Spare a thought for government policymakers in the arts. At first sight, their task looks exceptionally challenging. When you look more closely, it only gets worse.
On Monday, the pressure group Campaign for the Arts published a report, entitled The State of the Arts, which assessed five “health metrics” over a twelve year period: funding, provision, engagement, education and employment. Authored by a team at the University of Warwick’s Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies, it’s an impressive piece of work, assembling statistics from a wide variety of sources. In stark contrast to Arts Council England’s latest report into opera, it lets the data speak for itself rather than drowning it in a torrent of opinion.
Its overall conclusions are that the sector is under threat. Local government funding of the arts fell by 48% in England, DCMS core funding decreased by 18%, the BBC’s grant decreased by 33%, the number of live events was down 23%, hours of arts teaching down 23% – the list of depressing statistics goes on.
However, other than a generic aspiration “for better and more balanced support to ensure the vitality and accessibility of the arts for everyone”, the report stops short of making any actual recommendations. This is probably wise, since there are existential questions to be asked first. At least three spring to mind immediately: the government must answer all three before it starts.
- What distinguishes an arts organisation which needs support from a commercial entity perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet?
- Should arts organisations be tools of government social policy?
- Which funding model is right for the UK?
Deserving poor, or undeserving rich?
Consider two organisations: the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and AEG Presents (UK promoters of the Taylor Swift Eras tour). Both promote live music, but that’s where the similarity ends. Without making any judgement as to the relative artistic value of the products of each:
- The BSO is a state-supported cultural institution toeing the government’s line, promoting events in 200 different locations across the South and South West of England. In its latest accounts, £2.9m of its £6.2m income (not quite half) came from government grants, without which the BSO could not conceivably survive in its present form.
- AEG Presents is a US-controlled, for-profit organisation, in no need whatsoever of government support to survive.
So far, so obvious: a reasonable policy for government subsidy must distinguish between these two cases. But things get far more complicated. If a classical orchestra makes a substantial part of its living from music for advertisements, where does that put it on the commercial scale? How to assess blockbuster movies (immensely profitable, on a good day) against more arthouse fare? Does the employment they provide make them worthy of support, irrespective of artistic benefits? Are video games an art form or are they always a commercial enterprise?
The Warwick report shows that the government now hands out close to £2 billion a year in tax relief to the creative industries, during a period where direct arts funding was being mercilessly squeezed. One cannot help but suspect that a large amount of this will have gone to businesses who didn't need it – the largest commercial enterprises able to afford the best tax advisers. That’s a major item of policy that needs sorting.
Action: clearly define what makes an institution worthy of public funding. Waffle like “can demonstrate both cultural maturity and commitment to culture-led growth but need investment” just isn’t robust enough.
The arts as tools of policy
Here’s Arts Council England’s list of areas of focus in its “Developing creativity and culture” page: Children and young people, Diversity, Working with local authorities, Capital, Health and wellbeing, Environment, Digital, Communities, and Engagement.
What’s striking is what’s missing: the arts. There’s no mention of artistic excellence, storytelling, audience development, performance skills: ACE’s headings are a laundry list of socially desirable items that you could apply to just about any field of endeavour.
Writing in The Critic, Richard Bratby points out that we’ve come to accept unquestioningly the idea that to be supported, arts institutions are expected to act as proxies for all kinds of government initiatives whose relationship to the arts is highly questionable. In a way, it’s a testament to the power of the arts to affect people’s lives. But it’s the kind of backhanded compliment that we can do without, when the arts agenda is so overtaken by desired social outcomes that artistic quality is pushed to the back of the queue. It’s counterproductive and a hiding to nothing to expect arts institutions to do the work of health, education and social security departments at the same time as producing great art. It’s true that artistic merit is subjective and can’t be measured numerically. But if we reduce arts policy to prioritising a list of socially desirable activities, we have surely lost the point.
And there’s another problem: governments of different political complexions might have diametrically opposed ideas about what’s a desirable social outcome (a Conservative government might prize heritage and patriotic pride, a Labour one might emphasise diversity and inclusion). But arts institutions need to survive as governments come and go, hopefully without having to reframe their entire raison d’être at every general election. If government can’t restrain itself from asking them to target social outcomes, it had better be the ones with broad cross-party agreement.
Action: reframe the assessment of arts institutions toward artistic merit first, social outcomes second, with party-divisive political agendas removed from their remit.
The basic funding model
The Warwick report highlights the UK’s low spending on culture by European standards, with just 0.5% of GDP spent on culture. It also points out the changing funding mix of Arts Council England’s “National Portfolio” institutions, with public funding falling from 45% to 35% of the total and the balance picked up 50-50 by private donations and earned income (e.g. ticket sales). Since the size of the cultural sector as a whole hasn’t decreased over the period, it indicates a gradual transition away from the European model of state-supported arts and towards the US model: arts funded by private philanthropy.
Government needs to come clean: is this the right direction for the UK? The US model is workable, but it’s very different from what we have at the moment. The government should do one of three things: commit to maintaining real-terms funding for the arts, announce that they expect the size of the sector to be reduced, or do something to help arts institutions move to the model of private sponsorship – which would start by publicising to arts organisers and donors alike that this is what is expected. Tax relief changes can play a part also.
To refuse to do any of these is a cowardly approach which constitutes the “death by a thousand cuts” of the sector. Arts institutions are full of resourceful and resilient people – but they need to be told, honestly, how the land lies. Governments of all complexions have tried to brush such things under the carpet, but a dose of political courage now will avoid long term damage in future.
There’s a nuance to this: the Warwick report highlights that local government arts funding in the UK has collapsed, meaning that public arts funding is almost entirely centralised at country level. This is in stark contrast to most European countries, where a great deal of arts funding is regional or municipal. The new government has said little about any return of funding to local authorities other than to promise “multi year funding settlements”. It needs to clarify whether it intends to move to reinvigorate arts funding at a local level.
Action: make a statement of the long term direction of arts funding, in a way that enables arts institutions to plan. If there are going to be significant real-terms funding cuts, be open about it and help institutions to adjust.
Arts policy-making is made particularly hard by the sheer diversity and complexity of the cultural sector – encompassing everything from a public library in a small town to major entertainment corporations. To make any kind of coherent policy, the new government needs to develop its principles. I wish them strength and wisdom in doing so.
