Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Shall I take that, Kate? So, first of all, I just would like to start by saying how fundamental we think Amgueddfa Cymru is to the culture and identity of Wales, but also what an enormous contribution we've got to make across the full breadth of the portfolios of the Welsh Government. People think of us specifically as culture, but, actually, we are contributing just as much economically in terms of education and in terms of the well-being agenda. And it's in that context, really, that I would probably be looking for four particular things. The first is that it is absolutely essential that the museum is funded to deliver its core offer. We are tasked with looking after the national collection of Wales and delivering fundamental public services for Wales. And it is very easy to give funding with additional asks or parameters around new policies, et cetera, but, if you're not careful, so much of the funding ends up following new policy ideas that you end up with nothing to maintain the core offer. So, my first ask would be to make sure that funding was sufficient and sustainable for the core offer of running a national museum of the stature that we have here in Wales, and my suggestion would be that that could be measured by the content of the remit letter, because if the remit letter focuses on core purpose, then you'll be assured that that's where we're being tasked to spend the money.

I think the second point would be that for it to be truly at the heart of Welsh life, then we need to be taking that cross-portfolio perspective, and we need to see culture and sport being integrated across education, across economy and across well-being. Again, that would be a step change if we were to do that, and, to look at the measurement of that, we would need to see that being demonstrated through reporting, through engagement and through the funding that we get. So, I would suggest that it would be a new model for funding that would see cultural bodies like ours receiving funding for our learning programmes, for example, from education. That would be a very clear measure and, again, just the kind of engagement we had with the Welsh Government, which currently is, I think, almost solely through culture, certainly in my experience.

The third key thing, I think, is I absolutely support the Minister's call for us to have a set of cultural rights for Wales. I think that would be very powerful, and I'm delighted that the Minister is asking for that to come through in the strategy. And I think the measurement for that would be absolutely critical, because that would mean we would be thinking about what each of us as local and national cultural bodies was delivering against those cultural rights, so you would need a new measurement framework for cultural bodies like ours to demonstrate specific delivery against the cultural rights.

And then that takes me to my fourth and final one, which is I think we've got to shift the way in which we talk about how organisations like the museum are delivering. So, often we get asked to report about all the activity we've done, but what I'm interested in is the difference that we're making and the impact that we're having. Here in Amgueddfa Cymru, we have spent the last 18 months defining an impact framework and a theory of change, which says the specific difference we want to make for the people and communities of Wales, and I want us to be held accountable to that impact framework. Therefore, effective measurement, I believe, needs to be linked to impact and to have a single set of KPIs that we can use internally and with the Welsh Government. We could end up in a position where we have one set delivered to impact and one set that's for the Welsh Government that is measured against different things. I think that would be extremely unhelpful. So, those would be my suggestions.

—have you had conversations—

Does the remit letter match what you're actually hoping to achieve?

Well, we're in constant dialogue with our officials in the Welsh Government and we understand that the remit letter is currently being drafted. We've been having discussions since the programme for government came out, but we haven't seen a draft of the remit letter yet.

Okay. Thank you. And also, in terms of the strategy, what conversations are you having with the Government about your input into that strategy?

That is regular and ongoing. We discuss the strategy pretty much every time we meet with officials and with the Minister. I think we see that we have a very important role to play in feeding in directly, but potentially also convening viewpoints and being a vehicle for others to be able to feed in. We will be engaging on a regular basis. In fact, we've been talking about having some dedicated workshops within the museum to feed in. So, we feel very closely linked to that work and think we've got a lot to offer.

My first question is to do with staff well-being in Amgueddfa Cymru. In the letter you provided to us in September, you gave some information relating to that. It's to do with the well-being score comparison. I was wondering if you could go into a bit more detail about what that is, how you measure it, and just a bit more detail behind those scores that you collect.

Of course. Do you want me to take that?

Yes, if you don't mind.

We do staff surveys, and that survey is across a number of different factors. We haven't yet done one for 2026 because we've had a change in personnel and some recruitment, but we will be doing that very soon. So, we measure a number of different metrics for staff surveys, and they include pride in the organisation, confidence in leadership, engagement with the organisation, strength of feeling about their alignment with the purpose, how attached they are, how inspired they are to do their work, and their well-being. So, if I could just give you the full suite of those, it might be helpful just to have some figures.

So, in terms of year-on-year performance against all of those, all of them have gone up and one is stable. The one that is stable is well-being, so I'll finish with that one, particularly as it was the focus of your question. So, 93 per cent of all our colleagues feel proud to work for the amgueddfa, up from 91 per cent. Confidence in the leadership has gone up from 28 per cent initially to, now, 51 per cent. The engagement with what we're doing has gone from 64 per cent up to 69 per cent. There's been a 10 per cent increase in alignment with the purpose from our colleagues—so, from 57 per cent to 67 per cent. There's another really big jump in how attached people feel to the work and mission of the organisation—that's gone up from 64 per cent to 80 per cent. And, again, another big jump in how inspired people are to do their work and to be working in the museum, and that's gone from 55 per cent to 70 per cent. The one that is static is the well-being, and that one was 51 per cent and remains at 51 per cent. And we have been undertaking a lot of initiatives to support well-being. So, we've been working with new providers, we've been putting in all sorts of new support measures for staff.

My reflection on well-being is that this is a very, very difficult time to be working in the cultural sector. You can hear from those other statistics how passionate my colleagues are about the work that they do. And I always say that this is a vocation, not a job. They do this job because they love it so much. And when you're working at a time when you've seen massive cuts, when there isn't enough money to do the job that you came in to do, when you feel like you can't deliver to the level that you want to because you haven't got the resources, that has a really big impact on people's well-being. So, I think there are lots of things we can and should do as an organisation to support well-being, and we take it extremely seriously and we've been putting those in place, but, in all honesty, I can't see that figure shifting much while the environment continues to be so challenging and, if anything, is getting worse.

Yes, I was coming back onto that, because it was quite heartbreaking, actually, seeing that that well-being score just hasn't budged at all. Because, like you said, these are people who go into that field and sector—we all know, probably, a lot of them—because they've got that passion there. And if you look at—. I know the paper says the scores have improved, but, if you actually look, there are only two teams where the scores have actually improved with the well-being; the others have dropped or basically stayed the same. In collections and research, it was 41 per cent in 2024; it's now, in 2025, 34 per cent. So, it's gone from 41 per cent to 34 per cent, so that's a big drop that's happening. I know you're saying that work's happening now to, hopefully, see an improvement when you collect the next bit of data for 2026, but I was just wondering what might have gone wrong, from your guys' perspective, as well. Because I'm sure you would have done that work in between 2024 and 2025, so what hasn't worked properly to see that change?

