Local thinking

I asked David Cameron for my job as Shadow Culture Minister. I thoroughly enjoy it, and I hope I will keep it if we win the next election, and hold on to it for a considerable period of time, at least long enough to make a difference. The Conservative Culture team has been developing our policy plans in detail. Culture permeates every aspect of our life; it is the hallmark of a civilised society. We’re good at it, and our culture has thrived in the last 15 years, thanks to the huge injection of cash provided by the National Lottery, set up by the Conservatives. I believe that the arts, far from being subsidy junkies, provide excellent value for public money: subsidy only represents around a third of the income of most subsidised arts organisations, with the rest made up by sponsorship and ticket sales. For this modest investment, we get back some of the best arts to be found anywhere in the world. Along with heritage, which receives even less subsidy, we have the main driver for tourism, our fifth biggest industry. And we have a sector that plays a crucial role in employment, civic pride, urban regeneration, education and health.

I am an optimist, but I would also like to sound a word of caution: We are developing our ideas in the context of ongoing concern about the state of the economy, and of course this translates into concern about funding. We believe that the real solution to worries about funding is to get the economy and Government finances back on track. But there will be short-term pain. I hope that we can protect the front-line arts as much as possible, and work to reduce bureaucracy. I have set out our plans for the Lottery, arts and the arts council, heritage, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, education and Cultural Olympiad recently.

LOCAL AGENDA
There is one particular area that I would like to bring to the attention of AP readers: the Conservative localism agenda. Our Communities and Local Government team have put forward proposals which will have significant implications for the cultural community, both cultural centres and arts organisations that operate mainly locally and regionally, and for nationally funded projects. I encourage anyone who runs a local or regional arts organisation, or is developing ideas for a nationally funded project, to look at our Green Paper on the subject. It’s called ‘Control Shift, Returning Power to Local Communities’, and you can find it on the Conservatives’ website. There are two proposals there which have implications for the arts. First, we will bring in a power to allow local people to trigger referendums, by legislating to ensure that referendum will be held in a local authority area if 5% of local citizens sign a petition in favour of within a six month period. There are both opportunities and threats for cultural organisations funded by local authorities in this measure. The opportunity will be for an arts centre that has a strong relationship with its community to campaign for a referendum to protect their funding, if it were under review. However, there is also a threat here – an arts centre which does not have strong links with its local community could be vulnerable to local residents triggering a referendum asking for its funding to be spent elsewhere.

WHITE ELEPHANTS
Secondly, we will give local people greater control over how central Government funds are spent in their area. We will use the Sustainable Communities Act 2007, which is already in law in England and Wales, to enable local governments to identify money spent in their area by central government agencies, which will include the arts councils. If, after consultation with local people, there are recommendations of ways in which it could be better spent on a particular priority for the community, the money will be redirected towards fulfilling that priority wherever possible. This will mean that a local authority could intervene in a project like The Public, and get it stopped, and the money redirected to priorities for the local community, rather than creating a wasteful white elephant. It will also mean that new plans for arts and cultural centres that are hoping to get and keep central government funding through the arts councils will only bring these projects to fruition if they build support in the community it will be situated in, and plan their project with that community in mind, from the very outset. This is a considerable shift in emphasis from the current Government’s top-down approach, where once a project is signed off centrally it goes ahead whether it is what the local community wants or not. It will mean better arts and cultural centres, which are more closely tied to and respond and serve their communities better. These plans fit with our intention to creating a transparent, cost effective framework that allows the sector as a whole to thrive and not just survive.