Local investment for local engagement

In his speech to the Conservative Party conference John Whittingdale said: “Sporting success starts at the grass roots and encouraging grassroots sport helps achieve other goals too. A good sports policy is a good health policy, a good social policy and a good anti-crime policy. And because it makes people fitter, it’s a good economic policy too…” Nobody denies these claims for sport backed up (as they are) by a large body of research. More recent evidence from long-term studies in Scandinavian countries and the US is showing that, on average, people who take part in arts activities live longer, healthier lives than people of similar ages and backgrounds who don’t. The evidence also suggests that being actively involved in some kind of participatory arts activity, such as dancing, singing or taking part in an art workshop, is likely to have a more positive effect on health than passively spectating. Interestingly, that same research affirms the role of the professional artist – either as the skilled mediator of positive group activities or as the performer, musician or artist producing inspirational, life-changing experiences for audiences.

It is only through local and ‘shared-local’ and regional partnerships and organisations… that we can begin to address the scale of the task

Arts Council England’s ‘holistic case for culture’ does indeed emphasise the economic, social, health and educational benefits that arts investment can bring. As in sport however, so in the arts, such benefits flow principally from investment in active participation and in the facilities, resources and accessible skills that can assist individuals and communities to realise them. However geographically mobile some of us may be privileged to be during parts of our lives, for almost all of us our ‘live’ experience of the arts and culture is, first and last, local. If we are to achieve these desired outcomes, then local investment for local engagement is the key.

This simple fact seems to be reflected in the almost identical directions given to the distributing bodies for the Lottery (Sport England and Arts Council England). The following needs were highlighted in the recent select committee report on Arts Council England:

• to increase access and participation for those who do not currently benefit from the cultural opportunities available in England
• to foster local community initiatives which bring people together, enrich the public realm and strengthen community spirit
• to support volunteering and participation in the arts and community arts
• to involve the public and local communities in making policies, setting priorities and distributing money.

Plus, the desirability of ensuring equality of opportunity, reducing economic and social deprivation and ensuring that all areas of England have access to the money distributed.

What we have seen instead is a continuing emphasis on the funding of national portfolio organisations (NPOs) that are then required to address some of these outcomes through their work. This is despite the fact that for most of them these outcomes would be at best secondary objectives. Alternatively, and after a 46% cut in budget between the last two triennia of funding programmes, very large (and very unsustainable) budgets are allocated to a small number of Creative People and Places (CPP) projects.

In a time of continued austerity, any national arts policy to deliver individual and community wellbeing and other benefits through participation and engagement locally has to be built on partnerships that draw in local government, the health sector, the voluntary sector and local artists and small companies (as well as NPOs and major partner museums).

And the challenge is huge. In England there are 20,000 primary and secondary schools, 27,000 care homes, 12,000 GP group practices and health centres, 3,000 libraries and 1,400 hospitals. It is only through (often new) local and ‘shared-local’ and regional partnerships and organisations, structured to work across sectors, that we can begin to address the scale of the task and find the opportunities that still exist. Such new ways of doing things locally are already being developed, although often through force majeure, as the joint initiative Our Cultural Commons by Voluntary Arts and Arts Development UK has shown. Many of them are also beginning to engage with the estimated 49,000 voluntary, cultural groups which in turn regularly involve some 10 million people, and almost all of them still work closely with local authorities. Numbers that might be at a scale to contribute to addressing the challenge and the opportunity.

The problem is that a strategy based on NPOs (653 of them) and CPP projects (21) has no ability to address either the scale of the challenge or the opportunity. And the situation is about to get worse. Whatever the outcome of the spending review, there seems certain to be fewer NPOs after 2018. This will be a direct and very sad consequence of the further reduction in Treasury funding that has been indicated.

At the moment, increasing amounts of Lottery funding are being allocated in ACE’s annual budgets to substitute for revenue funding previously provided by Treasury funds. This means that a growing number of NPOs are coming to rely on the Lottery for core support. Looking forward from 2018, there had been expectations that the Lottery substitution strategy would be able to be used again and that the requirement for Lottery-funded activity to be ‘additional’ to activities previously funded from Treasury sources would be quietly dropped. It now appears that this may not be the case. Appearing before the select committee in September that John Whittingdale used to chair, and addressing the good news that while Treasury funding was decreasing, Lottery funds were increasing, he said: “What we can’t do is substitute directly. That would be against all the principles of the Lottery. It is for additional benefit and that is a principle I support.”

If government wishes to maximise the benefits arts participation can generate in society, then the White Paper provides the ‘once in 50 years’ opportunity to frame a national policy for culture designed from the beginning to offer the possibility of creative engagement to the whole population. Major cultural organisations have an important role to play in this, as Premier League clubs do in delivering grassroots football, but they are only a small part of the equation.

Peter Stark is part of GPS Culture and is Chair of Voluntary Arts until the end of October.
www.gpsculture.co.uk
www.voluntaryarts.org

Peter will be speaking on this issue at Everyone an Artist?, a symposium investigating connections between culture, society and health and wellbeing at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea on Friday 30 October.