I think, for new members of the committee, it might be worth remembering that we lost 155 staff in 2024, and collections is desperately under-resourced. So, it is a really difficult period to be working in. So, we've been doing a huge amount of work. Do you want to come in on it, Kate?

Yes. I think you're absolutely right to call it out, because it's an area that the board is very concerned about and asks at every single board meeting around staff well-being and morale et cetera. One of the changes that we put in place as a result of the governance arrangements two years ago was to introduce a new people, resource and culture committee so that we can take a really detailed look at some of the cultural issues and the people concerns that we've got within the organisation. So, that committee scrutinises, on a quarterly basis, all of the human resources stats that you've got in front of you. And I think what is clear is that there has been movement in the well-being scores in a number of areas, but there are some stubborn pockets, and that's largely where we've seen some of the impact of the cuts hitting most greatly. And when staff see colleagues leaving, retiring, taking redundancy, that's a big impact on your working life, particularly when we simply don't have the resources there to allow people to pick up the slack. So, well-being is a really complex and difficult one to shift, but what the board has also asked for is more targeted interventions in those areas where we know that we have an issue. So, we're working with the directors in those two particular areas to put in more detailed interventions, in addition to the broader suite of HR interventions like occupational health, improved employee assistance programmes et cetera, mental health first-aiding networks, so that the staff in those directorates can get the enhanced and improved well-being support that they're asking for.

Can I ask whether you have a measure of the confidence of your employees in the actual organisation?

I think that would come through in the staff surveys and the figures that Jane's just quoted you there. We're very happy to provide further information on those staff surveys, because I think, in the letter, we only shared a snapshot of those. So, we can certainly do that.

I think what you can do is read that into the purpose, the inspiration and, to an extent, the leadership scores. But the purpose and inspiration, and particularly  the way that they're worded, leads to what you've just described.

Okay.

I think, as a board, Chair, we triangulate a number of pieces of data to try and get a more complete picture than the staff survey, which is very important, but is a snapshot of an organisation on a particular week in the year. So, we also look at a range of data like sickness absence, we look at average tenure, so the length of time people are spending within the employment of Amgueddfa Cymru, and that's between nine to 10 years. So, we don't have a high staff turnover, we don't have a high sickness rate; it's about average for public sector. So, we look at a range of factors when we're determining the overall health of the organisation.

Okay. Diolch yn fawr.

The overall engagement—. Could I just add one other comment?

Yes.

I'm not sure if we've ever been explicit, fully, at this committee about just what a challenging situation it was for this organisation at the time that we came in. So, the organisation had been through a very, very difficult period, as bad as it can get for an organisation. I don't think either of us had any idea of the scale of the work that was going to be needed across every single bit of the organisation, every bit you can mention. Everything has needed rebuilding, shoring up, a process put in place, governance putting in place. So, there's been a lot of work done in the past three years, and there's a lot that we're really pleased with and we can see really great progress. But there's still a lot to do, and I think what you would find—. If you came in to the amgueddfa right now, probably what you would see is that, colleagues who've been here for a few years now and have seen that journey, they're probably really clear on how much progress has been made and they'd be really positive about that. Anybody who joined more recently may well come in and see the bits that still aren't done. So, they'd be like, 'Oh, why aren't you doing this yet?' For us, it's like, 'Well, there's a really long to-do list, and we've prioritised and we're working through it.' So, we've got a clear sense of what it is we need to do, don't we, Kate?

Yes. I just want to make a comment, if I can. I've actually worked in the arts sector and I've run a building myself—nowhere near on the scale that you're doing at the moment, but I can understand that you have had difficulties, and I do understand that. But I want you to understand as well that, although we all want the best for your organisation and we want to support your organisation, we also have a duty to—I can't think of the word for 'craffu'—scrutinise the organisation. So, I hope you understand that, that that's our job to do that, okay.

Of course. Of course, yes.

Diolch yn fawr. But we do appreciate that you do some excellent work. I'm not doubting that for a moment, okay.

Oh, no—Mair, sorry.

There are three primary reasons for that. The first is that we made the strategic decision to take our catering offer in-house. So, that was previously delivered by an external company, and we wanted to be able to continue to tell the stories of the museum through the menus and through the food offer, and so we felt it was better to do that by employing the staff directly. That was also part of our drive to increase the commercial efficiency and effectiveness of both the retail and the catering offers. So, that meant we TUPE'd in all the staff. So, staff that previously were physically working in the space but weren't on the books then came on to the books. That was No. 1.

Number 2 is that we used to use a lot of agency and pool staff and just pulled people in for shifts here and there, and we weren't comfortable with that as a way of working. So, what we did is convert our regular pool staff, who had no kind of terms and conditions, no employment rights with us—. We felt, as a responsible employer, that that wasn't the way we wanted to go, so we brought those pool staff in-house. So, the hours were still being worked before, the money was still being paid before, but they were sitting on a different part of the budget line.

And then the third one, where—. There have been some additional new posts. So, one of the things that has come in in the last year or so is we previously had no budget for health and safety. When I talked about some of the problems that Kate and I have been uncovering, the lack of management around health and safety was one that really concerned us. So, we have put money into health and safety and we've created two brand new posts to support the health and safety of both visitors and the workforce. So, there are some—a very small number—new posts. I think the new posts number no more than 20.

But the final bit, where there is an uplift that is temporary, if you like, is that there are project posts that are directly related to the delivery of the National Slate Museum transformation, and they are being funded through project costs. So, those roles close at the end of the project. Similarly, there are a small number who have been brought in to manage the ongoing infrastructure works at National Museum Cardiff—like people to oversee the very complicated roof works.

So, that's why it looks like the numbers have jumped back up. The jobs that we lost have not been replaced, but we have brought agency and pool staff into the accounts, into the staffing establishment. We've TUPE'd the catering staff, we've taken on project staff on time-bound contracts, and then we've introduced a small number of dedicated posts where there were weaknesses in the organisation.

So, while it has—you're absolutely right—been an increase in the full-time equivalent number of staff, it has not driven an equivalent increase in staff costs.

Right, okay. Diolch.

The learning from restructuring is, ideally, you don't want to have to do it. I think there were two particular challenges—I'd be interested to hear Kate's view on this—but two particular challenges for me was that I had to lead that restructure when I'd only been in the organisation for three months, and I hadn't even been full-time, actually, I think. It's very hard to lead a restructure when you don't know the organisation yet, but it was just—. We were about to go into a new financial year, and so there was no choice.

