Labour councillor highlights £469k raised from auctioned artworks by Herts County Council

LABOUR councillor Sharon Taylor has highlighted the £469,000 that was raised from the auction of county council artworks, at a meeting of the county council’s audit committee.

The money was raised from the sale of 450 of the council’s artworks in a series of three public auctions in 2019.

And the funds, it was said, would be used to improve the condition of the remaining artworks and to increase public visibility of the council’s nationally-significant sculptures.

Last week the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that by April 2023 – four years after the auction – just over £100,000 of that had been spent.

And the county council told the LDRS that the monies were ‘ring-fenced’ – and would be used over coming years, as required.

On Friday (July 21) Labour Cllr Sharon Taylor asked for more information on the remaining funds, at a meeting of the county council’s audit committee.

“There was £469,000 raised which was intended to be set aside to improve access to remaining artworks and renovation and conservation of those artworks,” she said.

“[…] I have trawled through the accounts and I can’t find it anywhere.

“And I just wanted to know whether that money is still being held on behalf of the people of Hertfordshire to improve access to our artworks – or if it’s accidentally got absorbed into other budgets somewhere.”

Cllr Taylor told the committee she had already written to director of finance Steven Pilsworth, who she said had committed to get back to her in writing.

But she said it was relevant to the audit committee, because the money was understood to have been in a ring-fenced reserve for a specific purpose.

In response, Mr Pilsworth told the meeting that the council had agreed to sell part of the art collection in 2017.

He said this followed a review of the collection that had found that much of it was in storage and not on display – with a number of works needing restoration work.

And he said the decision was taken to sell some of the works and use a ‘proportion of the funding to re-invest back into that restoration and display activity’.

Mr Pilsworth told the committee that the people who had worked on this for the council – between 2017 and the 2019 auctions – no longer worked for the council.

And he told Cllr Taylor that they were tracking back in order to update her as soon as possible.

In response to initial enquiries by the Local Democracy Reporting Service a spokesperson for the county council said that money ‘identified for this process’ was ‘ring-fenced’.

And he said it ‘would be used over the coming years to continue the work as required’.

Of the money raised from the auction, £49,650 has already been used for ‘physical work’ to the Hepworth sculpture Turning Forms and a further £1,674 for tapestry preservation.

And £53,000 has been used to pay for council officer time – to curate the collection (£10,000), working on ‘Turning Forms’ (£25,000) and for photography and cataloguing (£18,000).

As a result of work already undertaken images of the sculptures have been added to The Art UK website – with images of all the artworks also available on the council’s website.

Meanwhile a further £37,000 is said to have been has been ring-fenced for further ‘art collection work programmes’ this year (2022/23).

As previously reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, 189 artworks have remained ‘on display’ in schools, academies, libraries and in County Hall.

They include three of the council’s four nationally significant sculptures – Henry Moore’s ‘Family Group’; Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Eocene’ and ‘Turning Forms’.

The fourth sculpture – the statue of Queen Eleonor, originally at Waltham Cross – is on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum.