Further cuts in store at Northamptonshire County Council heritage department

Description

The Northamptonshire County Council Archive and Heritage Service ‘Archives, Heritage and History’ are based in Northampton and currently undertakes a number of key heritage roles for the county, including:
 Running the County Archives and Records Office
 Curating and maintaining the Historic Environment Record
 Looking after 24 ‘County Heritage Sites’ and maintaining public access to these sites
 Hosting the Northamptonshire Portable Antiquities Scheme (as a partnership scheme with DCMS, The British Museum and all of the other local authorities across the county)
 Heritage education and outreach

The service has already seen its budget cut several times, with a number of staff losses in the past 3 years.

The proposed target in 2012/13 was to find an equivalent of a 35% saving of the salaries budget for the service.
( http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/en/councilservices/Council/equalities/Documents/PDF%20Docume
nts/Budget%202013-14/11-002-05-and-11-002-07a-ArchivesHeritage.pdf)

Northamptonshire Archaeology, previously run by the council, was also outsourced to MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) in January 2014.
The County Council are now proposing to cut a further £25,000 from the Archive and Heritage Service budget for 2015/16, with the majority of savings to be found through a reduction in staff numbers. This will inevitably have a significant effect on the department and the service that they are able to provide.

LHEN believes that this saving will target the post of Historic Environment Record Officer, making the post redundant and replacing it with a part time Historic Environment Record Assistant. This degrading of the post will likely impact the capacity and quality of the HER service in the county – a vital component of the authority’s ability to deliver sound archaeological advice within the planning system.