Letter

From: Mayor <Mayor@launceston.tas.gov.au>
Date: Monday, 10 December 2018 at 12:12 pm
To: "raynorman7250@bigpond.com" <raynorman7250@bigpond.com>
Cc: Michael Stretton <Michael.Stretton@launceston.tas.gov.au>
Subject: RE: The QVMAG and its governance

Thank you Ray, for raising your concerns with the new Council.  Council will be reviewing the governance arrangements for the QVMAG once the Cultural Strategy is finalised.

Kind regards

Albert van Zetten I Mayor I City of Launceston
T 03 6323 3101 I www.launceston.tas.gov.au

--------------------------

From: Ray Norman <raynorman7250@bigpond.com>
Sent: Saturday, 1 December 2018 4:19 PM
To: Mayor <Mayor@launceston.tas.gov.au>; Michael Stretton <Michael.Stretton@launceston.tas.gov.au>; Council <Council@launceston.tas.gov.au>
Cc: Peter Gutwein [Minister Local Govt.] <peter.gutwein@parliament.tas.gov.au>; Rebecca White <rebecca.white@parliament.tas.gov.au>; Premier Will Hodgman <reception@tas.liberal.org.au>; Archer, Minister (DPaC) <Minister.Archer@dpac.tas.gov.au>
Subject: The QVMAG and its governance - PRINTED

Dear Mayor, Aldermen & QVMAG Trustees,

The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) is an important Tasmanian cultural institution that has evolved in Launceston over 125 plus years. It now holds collections that are regarded as being of national and international significance – indeed a part of the National Estate. It has been brought to my attention that since the election has been declared there has been no communication with you as elected representatives to alert you to your status as the QVMAG's default Trustees/Governors – the institution’s governing body.  I do so now.

In recent years, and on many occasions, I've pointed out to previous aldermen that in law they are unavoidably the custodians of this important institution with its collections of cultural, historic and scientific material. Importantly, you and no one else, are currently the functional governing body. Albeit by default, you are the institution's governing body responsible for:

• Determining the institution’s purpose and raison d’etre;
• Policy developments and determinations relevant to collections and programming;
• Strategic planning relevant to the institutions objectives and their rationales;
• Determining the institution’s research priorities and programming;
• Securing funding sufficient to sustain the overall operation of the institution; and
• Ensuring that the QVMAG’s operation meets the needs and expectations of its community.

This remains the case until the City of Launceston Council deliberately entrusts these responsibilities to an alternative standalone ‘authority’ with legal standing. You may well require ‘independent expert advice’ from time to time but this can be found among Tasmanians near to ‘home’ and elsewhere.

THE 2017/18 ANNUAL REPORT

I have responded to the institution's self-assessment presented in its 2017/18 Annual Report that can be accessed here –https://qvmag20172018.blogspot.com/. I've taken this opportunity to respond to the report as I regard any opportunity that may arise at the Annual General Meeting as being both at an inappropriate venue and an inadequate opportunity to raise the issues of the importance I raise in in my response. That is, issues that I hope that you will address as the institutions ‘governors’ and the custodians of the community’s significant ‘cultural property’ held in QVMAG collections. 

Clearly, the annual report has not been subjected to any kind of independent expert scrutiny/review – internally or externally – thus its authority is questionable – and at best its veracity is subjective. This places the QVMAG's ratepayer constituency, state taxpayers, donors, sponsors, researchers, et al in the invidious position of apparently having nowhere to go in order secure the accountability and transparency they seek and deserve. How can, and why should, the QVMAG's constituency trust the brand of ‘accountability’ – the smoothed over histories – available to them in recent years – a brand of accountability, that has been subjectively and bureaucratically served up as ‘the goods’?

