2 April 2007
Arts Council Butchery
On 16 March this year, in a packed statement, Tessa Jowell (pictured) announced that the rising cost of the 2012 Olympics meant that a greater proportion of the money would come from the National Lottery. In the context of an already-tight spending round, it was widely predicted that this would mean a real squeeze on arts funding. Arts organisations around the country have been asked over the past year or so what their plans would be in the event of standstill funding, or a major cut.
We didn’t realise how much of a cut. Within weeks of Tony Blair’s speech at the Tate Modern rightly praising his government for their support for the arts, we learn that the Arts Council’s Grants for the Arts scheme will be cut by 35%. This was effective as of yesterday.
As Lyn Gardner says, this will fall most heavily on the lowest levels of theatre activity. Touring, small-scale and individual theatre artists who need the financial support to get a foothold in a creative career. It is likely that the larger institutions (including the regional reps that this government rescued from near collapse) will be spared, partly for PR reasons. Although this will be immediately devastating to tens of thousands of theatre workers and theatregoers across the country, the effects of this will not be felt at national level for some years. But as the small-scale companies stop coming through, as the writers seem not to have been sustained in theatre, as the touring venues are forced to close, so will the innovation and confidence of British culture pale, the ‘golden age’ that Blair described will turn slowly to brass.
The 2012 Olympics are a great achievement and we look forward to them. But a project which was heralded as an opportunity for cultural renewal is turning into a force for cultural destruction. The raft of cultural events that Jude Kelly and her team are believed to be planning to accompany the Olympics have yet to be announced - indeed, things have gone rather quiet there - but the shadow of the Dome hangs darkly over these projects. Britain’s cultural energy is not best fuelled by dropped-in one-off events, but through the careful nurturing over years and years of our own creativity and imagination as makers and participants in the culture at all levels.
If it is true that the flagship national and regional institutions will be relatively spared the axe, it is all the more reason that they spearhead - immediately - a united and robust response from the arts sector. Glenda Jackson made an elegant and forceful speech on the eve of the cut but we need the heads of all our major institutions to join together first to make a strong declaration against the short-termism and philistinism of this cut, then second to begin to take some serious action. This might begin with crisis meetings: an event is being organised through Improbable’s ‘Devoted & Disgruntled’ lobby at the Shunt Vaults on 11 April. More public events might be useful: the Olivier would be a good place to hold such a thing, but wouldn’t it be good to have simultaneous meetings at the Birmingham Rep, the Bristol Old Vic, Traverse 1, indeed in all the major auditoriums into which subsidy has breathed life? But that is not sufficient; action needs to follow too.
- we all need to write to our MPs. You can do that here, very easily.
- we should write to Tessa Jowell at the DCMS. You can do that here, very easily.
- we should write to Gordon Brown at the Treasury. You can do that at this address.
But then perhaps we should follow up that day of protest with festivals of grass roots theatre, grass roots that are at risk of being parched by the unfriendly heat of funding withdrawal. We would suggest that our major institutions designate a day in the early Autumn of celebration and protest - ‘Scorched Earth 2007′ - and invite small-scale and touring companies (who have previously benefited from the Grants for the Arts Scheme) to perform in their theatres across the country, to celebrate what is going on and to protest against this butchery.
We all need to monitor the effects of this terrible decision, to confront what we have and what we may lose.
5 Comments currently posted.
Will says:
theatre worker says:
On the Devoted & Disgruntled list, it’s been helpfully suggested that we also register protests with Peter Hewitt, Chief Exec at the Arts Council. You can do that here:
Peter Hewitt
Chief Executive
Arts Council of England
14 Great Peter Street
London
SW1P 3NQ
Hannah says:
The arts and the Olympics are two seperate things. Why should we suffer for their unorganisation and inability to stick to plans and budgets?! I could understand if people in the arts industry would benefit in 2012 from the olympics but we wont.
Im going to begin my dance training in September and this worries me very much. If this is happening now, what will happen when Im fully trained.????
Please update on any protests (to do with this matter), as you have my full support.
Chris says:
This news is disasterous because it will have long-term repercussions for the health of the arts for many years to come. Grass-roots artists and companies feeding the creative life blood of bigger organisations will not be able to produce work. Real action, not passive defeatism, is now required on the part of everyone involved in the arts. Write to your MP, the Arts Council and add your voice to those lobbying in the media.
Paul Wimsett says:
Of course though, the National Lottery has always given to sports and arts events-as the Olympics becames more prevelant, the only way for the arts events to go is down. The trouble is that there will never be enough money.
This was being hinted at for a while but the severity of it is shocking. I wrote to my MP about arts funding a few months ago, but the response was frustrating as he’s a Tory so just suggested I vote for them next time round: yeah, because I’m sure Cameron will be as much of a patron of the arts as Thatcher! Arts funding in this country is pitiful as it stands. I actually have no interest whatsoever in the Olympics and, since this has happened, I now really do wish that France had won the bid. It’s a disgrace.