arrangements for all chair appointments.

Accepted. The department recognises the opportunities to strengthen public appointments systems.

• The NMRN and RAFM museums shall continue to follow the MOD public appointments process and advertise on the Cabinet Office public appointments website, where appropriate. The NAM will adopt the process for the next round of NAM Council recruitment, due in 2026.
• MOD officials, museums and sponsors will explore whether all museum public appointments should be regulated or non-regulated. Any changes to the non-regulated public appointments status will require an amendment to the public appointment Order in Council and the museums’ constitutional documents. As NMRN board appointments are not currently ministerial appointments any change may challenge the charitable independence of the museum. NAM appointments are approved by the Army Board and regularly review and test their appointment arrangements. RAFM last reviewed their regulated appointment arrangements in 2021, Air Command will work with the museum and review the public appointment arrangements to ensure they align with the policy.
• The department recognises the need to regularly test and confirm approving authority arrangements for chair appointments. All museum chair appointment approving authorities will be tested in the next 2 years.

Recommendation 10

Strengthen effective sponsorship by:

• departmental sponsor teams should have regular engagement with DCMS counterparts, to share best practice and benchmark themselves against the DCMS sponsorship structures, museums and mechanisms
• senior sponsors should ensure annual chairs letters are sent to museum chairs
• the department should consider how it can enable more consistent sponsorship and central support, both by the sponsor teams sharing best practice, identifying areas for collaboration and potential efficiencies, and collaboration with their DCMS sponsor team counterparts to share best practice.

Accepted. The department recognises the opportunities to strengthen effective sponsorship:

• DCMS Museums sponsor team meets bi-monthly with the three MOD service museums. The department will look to include the MOD sponsor teams to engage in benchmarking (appropriately tailored to reflect the differences in the funding models of the museums) and to share best practice.
• Annual chairs letters are already sent to NAM and RAFM chairs, Navy sponsor will implement with NMRN chair.
• The department central sponsorship officials shall continue to provide consistent support to sponsors via a policy and guidance portal, virtual community of practice and regular mechanisms to share knowledge and best practice, and will investigate the potential of a Tri-Service museum sponsor forum. Opportunities for DCMS sponsor team collaboration across the service museum groups to share best practice will also be explored.

Recommendation 11

Sponsor teams should support the museums to familiarise and better align themselves with the functional standards, engaging with function owners and mandate where appropriate. 

Accepted. Departmental functional owners and sponsor teams will work with the museums to ensure they are supported on functional standards.

Recommendation 12

The museums must continue to focus on return-on-investment opportunities; maximise partnering and sharing of services across the group, sharing best practice including collaboration with DCMS to explore the strategies that have worked for them at National Museums level. 

Accepted. The museums will continue to look for partnering opportunities to ensure return-on-investment opportunities are maximised. MOD officials are actively engaged with DCMS officials exploring strategies and sharing best practice.  The Department notes that implementation of any shared services by the museums should result a recoup saving equivalent to the time and resource invested in exploring/moving to shared services, or alternative solution.

Recommendation 13

Noting the constraints in departmental budget timetables, ensuring the museums are provided with GIA forecast figures at the earliest opportunity in the planning cycle and agreeing a three-year budget in principle will improve resilience. Museums should build their financial resource bids with a 2-to-5-year planning horizon, again with the aim of reaching agreement in principle between the department and the museums.

Accepted. The department will continue to provide forecast GIA figures as early in the budgetary planning timetable as possible, noting departmental timetable constraints.  The museums will build financial resource bids with a 2-to-5-year planning horizon.

Recommendation 14

The museums should continue to share best practice for development of environmental sustainability Capital Defence Expenditure Limits (CDEL) funding requests for submission to the department as part of FY24/25 planning. Departmental finance leads, in collaboration with sponsors and museums, should examine process changes required to align museums CDEL requirements with departmental annual planning.

Accepted. The museums with sponsors, will develop FY24/25 CDEL funding bids and review the departmental planning timetable with appropriate department officials; and examine any process changes required to align the museums’ processes to Departmental financial planning to bid for CDEL funding, subject to availability.

Recommendation 15

The department and museums should consider building museum financial reserves for future resilience against financial shock events such as a pandemic. Target reserve levels should be agreed with sponsor organisations.