I think the second thing is—this is sort of a mixed one—we had to make a 10.5 per cent budget cut. It was the biggest cut in our history and it equated to about £4.5 million. But we needed to hit that full saving by 1 April, because if it didn't land, say, until July or August, then the number of jobs that would have had to be cut would have had to be more. So, to minimise the job cuts, we made a commitment that we would do it by 1 April. Now, one of the difficulties for us is that we can't make our own decisions around cuts. We have to get permission from Welsh Government to be able to make cuts, and that's always a difficult thing for Government to do. So, we didn't get permission to make the cuts, even on a voluntary basis, until the middle of February. So, in effect, we had to restructure the entire organisation and do all those cuts in six weeks. I've never known anything like it and I've done big change programmes elsewhere. It was brutal. It was really painful. And being really honest with you, I was waking in the middle of the night thinking, 'What on earth am I doing?' And people were saying to me, 'This is the worst experience we've ever been through.' So, it was really bad.

The only thing I would say at the end of it is: I would never, ever want to do that again in six weeks. However, the upside of it was it was done and dusted. However brutal, we came to the end of it, and then people were able to move on. And as colleagues very, very sadly left us, as they got other jobs and people could see them settling, we could move on. Whereas we have had transformations in the past that have lasted for 18 months, and I know there are other organisations across the UK where some of these processes drag on and on—. I think while the acute pain is worse for a short change, the mental well-being is worse when it drags on.

So, I think those were two really big learnings for me. One of the things that we chose to do was not to cut everything equally. So, even though it was really short and sharp, we dug down into each one to see where we could take, perhaps, entire functions or sections or specialisms out. Because everything in the museum now is so thinly spread, if you just keep cutting everything, everything becomes non-doable. So, we did actually target certain areas, which I think was the right thing to do, but it felt very personal then for the people in those areas that were most targeted.

I think my main learning is—I've done these over and again now in different organisations—there is no great way of doing it. We've had a really good review and learn process that was led by peers from within the organisation, not by the senior team. They did a big listening exercise. From that, we produced our 10 principles if ever we were to do a change programme again: 'Here are the principles the staff team have given us, here's how you communicate, here's how you do it.' So, we have captured organisational institutional learning, but it's not something I'd want to repeat.

Okay, diolch yn fawr. I'm going to have to ask people now to be as succinct as they can, because we've got a lot to get through and we're halfway through the meeting already. So, if I can do that. Thank you very much.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Gadeirydd. I think earlier on you mentioned that you'd want to see a new funding model going forward as far as Amgueddfa Cymru is concerned. I think previously as an organisation, you've said that you anticipate a mixed model of funding between public and private investment. So, I just want to ask you a couple of questions around levering in private investment. How does Amgueddfa Cymru compare with leading museums internationally in terms of philanthropic income, donor engagement and fundraising strategy? And what lessons do you think could be adapted to the Welsh cultural and economic context?

Thank you, Paul. I think where we do well—. We have a very experienced fundraising and philanthropy team, with very clear processes. And we are building long-term relationships, and we have certain institutions and donors that give very regularly to us. In fact, for example, the People's Postcode Lottery for the last two years have given an unprompted increase to us because of the relationship we have. And others like the Paul Hamlyn Foundation have similarly been very supportive. 

On the one hand, we do very well on funding. We have a team that delivers well. The problem Wales has is we have no private sector of the kind of scale that would make a difference to an organisation like ours. So, while we are investing in individual and philanthropic giving, there is a limited pool that we are fishing in. Colleagues have been over in America this year engaging with Welsh diaspora in America, and I've been having regular conversations and meetings with high net worth individuals, but, on the whole, it is difficult to secure money from the private sector for Wales. As one very high net worth individual said to me last week, without the private sector a museum withers, and we're feeling the effect of that.

So, what do you think you need to do in order to make sure that we do see some of this private investment? I know you mentioned that you were talking to a high net worth individual last week. Is there anything you can change as far as the organisation is concerned in order to attract more private investment into the organisation?

This year we've appointed a new philanthropy lead who is an expert in that type of giving. That's been enormously helpful. We have a fundraising strategy and an expert team of individuals within the organisation, as Jane said. I think what changes for us at the moment is the possibility of NMC 100 and the plans that we are pulling together at the moment for the transformation of National Museum Cardiff, because for the first time we would have an offer that would be attractive to that type of giving. In the past, we've had levels of offer that quite frankly haven't been big enough or attractive enough for that type of individual. 

So, for Llanberis, for example, we've been incredibly fortunate to have really generous giving from individuals, from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and the Colwinston Charitable Trust have funded us in the past, but it is not at the level of offer that individuals of that kind of wealth would expect to be presented with. So, at the moment, the team are working really hard because we do understand that the level of spend that NMC 100 will require will not be able to be funded from the public purse alone and will absolutely necessitate a mixed model of funding.

And is there something that you can learn from other museums across the world when it comes to philanthropy?

Well. funnily enough, only the weekend before last I was at a gathering of international museums in Belgium doing just that. I think the lessons to be learned are for us as a nation rather than for us as an institution. So, it's a bigger picture. We can't change the economy that we work within or the tax incentive structures that we work within. So, it needs that really joined-up conversation between governments, at a national and local level, which links with tax benefits, with economic incentives and a whole ecosystem that would support a more philanthropic mindset in Wales. 

And if there was one philanthropic practice that you could adopt in the next, say, five years, or learn from another museum across the world, what would that be?

It would be to be able to create an endowment that would fund the future of the museum. 

Okay. Diolch, Gadeirydd.

Diolch. Steven, would you like to come in on it?

Sure. Just a quick question. Obviously, you mentioned at the start your core offer, and then other tasks that are put on you, which may be a little bit of mission creep that get labelled onto you. Then you have the strategy via the funding. What conversations have you had with Welsh Government over new things you have to deliver as opposed to funding?

We've been making quite a recurring plea about the remit letter, because it's always much more appealing to fund new stuff. But the problem is you fund the new stuff and then you have to fund the next new stuff. What we've been saying, even before this new administration came in, to the officials was to please design a remit letter that funds the core of a museum, because that's all we're able to deliver now. We can't do bells and whistles. That is my constant plea. I think they'll probably get bored of me saying it, but I'm going to keep saying it.

Have you actually got figures? 'Obviously, this is the core. This is how much it's going to cost for the core. Vis-à-vis this is the new stuff you want us to deliver. This is how much we think this will cost.'

