Kids in Museums, the charity founded by journalist Dea Birkett after her two-year-old son was ejected from an exhibition for talking too loudly, has launched its third manifesto, based on the feedback of museum-going families.

The manifesto tells museums that kids can enjoy fine art as much as finger-painting, that they don’t want to be told to be quiet, that museums are places for discussion and chatter, that teenagers need to be catered for as well as toddlers, and that the state of toilets is very important to families.

The launch coincides with the announcement of new support from the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council, which has given £40,000 to “support the work of museums to create enriching and positive experiences for families, young people and children”.

Birkett, now director of the charity which also organises a competition with the Guardian newspaper to find the most family friendly museum, said the grant would make a huge difference at a crucial time: “As well as enabling us to employ people for the first time and set up a working office, it will in particular allow us to develop projects such as Take Your Granny (a scheme to encouraged younger generations to enthuse older relatives with museum-going)”.

The 2009 manifesto is designed for museums, but, said Birkett, could be adapted for any public cultural institutions needing to make themselves more family friendly. “I don’t necessarily agree with all of the points raised, but it was a democratic process and these are what families wanted” she said.

Patron Mariella Frostrup, the radio and television presenter, said that museums had be frightening places for her as a child because warders would not tolerate talking. “They were always telling me to ‘shush’ crossly, and that put me off for years” she said. “Why couldn’t they just have told us something about the displays that would be interesting to us?”

The 20 points respondents called for were:

1. Be welcoming from café to curator.
2. Be accessible or prams and wheelchairs, with automatic doors, lifts and pushchair storage.
3. Give a hand to parents – don’t presume adults have been to a museum before, so help them to help their children enjoy the museum.
4. Be interactive and hands on so kids can touch objects.
5. Be height aware, with objects, art and signage low enough to children to see.
6. Have different things to do with art carts, picture trails, storytelling, and dressing up so parents don’t have to do all the work.
7. Produce guides and trails that children and adults can use together.
8. Provide healthy food and unlimited tap water.
9. Provide great toilets with baby changing facilities and room for pushchairs.
10. Teach kids respect for objects and other visitors, and explain why there are things they can’t touch.
11. Sell items in the shop that aren’t too expensive and not junk.
12. Give free entry wherever possible or family tickets allowing re-entry.
13. Don’t make assumptions about kids likes and dislikes, they can appreciate fine art as well as finger-painting.
14. Provide open space where kids can let off steam.
15. But also have some quiet space where kids and families can reflect together.
16. Don’t say “shush” – why shouldn’t families be able to discuss what the are seeing?
17. Don’t forget teenagers and make sure there’s somewhere for them to store their stuff.
18. Have dedicated family friendly days with extra activities.
19. Remember there’s no typical family, they can span generations.
20. Remember a visit doesn’t end when a family leaves. Many families ant the experience to last, so have follow-up activities and suggestions on the website.

Liverpool Council’s legacy Capital of Culture arts funding is over subscribed by more than twice.

More than 1500 applied for a share of the funding available in the four month bidding process, and city leaders are meeting today to decide how to share the cash among the 67 successful bidders.

Overall, the city is investing £2m more in culture than before it established the Liverpool Culture Company in 2005 to run the Capital of Culture year.

It is a mark of the different attitude to culture on Merseyside brought about by the 2008 European Capital of Culture designation.

It has already been recommended that 33 arts bodies should receive annual funding from the city, a 25% increase more the previous three-year programme, and 26 more than in 2001.

They will share a pot of £7.33m, with another £900,000 earmarked for a strategic development fund designed to enhance the business plans and strategic direction of 11 arts organisations. There is a further £200,000 has set aside for 27 community arts organisations across the city.

“I’m delighted that this city is looking to annually fund the greatest number of arts organisations in our history” said the council’s leader Warren Bradley. “To be able to say that after Capital of Culture should leave no one in any doubt of the council’s commitment to fostering a successful ‘08 legacy. This support will enable the city’s cultural sector to develop and grow, providing a richer and more diverse offer.”

The council’s culture investment strategy has three aims: to establish a vibrant cultural programme; to ensure the people and communities of Liverpool are best served by their cultural organisations; and to develop firm partnerships between the authority and cultural organisations.

Linda Fabiani has been sacked as culture minister in Alex Salmond’s first reshuffle of his SNP Scottish government.

Michael Russell, 55, the environment minister, has been appointed in her place, also taking responsibility for external affairs and constitution. There are three other replacements in the government

Although Salmond said there “have been no failures in the ministerial team, but I have asked them to make way to give colleagues an opportunity to show what they can contribute”, last year’s bungled merger of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen to create Culture Scotland was largely blamed in Fabiani and it had to be effected without Scottish Assembly formal sanction.

Meanwhile, the Scottish government has dropped plans to transfer responsibility for the creative industries from Scottish Enterprise, the country’s economic development agency, to Creative Scotland, meaning that up to £300 million of funding will not be directly available to Creative Scotland. Instead all agencies involved in the creative industries, including Scottish Enterprise and local authorities, will be expected to work together on the basis of a framework laid down by ministers.

