Maria Balshaw’s appearance on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs was controversial for more than her choice of music. The head of the Tate art galleries used the innocuous platform to defend the gallery’s decision to cut some 200 jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In her interview, Balshaw mused: "Sadly at the moment the trading business is too big.”
When probed further by Lauren Laverne, who mentioned the current "question mark over 200 jobs at Tate Enterprises", given the fact that "no redundancies have been announced at the galleries", Balshaw responded that the company had elected to delay job losses "for as long as we can".
She continued that fewer staff will be needed overall, as visitor numbers are expected to stay at around 50 per cent for "quite a long time".
On the programme, she continued that: "We are consulting with staff about redundancies. But we have used as much of our own reserves as we can to preserve the jobs throughout this period.
"So staff were kept on 100 per cent pay all the way through lockdown, and we've delayed this period of consultation for as long as we can.
"We don't want to lose any staff, but we know we have to, otherwise the business won't be able to trade."
The Tate has faced protests over their decision to reduce the number of staff, with crowds gathering outside the gallery upon its recent reopening.
Balshaw concluded: "as visitors do return and as we get properly post-Covid, they [the affected workers] will be given the first option to come back and work for us because we recognise the hard work that they do and how valuable they are to us".
