Treasury urged to back £1.5m theatre scheme for children

The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) and UK Theatre have called upon the government to back a proposed £1.5m pilot scheme to offer free theatre visits to 14-year-olds in culturally deprived areas of the country.

In a letter to the Treasury outlining the sector’s priorities ahead of this month's budget, SOLT and UK Theatre put forward the initiative as a more affordable alternative to their Theatre for Every Child scheme, which launched last year with the aim of securing £34m of annual funding to support 800,000 visits to the theatre.

Acknowledging the “current challenging fiscal environment”, the sector support bodies are instead asking the government to fund a reduced plan to identify three towns with “cultural deprivation” as pilot areas where 37,000 14-year-olds would be offered a funded theatre trip, including travel.

READ MORE:

• National Theatre 'at risk of shutdown without DCMS subsidy'
• UK theatres at risk of becoming 'too unsafe to use'

SOLT and UK Theatre suggest that backing the scheme would help the government fulfil its election promise to “increase children’s access to culture" and "break down the barriers to opportunity”.

The scheme is one of three measures SOLT and UK Theatres say the Treasury could adopt to aid the sector and help deliver the government’s “key missions”. 

Derived from previous studies commissioned by SOLT and UK Theatres, the recommendations call for long-term sector support but focus on short-term, essential measures that require smaller sums of money.

Piecemeal rather than strategic

The letter also urges HMT to back a £30m emergency capital investment pot for 2025/26 to support essential theatre repairs.

Welcoming the previous government’s announcement of capital investment of £1.6m for Theatr Clwyd and £26.2m for The National Theatre in the Spring Budget 2024, SOLT and UK theatre warn that “a systematic and strategic” UK-wide approach to theatre infrastructure is needed to avoid the closure of a number of venues in 2025/2026.

SOLT and UK Theatre estimate that 20 to 30 projects could be supported by the fund and say that the subsidy would, in some cases, enable projects to attract additional investors.

Noting a discrepancy between Arts Council England funding available for maintenance projects for theatres compared with museums and galleries, SOLT and UK Theatre say the status of performance venues as guardians of cultural assets is poorly understood by policymakers and call existing funding streams for theatre infrastructure projects “piecemeal rather than a strategic”.

Alongside emergency funding, SOLT and UK Theatre say a long-term approach is also needed and ask government to make £300m available over the next 10 years for capital investment to support around 220 venues.

SOLT and UK Theatres also advise that a strategic review of public investment in the performing arts is needed to ensure that national, regional, and local investments can fulfil their potential and achieve the best return for taxpayers. 

The support bodies say they are working with members to devise a proposed set of standards for public investment in performing arts and are seeking to work with HMT and DCMS to refine and agree on the principles, which they say will support the delivery of Labour's goal to “kick-starting the economy”.