I agree Spencer... issue will always be that people don't want to pay for things they feel do not affect them. From the extremes of talking to a bloke in Glasgow, who could not see why he should pay taxes to repair roads in Caithness - since he'd never been to Caithness.... to the classic Moon landing response:

"A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the Moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the Moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the Moon)
Ten years from now I'll be paying still.
(while Whitey's on the Moon)"

Most people, if only to judge from my comically low YouTube hits (!!) would seem to be totally uninterested in archaeology, the past, in where they came from? So axe that from funding and you'll get the least complaints. Job done.

Seems to me a lot more of the onus is going to fall to amateurs like us who do give a damn, just as it was some gentry in the Victorian period. I look at old photos and descriptions of places from antiquity and they are beyond priceless. To me. Whereas if you are in a Moss Side juvenile gang... or were in a Victorian workhouse such stuff seems irrelevant.