We don't know the new stuff yet because that hasn't come through to us yet. We know that the core that we need as a very minimum for next year is £32 million, and we shared that with Government in the summer. That would be purely for the running costs of seven sites, plus a collection centre. That would not then cover infrastructure work that's needed to the estate, so then there needs to be a settlement to allow us to have the appropriate level of infrastructure to be able to maintain the historic buildings that we care for and which form the basis of the collection.

Okay, thank you.

Would you like to—?

Yes. My question was around charging for exhibitions and revenue raising, which I think is absolutely vital, because the funding crisis that I can see here, particularly over the last couple of years, is not going to change in the next 12 months, 18 months, really, because we're going to have to wait for a strategy, then that's going to have to be approved, then we're going to have to look at where we get the money from collectively out of the budget. So, I'm really pleased that you are planning to charge for certain exhibitions. I think it's really important that we get people inside and that entry remains free—that's absolutely fundamental—but, once they're in, then people can make a choice about what they can choose to see. I do not think the public will have any problem at all with that offer.

I was looking at the 'Charging for exhibitions' report, and I was really staggered to find that the committee got into so much detail about an underground train tour at one of the exhibits. I don't quite understand why we're getting our knickers in a twist about that, when there's a fundamental funding crisis across the whole sector, particularly for Amgueddfa Cymru. Obviously, I wasn't here when that conversation happened, but I think, as a committee, we need to not get down so much into the nitty-gritty of what's charged for and what's not, and listen to the people at the top telling us that they've got a funding crisis.

From that point of view, we talked about philanthropy, do you feel you're going to have the backing from us as a committee, or indeed Welsh Government, to really begin to start charging for different things once you're inside the buildings? Do you get that flavour, or do you think they want everything for free?

I think it's a very challenging debate, often. Where everybody agrees is that entry to the sites, to be able to access the collection that belongs to the people of Wales, should be free, and I think we're all in the same place on that. Where we've been as a museum, because of the increasing financial pressures we've been under, is we believe we should be able to charge for any activities that offer added value beyond that entrance. That would be things that involve extra manpower, if you like—tours, talks, bespoke experiences, behind the scenes, anything like that—that's where we would seek to put a charge. It's not always straightforward as to whether there is a consensus about whether we should charge for that, because some people consider those tours to be the collection, and that's when it gets difficult.

We've been on a massive commercial improvement journey. It's one of the things I'm most proud of. We are blessed to work with a phenomenally talented and hard-working commercial team under the leadership of Marc Simcox. Last year, 2025-26, I think we broke five financial records for the museum. We beat all our targets across all commercial, and the team were awarded best commercial team in the UK at the cultural enterprises awards. So, this team cannot do much more to push commercial growth within the constraints that we've got. What we're going to really need to be able to do, if we've got to generate more of our own income, if the state can't cover the costs of these museums, is we will have to generate more, which means we will have to have freedoms around what we can charge for. And, importantly, we're going to need to invest in new commercial activity that can grow for the future. There are commercial offers that we've got that we know would give a return, but you need that start-up seed funding to put into them, and that can be difficult to get.

One example that we're going to be opening this autumn is we've put a roastery into St Fagans, so from now on we'll be roasting our own coffee. You can buy a heritage coffee brand at the museums, and we can sell that to any other businesses in Wales who may be interested. It's those kinds of things. You can't do it out of fresh air. So, freedoms to operate and to be able to charge for those added-value activities and investment to grow commercial is going to be critical.

If I could add to that, you mentioned charging for Big Pit underground tours. There's no train underground, I'm afraid—

It's not even a train.

It's not a train, no. They're miner-led tours. The one thing I would actually call out is the recent 'Gwen John: Strange Beauties' exhibition, which was a phenomenal success for Amgueddfa Cymru and has really put us back on the international map. So, that is a partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland and with Yale and Washington in the US. That exhibition wouldn't have been possible had we not been able to charge entry, and it was a modest entry fee, if you look at the comparison with some of the London institutions. For an exhibition of that quality, size and scale, with the quality of the original research that informed the staging of that exhibition, charging was absolutely necessary. We had record numbers, and we have had record numbers, at NMC this year—our highest visitor numbers for 20 years.

So, we know that visitors are happy to pay. We always have a range of concessions if we are charging for exhibitions, so that access isn't an issue. But I think that if anybody was able to visit the Gwen John exhibition, you will have seen just what we can do when we have the money to put in and stage something of that scale.

And there's a strategy behind it. There are three different levels of exhibition that we run: headline, cornerstone and foundation. Headline are the big, blockbuster, world-class exhibitions that need that big charge, so we know exactly what we're going to charge for those. Cornerstone are more tailored for particular markets, where we'll often say, 'Pay what you can', with a minimum of £1. We've got one of those at the moment, called 'It's Called Ffasiwn'. And we have foundation exhibitions, which tend to be smaller scale, that run for a long time. We had a beautiful one called 'Picture Post' that has been running. So, there is always a mix of exhibitions. It's never kind of like, 'You can only go to an exhibition if you pay.' But we match the exhibitions against the pricing strategy.

So, it sounds like there's kind of a principle argument here about charging, and maybe the committee could have an opinion on that and feed that back to the Minister.

Okay, thank you. Niamh, I'm going to come to you next, before I go to Beca. So, Niamh, please.

Charging for exhibitions is tricky, isn't it? It's a really, really tricky one. I go to basically every exhibition that you guys put on because I think they're fantastic. I do; I love them. But it's tricky because I can understand the merit when it comes to 'Art of the Selfie', because that's something that's international. But then, for me, when the 'Streic' exhibition happened, that was fantastic, but I felt that a lot of people in the constituency that I represent, which is Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni, who would have resonated a lot with the 'Streic' exhibition, might not have had that access to it because of—. I know that you can pay what you can, but it's a tricky one, and I recognise that.

With Big Pit, specifically, I went to go to visit Big Pit not that long ago with Amgueddfa Cymru—again, a fantastic visit. I loved it. But I know that you had the charging trial between October and November 2024. Am I right in thinking that you were going to do a report or a review on it? I was just wondering. Sorry, I'm not aware if that's been done. Are you continuing now? Is this permanent?

I'll come to Kate on Big Pit in a sec. I'll talk about the first two. So, I think that they're really good examples. 'Art of the Selfie' was when we borrowed a Van Gogh in return for lending Renoir's La Parisienne. The problem that we have in Wales is that, unlike Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, we have a cap on the insurance that we can have on works of art. So, that single Van Gogh was more than the cap that we're able to have in Wales. So, you wouldn't have this issue if you were in London or Edinburgh or Belfast, but we do in Cardiff. And so, we had to pay commercial insurance to bring it in.