Partially accepted. The department consulted all museums, it is the trustees’ legal responsibility to determine free reserve levels appropriate for the charity. The museum Boards/Councils regularly consider reserve levels and found that their free reserves controls and targets are sufficient (all museums have the necessary reserve policies and controls in place) but found that building levels further, in order to mitigate against black swan events such as the pandemic, unrealistic due to the inability to forecast when this unlikely event would happen. However, in alignment with DCMS best practice, expenditure forecasts shall continue to be provided to the sponsors and include current free reserves data.

Recommendation 16

The museums should establish formal procurement strategies with a common approach and format across each museum to unlock efficiencies and support financial stability.

Accepted. The department recognises the importance of procurement strategies with a common approach across the service museums, to enable easier identification of potential efficiencies and support financial stability. The museums will work together to align procurement strategies and continue to identify where efficiencies may be realised.

Recommendation 17

To improve financial reporting, TLBs and the museums should remain up to date with latest Financial Reporting Council (FRC) reporting regulations, including in relation to valuation of heritage assets; income recognition; sale of land; buildings valuations and transfer of assets to ensure a common understanding across the service and Service museums.

Accepted. National Audit Office annually test if the museums are meeting their reporting requirements. All museums currently meet FRC reporting requirements and shall continue to remain fully up to date, demonstrated via their Annual Report and Financial Statements.

Recommendation 18

Museums and their sponsors should discuss identified potential RDEL efficiencies as part of their GIA discussions for 2024/25.

Accepted.  All museums discuss their GIA allocations each year, ahead of the final figure being agreed, including upcoming projects, inflationary pressures and efficiencies that need to be delivered. The museums and sponsor teams will ensure that identified potential RDEL efficiencies continue to be discussed.

Recommendation 19

The museums should explore and implement opportunities to use more shared services, particularly in IT, digital and finance, leading to consistent approaches to maximise efficiency opportunities. 

Accepted. The department and the service museums recognise the need to continue to explore and maximise shared service opportunities, noting that any efficiencies identified which require investment (and therefore may not be affordable within current budget horizon) should be captured in a suitable planning pipeline. The department also notes that implementation of any shared services by the museums should result in a recouped saving equivalent to the time and resource invested in exploring/moving to shared services or an alternative solution.

Recommendation 20

The museums should explore the opportunities and any benefits provided by the updated Museums Freedoms, engaging with their sponsor organisation, policy lead and DCMS for clarification as required.

Accepted. NMRN, NAM and RAFM continue to explore opportunities and benefits provided by Museum Freedoms, working with their sponsors, policy lead officials and DCMS.

Recommendation 21

The department and sponsor teams should work with the museums to ensure there are coherent infrastructure plans in place to address future and current asset management needs, and any maintenance backlogs and support development of business cases to address maintenance backlogs.

Accepted. The NMRN and RAFM have infrastructure plans in place and regularly review infrastructure condition and asset replacement/maintenance requirements. NAM will develop a five year infrastructure plan during 2024-2025. To support development of business cases to address maintenance backlogs, the department and sponsor teams, with the museums, shall continue to explore how CDEL infrastructure funding opportunities may be taken forward.

Terms of Reference for the review of the Service museums 2023

Objective

As Executive NDPB^{[footnote 1]}, the three service museums (National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN), National Army Museum (NAM) and Royal Air Force Museum (RAFM) are required to have a review of their functions, performance, control and governance arrangements every five years.

The review will be proportionate to the size and form of the service museums as Executive NDPBs that receive GIA funding from the MOD.

In accordance with Cabinet Office guidelines^{[footnote 2]} , the review will have two principal aims, represented by two stages:

• to provide a robust challenge of the continuing need for individual Executive NDPBs – both their functions and their form; and

• where it is agreed that a body should remain as an Executive NDPB, to review:

  • its capacity for delivering more effectively and efficiently, specifically focusing on benchmarking costs, digitisation and workforce
  • the control and governance arrangements in place to ensure that the public body and the sponsoring department are complying with recognised principles of good corporate governance. Focusing on appointments, skills and training, effective financial, risk management and internal controls, purpose, leadership, and effectiveness. This should also include an assessment of the body’s performance
  • its control and processes are in place to ensure accountability between the public body and the sponsoring department focusing specifically on effective sponsorship and accountability of the Executive NDPB to Parliament