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I hold to my assessment of the QVMAG's 2017/18 Annual Report. Moreover, with emerging information currently the indications are that the QVMAG is clearly an institution that is essentially:

• Self-directing in the absence of strategically effective governance;
• Self-regulating in the absence of transparent and accountable governance;
• Self-assessing in the absence of the kind of ‘purposeful’ policy sets and performance indicators to measure performance against;
• Self-serving given that the opportunity that is being afforded – and moreover it is the status quo position;
• Strategically rudderless in the absence of an ‘authoritative and purposeful’ governing body peopled by appropriate experts; and
• An exemplar of managerialism masquerading as governance.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Arguably, all this currently renders the QVMAG functionally unaccountable, at least to its Community of Ownership and Interest (COI). Likewise, the same applies to Council’s constituency many of whom are conscripted annually to collectively contribute something in the order $130 per rateable property in the form of an un-notified levy – in many cases something in the order of 10% of their rate demand. 

Then there are Tasmania's taxpayers who provide a further $1.3million plus annually. And after that there are the donors and sponsors who ‘entrust’ the institution with their various contributions in-kind and in cash – over time $240million plus has been invested in its collections plus other assets.

While having the QVMAG operating in the city is something more than desirable it does need to deliver on the promise of the social-cum-cultural dividends it is purportedly there to deliver. With the absence of ‘good accountable governance’ such outcomes are inhibited.

Recently, ‘the museum community’ nationally became aware that the QVMAG’s collections may not be as secure as it has been assumed that they are. Consequently, the QVMAG's integrity is seriously compromised as a consequence of all of this, at least until the circumstances of ‘the loss’ is discovered/resolved.

Without doubt this circumstance in this case can be put down to failures in respect to the trust invested in ‘the alderpeople collectively’ as the institution's default Trustees – that is, on your parts singularly and collectively. Along with the denial of, and the abdication of, the trust invested in you as Aldermen/Trustees the institution needs to undergo a ‘performance audit’ at all levels. This is an initiative you might well give some serious thought to.

PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES

Arguably, the QVMAG is under performing relative to investment in a 21st Century context and especially so given all that has been invested in the institution over 125 plus years. After that there are disruptive social and cultural imperatives emerging, and factors that are now clearly in play. These things demand responses beyond a reliance upon the status quo.

The QVMAG management’s performance can be relied upon, thus there is no fault directly attributable to the institution's management – none whatsoever. Arguably, the institution’s weaknesses and failures come about as a consequence of:

• The lack of governance’s functional accountability;
• The lack of credible and diligent governance; and
• The opacity of whatever has passed for governance and that has been in play up to now and in recent years. 

In addition, there is the overarching and misguided managerialism, with its lack of transparency, this factor has brought all this about. In addition, this has been tolerated collectively by Councils over time and Councils that have been sequentially abdicating their ‘trusteeship’ purpose over time – arguably inappropriately. 

Clearly, the standards previous Councils have walked past as 'trustees' are not the standards constituents should stand ready to accept!

Your performance as Trustees in regard to the QVMAG's governance should not be blighted by the obfuscation and opacity of the past. The implied sequence of past events I'm setting out here, and in my response, is to say the least, troubling, when and where shortfalls are in evidence.

It is hard to imagine how Launceston’s alderpeople’s integrity as a 'governing body' for an important ‘cultural institution’ has not been, and is not being, compromised in an ongoing way as long as the status quo prevails with its ambiguousness and opacity.

The QVMAG as a credible and accountable cultural institution with national and international standing must hold the credibility that it might be able to boast of and enjoy the fruits of. It is more than lamentable when it is not so. Given all that is invested in the institution by a very large Community of Ownership and Interest it is a poor outcome when this has not always been the case.

I look forward to your considered responses to the situation that with respect I put to you in regard to the integrity of the QVMAG’s governance and its consequent accountability and transparency.

Yours sincerely,

Ray Norman

GO2 … https://qvmag20172018.blogspot.com/

Ray Norman

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“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” Thomas Paine

“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept” David Morrison

Disclaimer: Whilst all due care and attention has been given to the compilation of this report, no responsibility is accepted for any errors or omissions that may have occurred.

Nor should this report be considered as constituting professional advice. Parties wishing to use or act on any of the contents of this report

are advised to seek their own, independent advice before doing so.