So, that's an example where you either say, 'We're not going to bring it in', or we introduce a charge. In that one, it was a £1 entry and it worked quite nicely. 'Streic' is another one where I'm really, really proud, because 'Streic' was extremely expensive to put on. It was the right thing to do because it's an important part of Wales's story. So, 'Streic' came into that headline category that I talked about, which is a blockbuster, high-quality, high production—.

I've introduced, since starting, a staff briefing. So, I meet with all staff once a month, and anybody can ask whatever they want, raise whatever questions they want. Staff spoke up and said, 'We don't believe we should be charging for that exhibition.' These were staff from those constituent communities. And I was so pleased that they had the confidence to say that. So, as part of our very participative and inclusive way of working as an organisation, we then set up some working groups with staff, and staff redesigned the model for that. So, staff came up with that pay what you can model for 'Streic' themselves, which was a really good moment. But, Big Pit.

Yes. So, the Big Pit charging trial that you mentioned is still ongoing. So, it will come to an end in December of this year. It was put in place in April 2025, and it has looked at different periods over an 18-month period, to get a proper look at what the high season, shoulder season, half term, Easter charging impacts might have across the lifetime of the museum. We have some interim data from that already, and 98 per cent of visitors are satisfied with the price paid, 97 per cent of visitors give it a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. We are also understanding about conversion rates. So, does the introduction of charging make any difference to the number of people who take up the opportunity to have that charged for tour? We've had about 84,000 visitors over the lifetime of the charging period, and around 88 per cent of those visitors chose to pay for the charged tour. That's very similar to when it was not charged for. So, we don't believe that introducing a £5 charge to go underground is making any meaningful difference to access or participation in that element of the experience at Big Pit.

Will there be a report and will we see this full comprehensive report? With pay what you can for 'Streic', with future exhibitions, will you also be having those similar conversations about doing—

Yes, that's what I was saying about this framework of the three different—. We just get much smarter now at categorising which it is in advance. If it's one where we don't feel we can charge, we just have to recognise that we can't invest as much into it, because we wouldn't be able to afford to do it.

The fashion exhibition at the moment, because we were acutely aware that that was a partnership between Clémentine Schneidermann and the young people of the south Wales Valleys who took part in that project over a decade, we were really keen that that was a pay what you can model that starts at £1.

I just wanted to touch on the position in terms of the cap in Wales and what conversations have been had with the Welsh Government regarding this issue. I also just wanted to mention the idea of pop-up museums and whether that's something that you're able to do in terms of outreach work in areas like mine, in terms of the Neath and Swansea valleys, who haven't got that access to the museums. Diolch.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. In terms of the Government indemnity scheme, the GIS, which is how we refer to that insurance scheme, that is a very live debate at the moment. Officers are very engaged with it. It's not something that's right at the top of the Welsh Government's to-do list at the moment, which is understandable. It's a shame because it impacts us right now in that there's been a major loan this year that we just couldn't take; we've had to turn it down. I think we will get there. Officers really understand it. I think Government understands it. It's just they've got a lot on their plate. What was the 25,000, again? I've just written '25,000'. Sorry, what was the second part of your—

Pop-up museums.

The pop-ups. I wrote '25,000' because we've had 25,000 visitors visiting the pop-up museums linked to the slate museum this summer. It's been really great. That is a model that really works. So, what we did is we closed the National Slate Museum to do the works, and then we've had pop-ups in various different places, Caernarfon, Penrhyn castle. It's been fabulous. As a model, it works, but, of course, it needs to be paid for. So, we can do it in Llanberis because we've got staff who are already there who would normally be on site, but they can't be. It's been a way of being able to continue employment rather than laying people off while the project was going on.

Being really, really honest, Beca, at the moment, we just have not got the resources to do new, unfunded pop-ups in other communities. I would love to. My big value is that we are a national museum with national reach. I want to get collections out and be operating in many more of the communities of Wales. Where we are doing that is through the learning programme, which is increasingly becoming peripatetic, and we operate in all 22 counties of Wales with the learning programme, and also with the work that we do with detectorists through the portable antiquities scheme, which is a fantastic area of work. So, when people are out with their local detecting clubs, et cetera, then they meet in a local working men's club or a pub, and then we send one of our colleagues to that evening and they help identify the finds, et cetera. So, the museum goes out into communities in that way, but running unfunded pop-ups at the moment would not be possible.

Can I just add to that, Beca, because I think you raise a really important point about some of the practical barriers to accessing our sites? Some of our sites are in quite difficult-to-reach areas, without great public transport for historic reasons. But we're acutely aware that transport, particularly for school groups and for young people, is obviously the single biggest barrier to accessing our sites. So, last year, and it's recently come to an end, we had a Welsh Government-funded travel bursary programme, and we were able to welcome over 8,000 schoolchildren into our sites who hadn't previously been, because of reasons of transport. So, we would love—going back to your opening question around a cross-portfolio approach to culture and the arts and heritage—to see some of those impacts coming through from the discussions that I know are taking place at the moment across different portfolios in Government, to see how we can access funding from different directorates, so that some of those structural barriers to access and participation are gradually removed, and we can welcome more people into our permanent sites.

On that issue, do you work with other museums and galleries and things across Wales in terms of meeting the—? I was wondering about that community engagement side of things and how you did that.

Oh, yes, that's a massive part of our work. We're about to open an exhibition, actually, in St Fagans, called 'Reach', and that shows that absolutely working. So, it's been a programme where we've been working with community groups ranging from Dyffryn Nantlle, which is nearer to where I live, right down to here into the south, and working with community groups about what does Wales mean to them, what is our identity, and we're turning that into an exhibition at St Fagans, so it has come through from communities.

We do all sorts with particular target underrepresented groups, young children. We've worked a lot with a beautiful programme called Mini Wonders, which works with families where the parents aren't confident to come into a museum. They tend to be in very deprived areas, and so they don't use this free resource because they were never taken, and so we run an eight-week programme where the families come, we cover the bus fare, we cover lunch and then day by day we give them the confidence. The first thing we ask them is what are you not allowed to do in a museum and they say, 'Mustn't run around', or 'Mustn't be noisy', and then we show them how you can do all of those things in a way that works in a museum. And what's been fantastic is we can now see, when the cohort has been through that programme, we see those families coming back, and they're now regular visitors. So, there's some lovely rich work happening there.

Very good, thank you. We're going to move on to talk about the large capital projects now. Nick, can you start with that, please?

No, not yet. I have got one other question. I will come on to the large capital project.

Okay. 

