Quote:[h=2]The stewardship of England's national monuments is going to be handed to a charity next year. Sam Burne James reports on the plans and interviews English Heritage chair Sir Laurie Magnus[/h] In some ways, the quango English Heritage already looks, feels and operates like a charity. It benefits from Gift Aid on membership and donations to its charitable arm, the English Heritage Foundation, and has a large volunteer corps numbering more than 1,000 in 2012/13, up by a quarter on the year before.

So if part of EH - full title the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England - becomes a charity as planned in April 2015, the existing foundation will be used as the vehicle; its purpose will just be extended from raising money for more than 400 major sites of English history to managing and taking care of them as well. It will also retain the English Heritage name and logo.
The part of the operation that carries the statutory duty to preserve England's wider historic environment will remain part of the commission under the new title Historic England; and the commission will divide the funding it gets from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport between English Heritage and Historic England.
A recent DCMS consultation, which closes on 7 February, says the charity will receive an initial eight-year licence to manage the National Heritage Collection and will continue to get government funding, in decreasing amounts, over that period, at the end of which it is expected to become self-financing. But half way through, in 2019, a review of licensing agreements and future contracts will take place.
The DCMS says English Heritage will not necessarily be the preferred bidder for future contracts. It says the review "will consider all options", including external tendering.

Boxoffrogs Wrote:the only organisation left to pick up the pieces will be Historic England or English Heritage..depending on who ends up as the responsible body....