The Stage

Industry expresses concern at plans to give public a voice in arts funding

Published Monday 6 July 2009 at 14:59 by Lalayn Baluch

Arts practitioners have raised concerns about the government’s plans to give the public more say in how funding is allocated, warning that such a move would favour “populist” art work at the expense of “quality, diversity and risk taking” in the sector.

They fear that the proposals, if put into action, would only encourage projects with a broad public appeal or those with a clear social or educative purpose.

The points have been highlighted in Arts Council England’s Participatory Budgeting and the Arts report. The document aims to make the industry aware of plans being laid by central government to give communities more say in financial decision making, and featured input from arts professionals and arts officers, as well as politicians and members of the public.

Those who took part in the survey believe that giving the public more say will benefit community arts projects, by opening up new funding pots and raising the public profile of the arts.

The report said: “Many research participants were enthusiastic and intrigued by the benefits that involvement in participatory budgeting can bring arts practitioners.

“However, when the same people were asked what they thought of introducing participatory budgeting to mainstream arts funding structures, their responses became more cautious.”

Practitioners believe that members of the public are more likely to vote for “eye-catching, one-off projects that will yield immediate results”, rather than those that will benefit the long-term infrastructure of the sector.

Others argued that the main purpose of public funding for the arts should be to support excellence in the arts “irrespective of its public appeal or commercial viability”.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has previously announced that it wants to see local authorities - the country’s second largest funder of the arts - use the public participation process in some form by 2012.