News / We The Curious
Job losses ‘inevitable’ at We The Curious
Losses in revenue of almost £2m in this financial year have meant that We The Curious has been forced to make some drastic decisions to ensure its continued survival.
A redundancy process has now commenced with staff, with job losses inevitable as bosses say that significant savings are “urgently” needed to be made in every area including 33 per cent of its annual salary bill.
The move comes due to the reduction of visitor income combined with a lack of government support packages for science centres.
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The job losses are not set to affect Project What If, a groundbreaking new exhibition on the ground floor of We The Curious which is due to be launched when the building on Millennium Square reopens in November.
An artists impression of Project What If, which will be the first major science centre exhibition in the UK inspired entirely by the curiosity of a city’s residents – image: We The Curious
We The Curious chief executive, Donna Speed, said that “this is a difficult and saddening time for our whole team”.
She said: “Redundancies are our absolute last resort, and like many, we’ve tried everything to avoid being in this position.
“Since our enforced closure in March, we entered into the process with two key principles; to protect our staff and to protect our charity.
“Since then, our income has shrunk significantly, we’ve done everything that we can to remain resilient and constantly adapt but sadly the economic impact caused by the pandemic means that we simply can’t maintain our current staffing levels.”
At-Bristol relaunched as We The Curious in September 2017, with a new vision committed to creating a culture of curiosity – photo by Martin Booth
Redundancies at We The Curious follow a sadly familiar pattern across Bristol, with redundancies also recently announced at both Bristol Old Vic and the Tobacco Factory Theatres.
Being neither a museum, a frontline crisis charity or an art gallery, We The Curious is not currently eligible for the recently announced Government Covid-19 support packages.
We The Curious remains committed to being a Real Living Wage employer and has pledged to safeguard their funded projects, and projects with young people and communities.
Speed added: “We’re also ensuring that when we do reopen our visitor experience remains a quality and trusted experience , as we need the support of our visitors, partners and funders in order to be here for our future audiences.
“So it’s with heavy hearts that we’re now speaking with our teams, and starting the restructure process.
“Everyone has worked so hard over the past few years on Project What If, and we still plan to reopen in November with the new exhibition, but sadly our team will be in a different shape to what we’ve been working on until now.”
Main photo by Martin Booth
Read more: We The Curious first science centre in world to declare climate emergency
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