In what turned out to be her last act as culture minister, Fabiani said Creative Scotland would have “an advisory, advocacy and brokering role”, in developing the creative industries in Scotland, which are estimated to be worth £5.1 billion and which supports 60,000 jobs.

She admitted that the SNP controlled government had broken its 2007 manifesto pledge to transfer the budgets for the creative industries from Scottish Enterprise to Creative Scotland.

TItian’s Diana and Actaeon has been saved for public display after £50m was raised jointly by the National Galleries of Scotland the National Gallery in London to buy the masterpiece from the Duke of Sutherland. It will be shown alternately at the two venues. The picture is party of thr Bridgewater Collection, owned by the duke but the core of the National Galleries of Scotland’s displays in Edinburgh, consisting of three Raphaels, four TItians, one Rembrandt and eight Poussins. £7.5m of the costs came from the public appeal, the rest from the the Scottish government, the National Gallery, the National Galleries of Scotland, the National Heritage memorial Fund, the Monument Trust and the Art Fund.

The Arts Council has decided to stop its funding of The Public, West Bromwich’s £63m community arts centre. ACE contributed £30m to the capital costs of the centre, which opened last June two years behind time, and had committed to support the digital interactive Public Gallery at a rate of £500,000 a year. However, the gallery has never opened. The decision was made at Sir Christopher Frayling’s last meeting as chair. “We are the national development agency for the arts, and investing in ground breaking creative projects that have the potential to give more people access to great art is central to what we do. That is why we supported this project and why, at every stage, we have worked with our partners and carefully weighed the level of risk involved against the potential public benefit. But the fact is that, although the building is open, the interactive art gallery at the centre of the vision for The Public is not. We have done everything we can but there comes a point where we have to make a difficult judgement - and regretfully, that moment is now.”

The Public has a troubled history. The original vision for a community arts venue where local residents could unleash their creative powers was drawn up in 1994 but had expanded considerably by the time uber-architect Will Alsop was commissioned to design the building. Alsop’s involvement ended in October 2004, 17 months after work began on site, when his practice went bust. But the project suffered another disaster in 2006 when the developers set up to run the project went into administration and the originator of the project, community arts activist Sylvia King, was removed from her post.  By that time nearly £50 million had been spent on the Public by its major backers, Arts Council England, Sandwell Council and Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency, so they put together a rescue package which ensured that the building would open in June last year - 4 years late.
Since then the Public has been racked by further problems- a row over admission prices, the downscaling of visitor numbers and a failure to attract creative businesses to rent space in the building. On the plus side, Wolverhampton University have indicated an interest in taking over a whole floor of the building.

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council have recommended against the purpose-built Museum of British History recommended by the former Home Secretary Lord Baker and supported in principle by the Prime Minister.

Instead, the MLA says, there should be a Museum Centre for British History, a nationwide federated programme involving all collections, supported by digital resources and run by a small team.

It would work with existing museums, galleries, archives, heritage sites and libraries create a complete record of British history with co-ordinated themes across the country. It would collaborate with the tourism authorities and the creative industries to get he programmes to the widest possible audience worldwide. The MCBH would also promote loan programmes to create new exhibitions, some of which would travel, and a programme of national events.

The report, by a team led by MLA chief executive Roy Clare, was commissioned by the DCMS and written last autumn, and then submitted to the department.

It decided against Lord Baker’s recommendation of a building because it could not engage and attract people locally in a way that would promote broader cultural understanding and foster identity. Interpretation would be limited by space, it would be unlikely to reach non-traditional museum audiences, physical access would be limited by costs and travel distance and it would duplicate the contents of existing museums around the country. A major consideration against was also cost: the proposition would need £150m to £200m to realise.

“The story of Britain did not happen in one place and it is best told in a way that embraces the entire country, respects the richness of local and regional identities and unites people of all cultures, creeds and backgrounds” Clare said.

“We examined the case for a single purpose-built institution that some have suggested might be located in London, but we concluded that the various objectives for telling a coherent story nationwide would not be accomplished solely in one location” he said.

Artists are being invited to lead the climate change information assault with £30,000 commissions at stake.

On Tuesday (February 2) John Ashton, foreign secretary David Milliband’s special representative of climate change, is to launch a scheme to develop a mass of artistic work, mainly performing arts, in the context of climate change.

The TippingPoint commissions will be organised by TippingPoint, an organisation dedicated to bringing the creativity of artists to bear on the challenges of climate change.

Artists will be invited to submit projects devised to stimulate audiences towards the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to contemplate and inhabit a world dominated by climate change.

With awards of up to £30,000, short listed artists will have the chance to work with leading scientists to underpin the process of creating new works for a wide range of audiences including the arts, science and business communities.

The author Philip Pullman, a patron of TurningPoint, said: “Artists of every kind have one overriding moral duty, which is to do their work as well as possible. But since that work partly consists of responding to what the world itself is up to, it would be strange if the best work being produced didn’t take some account, in some way, of what’s happening to our climate. Art is not only about beauty: sometimes it has to warn.”

