The Stage

ACE and DCMS slip back further on ethnic minority targets

Published Tuesday 27 May 2008 at 16:50 by Alistair Smith

Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have again come under fire for failing on targets to increase the number of ethnic minorities attending and taking part in the arts.

New figures released in the latest DCMS annual report reveal that there has been “slippage” - the report’s technical term to indicate poor performance - in reaching the targets set in both the attendance and participation of “black, minority and ethnic” groups in at least two events in a year.

Starting from a level of 23.5% of the BME population attending and 20.8% participating in the arts, the levels over the last year have actually dropped to 22.8% and 20.1% respectively.

The results continue an ongoing trend, whereby ACE and the DCMS have failed to reach PSA - Public Sector Agreements - which have been set in a bid to increase take-up of the arts by under-served sectors such as certain ethnic groups.

Between 2001 and 2006, similar targets also showed a marked backwards movement in black and ethnic minorities attending and participating in the arts. At the time, ACE came under fire from Liberal Democrat culture spokesperson Don Foster, who described the results as “shocking”.

The latest figures have been criticised by Conservative culture spokesperson Jeremy Hunt, who highlighted that the DCMS was failing in a number of its PSA targets.

He said: “Failing to hit two-thirds of their targets is simply not good enough. The DCMS is missing targets in key areas of responsibility - the arts, sports, heritage and museums. Slippage appears to have become the departmental motto. Perhaps we should rename it the Department for Consistently Missing Standards.”

ACE, which is responsible for the arts PSA results under scrutiny, denied that the figures showed any “significant change”.

An ACE spokesperson said: “The arts council figures included in the DCMS annual report show that there is no significant change in the number of BME people participating in or attending arts events over the last year.

“We are aware that we are not on track to meet current PSA targets and we continue to work with the DCMS on a number of projects to increase participation in the arts.”

According to ACE, these include the website www.takingpartinthearts.com, which gives advice on how to reach broader audiences, and a large piece of research into the impact of the voluntary and amateur arts sector, which is ongoing.