Changes at your Trust

Like most organisations, the National Trust for Scotland is forecasting a significant drop in income in the year ahead. Long before 2008 drew to a close, it was clear that doing nothing about this situation in 2009 was not an option. So by early March 2009 we announced some important decisions about what needed to be done.

The Trust is having to make considerable cost savings to ensure our financial health and stability through the economic recession. We have proposed significant reduction in staffing levels and changes at 11 of our 130 visited properties.

As a charity, independent of both the Scottish Government and the larger National Trust based in England, we rely heavily on income from investments and the value of legacies, which usually take the form of share portfolios and property bequests – both areas considerably affected by the recession.

In addition, a large part of our day-to-day funding comes from membership and admissions. You, our members, represent over 30% of our annual income and now, perhaps more than ever, we appreciate your continued support of the Trust’s great work, the proposed changes and also your assistance in encouraging supporters, friends and family, to become new members.

Following the announcements in March, the Trust has been consulting with its staff, the recognised union, central and local government and several communities, to explore alternative solutions. It is anticipated that the impact of any changes will be confirmed by late May. We have been encouraged by the creative ideas and support generated by this essential process, however there can be no doubt that some difficult decisions will have to be made.

Communicating with our Members
Amongst the Trust’s 309,000 members 59% live in Scotland, almost 35% live in England and 6% of members live abroad. And as we currently have e mail addresses for 10% of you, inevitably the alternative most inexpensive way for us to contact you is right here through our website and in our Scotland in Trust magazine, which is published three times a year. To give you some examples of what we have to carefully consider, one second class mailing to 189,000 members home addresses would cost the Trust over £40,000 in postage alone. Also, including a one page letter to members posted alongside our Scotland in Trust magazine would cost us £27,000. So we hope you can appreciate the challenge here, at a time when making cost savings is essential.

Members Questions and Answers
These Questions and Answers are designed to explain to members some of the background behind the recent proposals.

Q: Why is the Trust having to make these cuts?

A: The Trust must achieve a breakeven budget to boost its general fund. On top of existing financial challenges, the recession is having a significant impact on the charity. Cost saving measures must be made now to achieve financial stability for the long term.

Q: Could this not have been avoided?

A: The Board and senior managers within the Trust were already taking action to address our finances. A three year plan to improve our funds was underway, achieving £1.5 million annual savings in overheads before the recession began to bite. Faced with falling income however, the Trust is no different from other organisations – we had to act.

Q: Don’t I as a member have a say in these decisions?

A: Our members elect members to represent them on the Trust’s Council and the Trust’s Council and Board (which is appointed by Council) have the responsibility of making the relevant decisions throughout this process. The Trust consults with its membership via the Council and at a meeting of the Trust’s Council on 27 March, the Board explained the rationale behind its current proposals, which the Council endorsed.

Q: So as a member am I getting value for money from my membership?

A: Our priority is to ensure that members and visitors to the Trust’s properties can still have a thoroughly enjoyable experience. We appreciate that reducing staffing levels may affect some aspects of our properties but our goal is that this will have no adverse effect on the visitor experience. We value the support of our members and visitors and that means providing a really good service. As well as properties, members also enable the Trust to carry out its vital conservation work too. From preserving fine art works, carrying out archaeological digs on Iona to conserving sea eagles on Canna, this work would simply not be possible without the support of members.

Q: There’s talk of 11 properties having to close. Is this likely?

A: We are considering making changes at 11 of our visited properties but it is certainly misleading to say we are “closing” 11 properties. We are actively seeking ways to keep them open through consultation with many stakeholders and are pleased with the constructive nature of these discussions to date.

This consultation is ongoing and varies in nature between most of the 11 properties. For example the only difference to Haddo House is that access to the house will be through pre booked tours. This already happens in quite a number of National Trust properties in England. In additional to our daily pre booked tour the local authority has kindly agreed to fund an additional daily tour.

Q: Will these proposed changes result in a different type of Trust in the future?

A: The Trust must adapt to become the strong, responsive organisation it needs to be to thrive in the 21st Century. In reality there may well be things we have to do less of or simply stop doing. However, our aims to inform, inspire and engage everyone in the protection and promotion of Scotland’s heritage remain and we will continue to work hard to achieve this through conservation, access and education.

Q: How will you keep members informed of your decisions?

A: We will make good use of our website so keep a look out on www.nts.org.uk We will continue to update members through Scotland in Trust magazine and through our ebulletins, through answering questions sent to the Customer Services Centre, communicating.

Chairman puts current Trust challenges into perspective for members

National Trust for Scotland Chairman Shonaig Macpherson welcomed delegates to the annual Members’ Centres Chairman’s meeting on 13 May. In opening the meeting the Chairman confirmed that while the organisation’s current challenges are not new, they will indeed pass.

She reminded members of an essay by the Trust’s late President Emeritus the Earl of Wemyss and March, written in 1976 about the Trust which stated:

“Finance is a clamouring cause for concern. The Trust is ill-equipped to grapple with inflation. We rely on membership subscriptions, donations and legacies for the sustenance of the General Fund, our one free fund. It is disconcerting to see the gap widen, apparently inexorably, between outgoings on properties and revenue from the specific funds with which they are endowed. The necessity for thrift and discretion has never been more plain. But crises pass.”

She commented that the Trust had long tried to do too much with too little resource and it was having to confront some difficult issues at present. However, the Chairman left the Members Centres in no doubt that she believed the charity will weather the current storm.

She also reminded members of her key message at the charity’s Annual General Meeting in September 2008 when she said “the current recession promises to be of a scale that the Trust has never seen before, which heralds the need for radical change not only within the Trust but across the entire heritage sector.”

The Chairman’s message comes at a time of considerable change for the conservation organisation, where doing nothing and ignoring the impact of the recession is not an option.

Finance Director, Lesley Watt , explained to the Members Centres that with the onset of the recession the Trust had to take immediate steps to reduce costs and staffing levels, to address the underlying problem of ongoing sustainability.

Chief Executive, Kate Mavor gave an uplifting and frank address explaining, “The Trust exists for its members and staff and we must share how we feel about things. We simply had to act quickly to resolve our financial concerns and tackle staffing costs.

“We are likely to have to find a different model for the future. We need to be clever in how we engage people and we must captivate the children of today with what we have to offer. Let’s have a good look at what we have in our treasure chest and ask ourselves how we can interpret them better, just as we have recently achieved at Culloden.

“The challenge for us all is to inspire people by what we are doing and enthuse them so that they support us. We are in the business of protecting Scotland ’s heritage but how we go about doing that may be different in the future. We need our members, staff, volunteers and supporters to come on this journey with us.”

The annual meeting offers the chairmen of the Trust’s 38 Members Centres and Friends groups the opportunity to meet with the Chairman, Chief Executive and senior management and raise any issues they may have. Responses were given to questions as wide ranging as the Trust’s extensive school visits programme to its properties, communication with members, the Burns project and of course the current consultation process the Trust is undertaking with staff and stakeholders.

An offer from the floor for Members Centres to be the Trust’s ambassadors was warmly welcomed.