I just wanted to ask first of all about St Fagans. I'm a big fan of St Fagans and the national museum being a big part of my life growing up with my young family here in Cardiff, but I know that there are lots of buildings closed at the moment because there's not enough staff. There's a problem with mould being reported to me because the buildings aren't being opened up, and there have also been issues with lone working, because the distances between the buildings that are open are getting further apart, and I've heard that the staff have been subject to some aggressive behaviour from visitors because the buildings aren't open. I've also heard there was an incident over the summer at Big Pit, because it was free for that period of time to go underground, a lot of people were turned down. I heard a number of 3,000 people not being able to get underground and then that turned into issues for the staff, because obviously people come to Big Pit to have a look at the museum to go underground, and they weren't able to do it.

So, to pack up a couple of questions, I wondered what sort of support you're putting in place for staff. How many buildings are currently closed—or open, at any one time, I should say—in St Fagans, and how many extra staff do you think are needed to keep these buildings open?

Thank you for those questions, Nick. I'll reply generally and then, if it's okay by you, I'll ask the team to help me come back with the very specific figures you've asked for.

I'll take Big Pit first. Big Pit has had a very tough summer. Very unfortunately, we've had some very, very serious illness in Big Pit in very high numbers, and it's to do with the nature of the workforce that we have there, and it's meant that you can't just cover easily for a miner who has spent 40 years working underground. You can't just ask that person over there, 'Can you quickly lead an underground tour?' So, it's been an extremely stressful summer for the staff at Big Pit. We've been putting support in around that team; we're doing a lot of deep dives around what can we learn. We're getting more of the wider staff at Big Pit trained so that if we do have that situation again, they can deliver underground tours. But it has been a challenging summer at Big Pit.

On the St Fagans issue and the aggressive behaviour you cite there, I would actually say we are experiencing it at every site. When I meet with museum directors across the UK this is the single biggest change since COVID: aggressive behaviour, angry people, very quick to respond. One of the other really awful things that's happening is a phenomenon called social media auditing, where people come in and they wear a camera and they deliberately engage one of our colleagues in conflict. It will usually be a female, junior, and often an ethnic minority, and then they get them into conflict and they monetise that on the web. Colleagues of ours have been victim to that. So, aggressive behavior is not simply limited to St Fagans. We've been putting training in for staff at all sites. Our operations and experience colleagues are really focusing in on that. And as a museum community in the UK, we as directors are looking at that.

In terms of the number of open and closed buildings, we will come back to you on that number. But that is one of the consequences of the cuts. St Fagans now has to run with a smaller budget than it did. Therefore, we can't have as many visitor experience staff on site. What we make sure we do is that we have risk assessments around lone working. So, wherever there is somebody who is working on their own, then that has been fully planned and worked through with them. But it is something that is really frustrating. We've got glorious buildings. One of my absolute favorites from the north, Y Garreg Fawr, is usually closed. But until we have more funding, we can't open more of those buildings.

I am interested in knowing—perhaps you can come back to this—the number of staff you think is the optimum number you need to make St Fagans fully operational.

But you'll be pleased to know, Lis, that I'll turn to the major projects now and ask a question about the National Museum Cardiff 100 project, to see where you are with it in real terms. There's a lot of talk we've heard about it, but what is actually written down on a piece of paper? When is it going to happen? How is it going to be funded? Have you spoken to the unions and staff? Are you phasing it? When is it going to happen? All of those things.

Can I just say that we haven't got much time left? So if you could make it brief. 

Yes, that's why I chucked them all in there.

I'll be as quick as I can, and if ever you wanted a deeper dive on NMC, I'd be really happy to do that, because there's a lot in there. The first point is that we need to split the immediate critical works from the full transformation of the site. There is about £46 million of critical works that are required at NMC. The building is deteriorating more quickly than we are repairing it. This calendar year alone, we have had 10 incidents of leaks/floods. The latest was over the weekend we've just had—yesterday. We are regularly in a position where we're trying to work out whether we can open the next day because of those issues. It is a complex building. There are more than 50 roofs. So, when you say, 'Can't you just fix the roof?', you're kind of like, 'Which one?' The plumbing is all embedded in the walls, so we can't get to the pipes while the building is open. The whole building is completely and totally failing. You can see next door just how bad things have been at City Hall, you can see the scaffolding on the magistrates' court.

What we're doing is keeping the building going so that the collection is as safe as we can make it for now, while we do the deeper work to develop the project. The sum of money that is required for the big project for National Museum Cardiff is such that it is going to probably need two years of planning before we can secure any funding for it. Just as an example, to make that building fit to be able to operate in the future, the latest costings show £66 million worth just of mechanical, electrical and plumbing work—just the boring stuff that nobody sees. We're doing a lot of detailed planning. We are waiting for the outcome of the culture strategy so that we can make sure that project aligns with the Minister's strategic aims, and we will be bringing the outline business case to the Minister for that full project next autumn. But in the meantime, we're in almost daily conversations with officials to get money this year and next to maintain the very basic and most critical infrastructure failings in the building as it stands.

The plan isn't going to be ready until another year. So next August is when you think you can present a plan.

We've done the strategic outline case. There's never one moment of a plan with a project like this. We have a plan, we have a vision, we have drawings, so we have—

Do people know what to expect in terms of timings and whether it's going to be phased? How are the conversations are going? Because there's a lot of uncertainty at the moment. People are talking about it and are worried about it closing. So, if you've got ideas about this, they should be presented so that we can start thinking about these. 

We're meeting with staff. I regularly update staff. We're meeting with unions within days. The reality is that the closure of the museum is separate from the project. The closure is how long can we stay open for. It's not going to be possible to keep that building open indefinitely. So, the closure is a question of when, not if, and we want to be able to do that in a planned way, and we want it to be temporary. But the main plans for the project work through four stages—the Royal Institute of British Architects stages—and we're currently at RIBA stage 2 of those plans. 

So you don't know when. There's no answer to when it might close.

We have scenarios that we are bringing to board in December. There are four different scenarios that we're looking at, and that will be a board decision. 

On the question around process, we're following the Treasury Green Book plan. As Jane said, we submitted the strategic outline case, which sets out the strategic case for change and why NMC requires such a fundamental programme of critical work and transformation. That was submitted at the end of last year. We're now in the middle of pulling together the outline business case, which is the second of the plans. That requires, still, a working up of different options. So, even when we submit the outline business case, we will be submitting options for the Welsh Government to look at, but with a preferred way forward identified within them, which represents the best value for public money. That will be accompanied by a full set of costings, in the way that we are able to do at that point, and at that RIBA stage. 

