Sector subsidy holds steady?

Public funding to the arts sector increased by five per cent during the worst of the financial crisis in 2008/09, while private investment fell by seven per cent according to statistics found in ‘Arts Funding in a Cooler Climate’, a paper by Martin Smith (former chairman of the Young Vic) and published by Arts & Business. Smith characterises the UK’s arts funding system as “structurally robust by international standards, but also potentially vulnerable”. Given that 53% of the income received by the arts sector comes from public funding, with only 32% generated by earned income, the latter statement is of little surprise. Smith’s paper also argues that a proportion of current funding should be put aside in the form of Cultural Entrepreneurship Funds “to enable more experimentation and evaluation of new business models to take place”.
The paper also confirms that of the total 15% of arts income sourced through private investment in 2008/09, translating to £305m in monetary terms, Arts & Business was responsible for brokering roughly a quarter of that – between £65m and £79m – to its members. The organisation received a public sector grant of £5.1m in the same year to help achieve that leverage.