Ed Vaizey says NO
The coalition has had to make tough decisions to bring the deficit down. And the arts budget has not been immune. But Jeremy Hunt worked hard to ensure we could get the best deal possible for the arts It's tempting to see the glass as only half full. But consider this.
We have committed nearly £1.5bn of taxpayers' money to go to Arts Council England (ACE) over the next four years, with the budget for funding arts organisations, ACE's core business, reduced by less than 15 per cent. And something that people seem almost wilfully to have ignored - we have reformed how lottery money is allocated to boost the arts share by £50m each year from 2012. Taken together, this means that the overall funding for the Arts Council will fall by just 11 per cent.
Given the scale of the public deficit, this is a good settlement for the arts. Right across Whitehall, ministers have been making the case for their sectors, and while we are in no doubt that any cut to funding is tough, it was never going to be possible for the arts to be immune from a share of the pain.
It is true that the Arts Council must bear a higher percentage cut to its budget than the organisations it funds, but that is part of a very deliberate strategy to direct public money where the public gets most benefit. We want the absolute maximum amount of money to go directly to those organisations that produce great cultural works enjoyed by audiences the length and breadth of the country.
Britain has some of the finest cultural institutions in the world, and we are determined to protect them so they can be enjoyed by everybody now and in the future.
To ensure that we protect our cultural core for the long term, the focus for cuts must be unnecessary bureaucracy and waste. We have asked ACE to halve the amount it spends on admin costs over the spending review period. That's the same reduction we are making at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and what we are asking of the sports, tourism and heritage bodies we fund.
Coupled with a ruthless drive against inefficiency, some lower priority projects will inevitably need to be dropped. But ACE itself has already set out how it will transform its approach to funding. It has had a fundamental rethink about the principles of investing public money in the arts and come up with a radical new way of doing business which will be more flexible, more strategic and open the door for innovative new organisations.
And to be clear, these changes are absolutely consistent with the long-standing arm's length principle. While it is right that government sets out its priorities for arts funding - namely, that we want to protect the cultural backbone through ensuring every possible penny is spent on activity that produces artistic content - we are not interfering in individual funding decisions.
The Arts Council is the expert body that will continue to determine how best to allocate this public money.
The government is well aware of the economic arguments to support investment in the arts. But we are also committed to the principle of supporting the arts for their own sake, for the contribution they make to us as a society.
And so we are committed to the principle of public money being used to support our cultural sector. Britain is rightly recognised worldwide for the quality of our theatres, galleries, opera, dance - they inspire millions of visitors to come our country. Our most successful arts organisations already know that the best way to secure a strong future is with a mixed funding model - public money alongside commercially-generated funds and private philanthropy.
We also have brilliant leaders in our cultural sector. So our long-term aim is to harness that expertise and creative vision and help arts organisations throughout the country - not just the worldfamous institutions in the capital - build broader funding streams that will give them long-term security. A healthy cultural ecology should not be wholly reliant on public funds for its survival.
So while our commitment to continuing public funding for the arts is absolute, our responsibility to the cultural sector is to help it become more financially sustainable.
That means supporting the development of stronger and more creative business models.
Gloria De Piero says YES
When spending cuts start to hurt, the most powerful urge is to fight back. And where it sees cuts that are cruel, unfair and deeply damaging, the Labour Party is fighting back. But we know too that you have to pick your battles.
In the context of across-theboard cuts to public services, some of which we know regrettably must be made, arguing against cuts to the arts may not seem the right fight to pick. But it is as simplistic to accept the inevitability of cuts to arts funding as it is to make those cuts as the coalition has done - too deeply, too quickly and with little consultation, care or consideration for the consequences.
Cuts to the arts are savage. They are deep and they are disproportionate. The Arts Council will lose 29.6 per cent of its budget in the course of the next four years - a total of £457.4m.
While the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats claim that none of the organisations regularly funded by the Arts Council will be hit by cuts of more than 15 per cent, this is simply not the case. All organisations will have to reapply for their funding and many are at risk of losing all their funding or, if not, then significantly more than the 15 per cent.
This, combined with the coalition's decisions to abolish Regional Development Agencies, the 27 per cent of cuts to local government services and cuts to higher education funding, leaves the arts at serious risk.
But why does it matter? Why even raise the question of funding for the arts when there are so many other worthy causes?
Cuts to the arts are savage. They are deep and they are disproportionate
The answer is that arts and culture are essential parts of what makes Britain a rich and vibrant place to live, essential to the fabric of our national history and heritage but also what gives us our edge in the modern world. that we spend as taxpayers on funding, the arts pays back to the country many times over.
So ensuring that there are sensible levels of public funding for the arts is neither throwing money at a problem area nor propping up privilege. It's an investment. And it is an investment that could still have been made if Labour's plan to halve rather than eradicate the deficit over the course of the Parliament had been adopted instead of the coalition's too fast, too deep cuts agenda.
Britain has many world-class artists who fuel our successful and growing creative industries - the largest in Europe, if not the world - which is vitally important for jobs and growth. Art and culture are central to the success of tourism. Just look at Liverpool, attracting 15 million visitors and bringing in £800m in economic benefit thanks to its stint as the 2008 European Capital of Culture.
But perhaps most importantly, culture and the arts make Britain a better place to live.
The Arts Council budget is not just spent on national treasures such as the Royal Opera House and the Royal Shakespeare Company that, however important they are, only a few of us get to enjoy. It's spent on promoting and sharing arts and culture with people up and down the country, broadening horizons, stimulating thinking, raising aspirations, giving pleasure, even giving hope.
And when times are tough, people value those things as much as they do the everyday basics. They are the things that keep us going.
Comments
A. Perez / February 25 2011 4:56pm
Is that it? Really? Is this the level of debate we can expect from our MPs overseeing the culture portfolio?