Hopefully, that gives you a little bit of assurance. We are trying to do that by, probably, quarter 1 or quarter 2 of next year. But what I would say is I would make the invite to this committee to come to NMC and we can give you that full presentation on the vision, the plans, the process—because it's probably an afternoon to take you through it properly—and also to show you some of the very practical issues that we are dealing with in the building at the moment, where we are trying to combine doing the enabling works and some of the critical maintenance work, while still keeping a visitor attraction open every day to the public and maintaining the level of access and experience that visitors expect. 

Thank you very much for that. Diolch yn fawr. 

Diolch yn fawr. This is going to be so fabulous. I appreciate that some Members have been to visit Llanberis, which we really appreciated. I am absolutely as confident as it's wise for a chief exec to be that we will open in spring of 2028. The reason I'm so confident now is that the really tricky bit is when you dig down, because you never know what you're going to find under the ground. And also, because the buildings there are historic buildings, you actually don't know what you're dealing with until you start opening them up. And, sure enough, some of the buildings around the main complex there, when the contractors got into them, they were just all filled with rubble and they all started to go and they suddenly had to be propped up.

Now that we've got under the site, and now that we've dug the foundations and we're starting to build up—the shop is now in place—there are a lot fewer unknowns. So, I am confident that our schedule of building works is likely now to be finished towards the very end of 2027, and then we'll be able to kit the site out again ready for a spring 2028 opening. 

In terms of the main learnings, one of the things we do is we have regular sessions. We delivered a big project in St Fagans in 2019. So, we bring the people who were involved in St Fagans, with the Llanberis people, with the NMC people, and we do the learning between them all. So, St Fagans are helping Llanberis, Llanberis are learning themselves while also feeding into the NMC, and we are looking to phase works in such a way that, when some of the expertise comes to an end with Llanberis, we might be able to pull that over into the NMC project so that we can really build on that learning.

There is a lessons-learned log that we are keeping, and there's a whole load of things on there that we would happily share with you. But it is going to be absolutely phenomenal when it opens. The interpretation scheme is absolutely stunning, and the conservation work that is being done on the building. I was there again a few days ago, and the bits that are now starting to come through and to be completed are looking really beautiful. So, it's going to be something to be proud of, I think.

Can I say two lessons learned from me? Early on in the project, we thought it may be possible to keep elements of the building open for visitors whilst we did the work around them. In a grade I listed building, where the buildings are the museum, that is absolutely impossible, and that has been proved right. So, we were right to close, because that ensures the safety of the buildings, the staff and the contractors who are working on it. It also enables us to do the work more quickly and in a more cost-effective way than if we were trying to still house staff and visitors.

The second learning is to keep an offer open whilst you are closed temporarily, and the staff up in Llanberis have been amazing about delivering a programme called Amgueddfa ar y Lôn. We are in Penrhyn castle, slate splitting. We are in Cei Llechi, and we are also in the quarry hospital on the other side of Llyn Padarn. So, we're still able to tell the story of the quarry, the quarry workers, and the history of slate in that area through different locations and different interventions. So, that would be the two from me.

CELF is something that we are really passionate about in Amgueddfa Cymru, because getting out the contemporary art collection that we hold and that the library holds is absolutely core to our purpose. In terms of the statistics that you were looking for, CELF attracted around 145,000 visitors to our partner galleries, the nine galleries across Wales, since it's been in operation. We have loaned around 45 items to partner venues. Across us and the national library, we've done 63 loans, often of very high-value, high-quality items of contemporary art. The programme has delivered 90 engagement sessions across Wales with a range of children, young people, adult learners et cetera. But I think the key thing for me has been the quality of the exhibitions that have been staged across those nine partner galleries—beautiful shows of the Anita Besson ceramics exhibition in Ruthin Craft Centre; Shani Rhys James and Stephen West doing a double-header in Storiel; Tigers & Dragons in Glynn Vivian, with works that simply would not have got out around Wales in these venues had CELF not been in operation.

So, we fundamentally believe in the programme, and we would absolutely desperately like to see it continue, but funding is an issue because funding comes to an end at the end of March next year. We are absolutely in discussion with the Welsh Government about the future funding for CELF, but we've been very clear that, as a model, it's not self-funding, it's not self-sustainable. And one of the things that the board has asked the collections directorate to do this year is also to quantify some of the in-kind support that Amgueddfa Cymru is providing to the operation of CELF that isn't contained within the grant in aid that we get to run this. And at the moment, we're delivering around £50,000 of in-kind support through technicians, conservators, curators to actually be able to run it, so it's costing us money. So, we do need to have a really serious conversation about how we continue to deliver CELF for next year, because we, the library, the arts council and all of the nine galleries can completely see the value in continuing this and strengthening it for future generations.

Mike, would you like to ask a question here now, at the end?

Diolch, Gadeirydd. Have you considered taking, for example, one room in the Glynn Vivian and keeping it there as part of a contemporary art gallery? If you know the Glynn Vivian, there are lots of rooms in there—actually having one of those rooms as part of a contemporary art gallery. Also, have you considered what I would call the Swansea waterfront museum methodology, where an existing museum or art gallery was merged into the national?

I'm happy to start on the Glynn Vivian question, Mike. I do know the Glynn Vivian very well and it has beautiful spaces and incredible curators there. I think the use of their rooms is probably a question for leaders of the Glynn Vivian rather than Amgueddfa Cymru to suggest. Jane, do you want to talk a little bit about the waterfront?

Yes. The waterfront is a fantastic example of a partnership museum because it's the only one of the museums that is 50:50 funded local authority and us, with, obviously, the Welsh Government as a key partner. I think, Mike, I love the ambition of being able to perhaps expand the portfolio, but my main concern right now is I don't think we can afford the portfolio we've got. So, although I'm always one for big ideas, I think I'm going to have to balk at that one because just keeping seven museums going right now is a bit of a tough ask.

Is the question in relation to the programme CELF, or more generally across—

Generally, sorry, because you have a number of large projects going on, but you also have very high maintenance costs and the money is just not there at the moment, is it? So, how confident are you that these projects are going to be able to be delivered?

It's a tricky one because it's a different level of confidence for each project. At Llanberis, I'm very confident. It's a mature project, it's been proven, it's delivering well in terms of when you do project management, so I'm really confident there. The National Museum Cardiff, you know, as I think one of the Members said, we have no funding in place for the big project, so all we can do is develop the case to try and attract that funding. But we don't have an option of not doing it. As I said, that building cannot remain operating; it is closing itself. So, it would be remiss of us not at least to put forward what we think is the answer for that building and to seek the funding. Whether we get the funding is a completely separate question.

