Roger Tomlinson sets out the three challenges facing Arts Council England, two weeks after the Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital report.
Two weeks after the publication of the Stark/Gordon/Powell report on Rebalancing our cultural capital, about arts funding in England, it has been interesting to see the reaction. Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of Arts Council England (ACE) got it most right when on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he both acknowledged that there was an imbalance and said that ACE should be judged on the situation in two years time.
Unfortunately both Alan Davey, Chief Executive of ACE and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) got it wrong, coming out with statements that did not help. Davey said “The per capita figures in the report give a misleading impression that London is just for Londoners… They have a role in artistic development, pioneering digital platforms and touring across England” and failed to address the fundamental issue of the huge disproportionate imbalance. While DCMS described the arts and culture in England as being “in very good shape at the moment with huge investment from both the National Lottery and taxpayers’ money”. Frankly this is just not good enough for such a significant matter.
The first challenge to ACE is that its policy statements since the early 1980s have clearly focused on distribution and access to the arts throughout originally the UK and latterly England. From the Glory of the Garden in 1984 to the 2010 Great Art for Everyone, embarrassingly reiterated only last week, it is clear that rhetoric has been more important than delivery. This is important – this is mostly public money from taxation which must be distributed fairly. Painfully, the lottery funds come from mostly low income families, and least from London. The funds have clearly not been distributed fairly on any population or geographical basis. The last NPO round clearly saw arts organisations in the regions not funded because there was not enough money to go round. But patently there was enough if the distribution followed population patterns and was not London-centric.
Two weeks after the publication of the Stark/Gordon/Powell report on Rebalancing our cultural capital, about arts funding in England, it has been interesting to see the reaction. Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of Arts Council England (ACE) got it most right when on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he both acknowledged that there was an imbalance and said that ACE should be judged on the situation in two years time.
Unfortunately both Alan Davey, Chief Executive of ACE and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) got it wrong, coming out with statements that did not help. Davey said “The per capita figures in the report give a misleading impression that London is just for Londoners… They have a role in artistic development, pioneering digital platforms and touring across England” and failed to address the fundamental issue of the huge disproportionate imbalance. While DCMS described the arts and culture in England as being “in very good shape at the moment with huge investment from both the National Lottery and taxpayers’ money”. Frankly this is just not good enough for such a significant matter.
The first challenge to ACE is that its policy statements since the early 1980s have clearly focused on distribution and access to the arts throughout originally the UK and latterly England. From the Glory of the Garden in 1984 to the 2010 Great Art for Everyone, embarrassingly reiterated only last week, it is clear that rhetoric has been more important than delivery. This is important – this is mostly public money from taxation which must be distributed fairly. Painfully, the lottery funds come from mostly low income families, and least from London. The funds have clearly not been distributed fairly on any population or geographical basis. The last NPO round clearly saw arts organisations in the regions not funded because there was not enough money to go round. But patently there was enough if the distribution followed population patterns and was not London-centric.