Arts & Business have appointed a national arts director to help forge a new compact with the arts and to help A&B “lead the arts and cultural sector through these chill economic times”.

The appointment of Verity Haines, a former fundraiser and development director at the Royal Society of Arts, is one of a package of measures unveiled this week by A&B, as the survey of business arts support for the arts for 2008 was announced.

The new offer focuses on learning and development, and the best practice needs within the sector. It includes specialist training; new sources of market intelligence which could give access to new streams of private investment; and an enhanced campaign and lobbying presence on behalf of the arts.

“Regardless of the economic climate we have to equip our cultural partners with the confidence, skill and nous to build long-term relationships with the private sector” Haines said. |”It takes two years for these partnerships to fully prosper. We need to perpetually hone our cultural partners; expertise through skills audits and ensure they all have knowledge, market analysis, development opportunities and best practice models to allow their partnerships with the corporate sector to thrive.”

Private sector support for the arts continued to rise to record levels in 2007-08, even though business investment has fallen.

New figures released by Arts & Business show that the bottom line figure was up 12% on the year before to £686m, another record.

While the contribution from private business sank by 7%, individual giving rose by a 25% over what had already been a record the previous year, to £382m.

Added to that, support from trusts and foundations, another growth area in recent years, also increased by 7% to £141m, 21% of the total private investment in the arts.

“As with all parts of the economy, the challenges facing cultural organisations are immense” said Colin Tweedy, chief executive of A & B. “Where will new private donors come from? How can we convince businesses seeking to reengage with consumers to adopt the arts, and will people have the income and inclination to continue to make cultural purchases? Will a prolonged recession damage the arts?”

Although there appeared to be a squeeze on public investment and a reduction in some forms of private giving seemed imminent, by maintaining long term relationships arts and culture could weather the storm, he said.

Respondents to the A&B annual private investment in culture survey showed that private investment in 2007/08 accounted for an average of 13% of their organisations’ total income.

Public sector funding, including funding from the arts councils, the UK ministries of culture, other governmental departments, local authorities, other public subsidies and lottery funding, made up 54% of the total income of cultural organisations. The remaining 33% was raised through earned income, including ticket sales and trading.

A&B said the survey suggested that confidence levels for investing in the arts will begin to pick up after 2013 and at a slower pace, indicating that investment would some years to pass the £700m mark. The cultural sector is entering the downturn in a position of unprecedented strength, Tweedy said, but the sector needed to work together to maintain long term security.

Leading British cities are jostling to be in line to become one of the British Cities of Culture Andy Burnham, culture secretary, wants to see every four years.

Speaking at the end of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, he said he had invited Phil Redmond, the television producer credited with the success of the year on Merseyside, to lead a feasibility panel looking at the idea.

He said that Liverpool’s success had underlined the importance of culture to urban regeneration, and that London no longer had a hegemony of artistic excellence.

“By receiving national recognition as a city of culture, every city in the UK could be given an opportunity to bring out the creative skills, talent and enthusiasm of its people – to showcase itself on the national stage” Burnham said, “and change people’s perceptions of how the city sees itself and how it is seen by the rest of the country.”

The first city to take up the mantle would do so in 2011, as a prelude to the London Olympics the following year. He said Redmond’s panel would “consider how frequently it would be awarded, but a working assumption could be a four-year cycle. It would also need to consider a core list of events that the winning city would gain the right to host – events such as the Turner Prize or the Brit Awards and a range of others.

“I’m delighted that the BBC has already indicated its enthusiasm to play a central part in making Cities of Culture a reality.”

The cities that have already put their hats in the ring include Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Durham and Derby.

Durham city councillors announced they were putting together a £1.6million arts masterplan in time for 2011.

In Derby, Quad director Keith Jeffrey said Derby would be able to make a good case for the title. “Derby would be an outsider but going for the title would raise the profile of the city” he said.

The heads of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Opera North and Northern Ballet Theatre have urged Leeds councillors to make a bid. Richard Mantle, general director of Opera North said: “I think Leeds has a lot to play for. There are very few cities in Britain that are home to a resident Opera company, that also has dance companies – we have two – and we have repertory theatre.”

And in Birmingham, Ray Hassall, the cabinet member for culture, said that the city already had a considerable track record in hosting cultural events. “We are extremely keen to enter into talks with the Department for Culture Media and Sport to see how our great city can benefit from this long overdue initiative.”

Meanwhile, Nalgao, the association of local government arts workers, has welcomed Burnham’s proposal. Nalgao chair Lorna Brown said: “Liverpool’s Capital of Culture programme would not have happened without a committed and imaginative local authority at its core. It is also heartening to find central government finally acknowledging the role and power of culture in regeneration, recognising the importance of culture in a recessionary times”. Nalgao also wants any examining committee to draw eligibility criteria broadly enough to include Britain’s smaller cities.