Taking ACE support away from the regions damages the chances of organisations sustaining local authority support, while the big five grant recipients remain largely unaffected by cuts, argues Adrian Lochhead.
If it wasn’t a crisis before it is now.
The 10% local authority cut by central government is a disaster for arts organisations up and down the country, but rather than being helpless this is something that the Arts Council can respond to and must. If not decades of work will be thrown away and may not be replaced for decades to come, if ever. But there is an alternative strategy.
As the Arts Council ponders how to deliver the 5% reduced funding (on top of the 30% over the last few years) that has been settled on by the DCMS for 2015/16 (and onwards), the real double whammy for arts organisations comes with the subsequent information that local authorities face a 10% cut in the £21bn they currently receive from central government.
On the one hand ACE has been talking about the inevitability that it will reduce the number of arts organisations that it funds on three year funding plans (the National Portfolio Organisations or NPOs), on the other hand many of these organisations are also funded by local authorities. Despite the Culture Minister, Maria Miller’s claims in the Guardian that the arts are in good hands with this government and that the sector is being unnecessarily gloomy, the potential for devastation across the arts nationally is very real.
As Nicholas Hytner said only a few months ago the disaster is not to to the big organisations "whose priviledged status and ability to raise funds shelter them, but for the majority of others....especially those outside London".
In recent times local authorities in Somerset, Newcastle, Westminster have all either threatened or delivered 100% cuts to the arts, and while these stand-out examples grab the headlines how many others have been steadily reducing their support? - I know mine has, we are small but I'm guessing that we are a litmus example - 40% less funding than three years ago...
If it wasn’t a crisis before it is now.
The 10% local authority cut by central government is a disaster for arts organisations up and down the country, but rather than being helpless this is something that the Arts Council can respond to and must. If not decades of work will be thrown away and may not be replaced for decades to come, if ever. But there is an alternative strategy.
As the Arts Council ponders how to deliver the 5% reduced funding (on top of the 30% over the last few years) that has been settled on by the DCMS for 2015/16 (and onwards), the real double whammy for arts organisations comes with the subsequent information that local authorities face a 10% cut in the £21bn they currently receive from central government.
On the one hand ACE has been talking about the inevitability that it will reduce the number of arts organisations that it funds on three year funding plans (the National Portfolio Organisations or NPOs), on the other hand many of these organisations are also funded by local authorities. Despite the Culture Minister, Maria Miller’s claims in the Guardian that the arts are in good hands with this government and that the sector is being unnecessarily gloomy, the potential for devastation across the arts nationally is very real.
As Nicholas Hytner said only a few months ago the disaster is not to to the big organisations "whose priviledged status and ability to raise funds shelter them, but for the majority of others....especially those outside London".
In recent times local authorities in Somerset, Newcastle, Westminster have all either threatened or delivered 100% cuts to the arts, and while these stand-out examples grab the headlines how many others have been steadily reducing their support? - I know mine has, we are small but I'm guessing that we are a litmus example - 40% less funding than three years ago...