Other projects, like CELF, we're just having to be really clear that however much we think CELF is superb and it is absolutely what Wales should be doing, if there is no money next year, then we cannot continue with CELF, because the bottom line is that the funding model for national museums across the UK is failing. It's all of us. It's all four nations. And that's a result of pressures on the public purse because of the need—. We all know about health and social services, et cetera, but it's also because of massively escalating costs. So, if you think of the increase in heating costs and stuff that we've all got at home, just the utilities bill for Amgueddfa Cymru went up by £300,000 last year. We had £1.5 million-worth of additional costs that we've had to incur around things like cyber security, et cetera. None of that is funded; there's no extra money for it.

But however bad it is across the UK, it is much more acute in Wales, and there are three reasons for that. The first is that we're already starting from a low base. So, your predecessor committee commissioned research that showed that Wales is the second bottom in Europe when it comes to spend on cultural services. So, there's been underinvestment for decades. So, if you're already at the bottom and you haven't got that investment, then the problem is really big. The second factor is that we probably have the most complex and expensive portfolio in the whole of the UK—I wonder whether it might be in Europe and I'm determined to find out. But, you know, which other museums are running a quarry and a mine, and a mill and a farm, and a library and an art gallery and an open-air museum? They tend to do one or maybe two of those. So, it is very complex, and the money that perhaps in another country would just go to its one national museum in the capital, for us, is being spread across a very important but very expensive portfolio. And then the third problem is—it's back to Paul's question—there is no private sector contribution here, however hard we have tried. So, that triple whammy of underinvestment for years of the most complex portfolio in the UK museum sector with no private sector support means this is a very critical time for the museum, and so confidence is a difficult thing to come by right now.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good to see you all.

Thanks. Much to my shame, it was only my first visit to the library earlier this year, but it was really impressive, and I wish I had gone earlier. So, that was great. You mentioned earlier, Ashok, about the pension scheme, and I just wondered if you could give an update as to where you are with that now. There was some talk of industrial action. I don't know whether that's now moved along, but if you could give an update on the proposed changes to the pension scheme, that would be great.

Yes. Well, the planned changes have been paused for now. What happened during the process, certainly this year, was that a couple of things came together—so, some concerns about other terms and conditions came into the discussion. So, what we've done now is ask the executive to constitute another form of social partnership—discussions with the unions and others—and for them then to come back to the board with a way forward. And I think that you had the first meeting last week.

Diolch. Audit Wales published a report last year on some of the challenges facing the National Library of Wales, and I just wondered what progress you've made in terms of their recommendations. They tended to be ongoing, but I just wondered if you've got any sort of feedback on some of the things that they were suggesting you focus on.

Well, what's been interesting is that we've gone through quite a lot of review in the last five years. So, in a sense—. I think that the Audit Wales one was at the end of what was quite a long timetable. If you go back to when I started, the main thing that I inherited was the tailored review recommendations, which have been the main driver. We got to the stage where, actually, last November—yes, November, if I'm right—we were able to finally close on those recommendations.

So, the Audit Wales ones were, in a sense, more general ones. They weren't specifically about our work, whereas the tailored review ones, we did have some really hard ones to work on over that time. I'm not saying that we are in a perfect place, but we've certainly moved a lot in the four years since the tailored review. 

Diolch. I think one of the things that stood out for me when you last came to the committee, when I was watching back on it, was to do with the cyber security risks you mentioned. I think it's something that gets quite overlooked. I'm not sure many people in the general public will know of that significant breach of the British Library's online system back in 2023. So, I was wondering if you could provide an overview of what the situation's looking like for you now, for the library, as of 2026, because I can imagine it's probably changed quite significantly in the past year since you were last here as well.

Thank you. Just a quick one. You talked about the need for financial stability and that you've obviously just been through a period of volatility. What conversations have you had actually with the Welsh Government about funding that is allowing you to do any long-term planning?

Obviously, you're running with a deficit at the moment. How do you feel now, as we go forward, about your resilience to manage shocks in the system, shocks in funding, after having gone through a period of volatility?

Yes, we are carrying a deficit, but it's significantly less than what it was two years ago. In part, that is because the costs have been brought down to a certain extent in terms of the overall staffing costs in particular, but also we've been able to work on other projects—but, as Rhodri was saying, we're chasing those from year to year. Our core grant is quite flat and has been quite flat, like a lot of other organisations, for quite a long time. But the other stuff that we're doing, that we are now getting revenue for, is the stuff that we want to keep building on. That long-term resilience has to be maintained, and what we don't want to do is to start slipping back into deficit. But we've also got quite a strict policy on our reserves and how we want to use those for growth. And so, for some of the stuff that Rhodri was talking about earlier in terms of our six or seven key projects, we want to be able to use some of our reserve money, but for projects that are going to give long-term benefits to the library and to our users. That's where we'd probably be looking for additional support, be it capital or revenue.

Thank you.

Yes. I understand that there's a significant backlog of cataloguing thousands of archived materials and hidden collections of Welsh and Celtic book collections. I just wondered what access there is to these, and what access might be proposed for the future.

It partly answers my next question. What would you like to deliver that you aren't currently capable of delivering as a library, in an ideal world?

You said that you would have developed a business case for a centre of conservation for Wales, hopefully by October of next year. So, we're here now, October of next year—I was wondering if you can give an update on that business plan, where you're at with it.

Sorry, I'd better unmute myself. Can I say how pleased I was to hear that you're using 10 galleries across Wales? Far too often, anything to do with culture is one big building somewhere, normally in Cardiff.

What I was going to ask is: what is the possibility of using public buildings across Wales? I know Swansea Council have used not just the Glynn Vivian, but they've used some of the council buildings to display art. What about using the Senedd, Y Storfa in Swansea, which is the new library in Swansea, or having one room in the Glynn Vivian that is given over to contemporary art?

Well, I was in Oriel Môn on Saturday, and, yes, there are great exhibitions there. But what I'm saying is: couldn't more use be made—? And I did ask it last time; I don't think I asked it in such a way that there was only one answer to it, or two answers—'yes' and 'no': is it not possible to have more things going out into smaller places? The use of one room in the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery for contemporary art, has that been considered?

Obviously, I represent a constituency in one of the more deprived areas, and I think those areas sometimes feel like culture is quite out of reach; it's something that they might not feel like they've got access to as much as other people. You've touched on all the ways that you try and tackle that as a library, to ensure that the work you do is far-reaching across Wales. I just wanted to understand a bit more about how you measure that, how you're ensuring that you're touching every bit of Wales when you're doing the work that you do. Is there a strategy you have? I'd just like to know a bit more about that.