Scope

Within this context, the review will consider:

• whether the functions are still required;
• whether there is an existing service provider, or providers, in the private sector that could deliver the function
• whether there are options available for privatisation, outsourcing, consolidation and/or developing a marketplace over time
• whether the service is to continue to be delivered by the public sector
• how the MOD ensures that the Accounting Officers (AO) act within the authority of the minister and has controls to assure high standards of probity and value for money
• whether the service museums are operating at an appropriate ‘length of arm’ to ensure the right balance between alignment with government priorities and any need for technical expertise or impartiality
• whether the MOD’s sponsorship of the museums is effective and aligns with current best practice
• whether the service museums have a shared service centre strategy and are exploring opportunities for shared services created by the MOD’s Corporate Services Modernisation (CSM) programme
• whether the service museums have a ‘places for growth’ plan and if there are any relocation plans incorporated into the MOD future location plans
• whether the service museums are supporting wider government aims such as around veterans, prosperity, STEM learning and development, etc, and/or should they be doing more
• identify the circumstances in which the service museums can create their own regulations and the role of ministers/Parliament in this process
• identify where savings to RDEL of at least 5% can be made
• Whether the recommendations from the last review have been implemented and if not, if the recommendations are still relevant
• whether the governance structures and outputs are comparable and aligned to their equivalents who report to the DCMS
• if the service museums should remain sponsored by the MOD or whether other sponsorship relationship could benefit the museums (e.g., DCMS)
• how resilient the individual museums funding models are, including whether the service museums should charge an entry fee, stability of the pension funds, impact of joining GIS, impact of GIA being led by a third party and stability of self-generated income
• whether workforce, and training and development plans in place are appropriate for their employed / volunteer workforce and in relation to their senior Boards/Councils
• whether the service museums are meeting the MOD’s functional standards requirements
• whether the service museums have a clear understanding of how well they are meeting the functional standard
• how well defined the areas are to be prioritised for improvement
• how effective the plans are to drive continuous improvement against the standards
• whether accountability, governance and sponsorship arrangements are fit for purpose
• whether the process to appoint board Members and monitor their performance, provides sufficient oversight of the effectiveness of the board

Governance arrangements

Ministerial sign off

The Minister of State in the House of Lords (MinLords), The Baroness Goldie DL will have oversight of the review. The final report and recommendations will be agreed by the MOD Secretary of State (SofS), MOD Permanent Secretary (MOD Principal Accounting Officer (PAO)) and MinLords as the responsible minister for the museums, before publication.

Review team

A review team has been set up that is independent of the three service museums. The Review Team consists of Head Enabling Organisations Sponsorship (EOS) team, an independent lead Reviewer an SEO for the EOS team, who will coordinate the review, along with 4 MOD civil servants, who will assist with various tasks. They are all independent of the service museums and the service museums sponsor teams. The review team will also be supported by the service museum staff and MOD staff working in the service museum sponsorship roles.

Challenge group

A Challenge Panel has been established to work alongside the review team and to provide challenge to the methodology, progress, and conclusions of the review. The Challenge Panel will meet at least two times throughout the course of the review: when the Terms of Reference are finalised, and when the final report and recommendations are finalised. The Challenge Panel may meet outside of these checkpoints if all members agree that it is necessary. The Challenge Group will consist of Non-Executive Directors and Independent Panel Members drawn from the three service FLCs.

Methodology

The review will call for evidence; undertake workshops and interviews; review relevant documentation as appropriate.

Timing

Ministers will decide the final timing and manner of publication of the review and the department’s response to the review findings and recommendations.

Stakeholders

The review team will engage with a broad range of stakeholders and where appropriate, conduct individual interviews.

Significant deliverables

Review outputs will include, but are not restricted to, the following:

• completed Self-Assessment Model
• Terms of Reference
• project plan and high-level risk register
• stakeholder interviews
• publication of findings and recommendations

1. Sometimes referred to as Arm’s Length Bodies (ALB) ↩

2. Triennial Review: Guidance on Reviews of Non-Departmental Public Bodies (Revised in 2014) ↩