Lottery Fund backs urgent action to update the nation's museums

The parlous state of British museums is underlined today by a new report that calls for a big modernisation programme to save them.

The report, UK Museums Needs Assessment, discovered that a quarter of museums and galleries did not even have labels or explanations of their collections and 60 per cent of their stores were severely or badly overcrowded.

Half of museums did not have the resources to update their websites and their computers, at an average six years old, were almost museum pieces themselves.

The research by the Heritage Lottery Fund assessed how best it might be able to help. Its findings are published in conjunction with Resource, the council for museums, archives and libraries.

They reinforce Resource's recent pleas to Government for an urgent injection of £267m to stave off the worst effects of under-funding.

Anticipating criticisms head-on, the report acknowledges: "There is a danger that a comprehensive needs analysis like this turns into a whinge about money. 'Need' is a dangerous concept for the public sector. To elevate a demand from the desirable to the essential risks creating a hostage to fortune. Why are all these 'needs'?

"It has never been clearer that looking after our local, regional and national heritage, making it accessible to the community, is essential to a civilised society."

Some of the needs identified were critical, such as where poor conditions threatened damage to collections, the report says. Other needs were critical if opportunities were not to be lost, such as the chance to acquire objects. The British Museum, one of the most important in the world, now has an acquisitions budget of only £100,000 a year and most big regional museums and galleries no longer have any budget at all to buy new items.

The Heritage Lottery Fund ordered the research to help it to decide how best to help. Museums and galleries are one of the five areas of the nation's heritage which it supports with grants totalling £300m a year. Others include the natural environment and the country's industrial heritage.

"The sector will need to embark on a radical programme of modernisation and development," the report concludes. "It is clear that much needs to be done to create a 21st-century museums service in the UK."

But it also makes clear that the Government has a responsibility to take the lead. "This process must be led from the centre," it says.

Stuart Davies, Resource's director of strategy and planning, said: "This needs assessment reveals some stark truths about the UK's museums and galleries.

"We need to address these problems so that museums can fulfil their huge potential in creativity, learning, social cohesion and community development. Museums are the guardians and storehouses of our past."

£ British Museum staff will stage a one-day strike today in protest at £6m of budget cuts. The walkout means the museum will be unable to open as normal for the first time in its history.