Number crunching

I would like to take issue with the figures given in the item ‘Sector subsidy holds steady?’ (AP224, p3).

 If (and it’s a big if) you accept Arts & Business’s (A&B) claim to leverage an extra 24–30% more private investment for their members than those arts organisations would otherwise manage to raise, the statement quoted in the item that they broker £65–£79m is still wildly overstated. The author of the paper, John Holden, has calculated that figure on the basis of the entire amount of private investment in the arts in 2008/09, rather than just business investment, which is the only element of that income stream A&B (to give it its due) claims to broker. Seventy-five per cent of private funding that year came from individuals or trusts and foundations on which A&B’s own research shows it does not leverage. The figure should be £17–£22m – and that’s if you accept that the arts organisations who achieved that business investment managed to do so because they were members of A&B.

You might have thought that A&B would have corrected the overstatement, given that they commissioned the report, but then perhaps it was too good a gift horse to look in the mouth.