Many thanks to you all for supporting this petition, and for the many comments you’ve submitted. Through a Freedom of Information request, we now have access to the independent review of the Art Collection commissioned by the Council in 2016. From this it would appear that Hertfordshire County Council may be wilfully acting against the advice of the professional art consultants it employed. The consultants specifically warn against using relevance to Hertfordshire as the basis for reducing the Schools Art Loan Collection, but that’s exactly what the Council has decided to do. The consultants also say that selling the more valuable items in this Collection to fund the retention of less valuable items makes no cultural or business sense, yet this seems to be the route the Council is taking. The report suggests several possible options that the Council could follow and also some alternative ways to raise funds to help manage the Collection. In the light of this report, we will be writing to the Council to request an immediate suspension of its current plans and an urgent review of this issue. Meanwhile, the Council’s public consultation finishes in just a few days‘ time at the end of March. We must try to stop the Council proceeding with its current plans and encourage it to seek alternative options. Please do whatever you can to help spread word of this situation and to encourage others to support this petition. Many thanks. Armaiti Some quotes from the report regarding the Schools Art Loan Collection (SLC): '… the collection includes some important works, and is particularly strong in unique works by mid-20th century British artists.' 'The original brief for this project gave special significance to works of art that have relevance to Hertfordshire. As our survey of the SLC progressed it became increasingly clear that so few of the items had any connection with Hertfordshire at all that this criterion hardly applies. Relevance to the County does not seem to have governed acquisition policy at all in the early decades of the SLC’s history; instead, what did govern it was quality. The idea of acquiring items with an association with the County only appears to have become more dominant in recent decades …. Placing too much emphasis on this factor would therefore distort the results of this survey and possibly encourage the jettisoning of quality works of art in favour of those of less cultural worth. We strongly recommend therefore that the most important criterion in assessing the SLC should be that of cultural significance.' '… the implications of selling items from a publicly-funded collection of artefacts, acquired for the use of schoolchildren, would risk reputational damage for the County ….' 'The original brief of this survey was to identify individual items that could be sold to generate funds to care for the remainder. In this case the most ‘valuable’ items … would fit this category. However, such a decision – to sell assets to protect liabilities – would seem bizarre in business terms.' 'Selling off items of high cultural value in order to care for those of less such value would be difficult to justify in business terms and would bring possible reputational damage.' 'Consequences of disposal: negative national and local publicity and reputational damage major cultural loss for the County and loss of its local history creation of unwelcome precedent for other local authority collections failure to fulfil terms of care and preservation discouragement to possible donors loss of marketing potential reduction in County pride/sense of belonging/localism loss of a resource for stakeholders/researchers/visitors/educators'