The Stage

Exclusive: Arts & Business should be stripped of subsidy - Starr

Published Thursday 29 July 2010 at 11:01 by Alistair Smith

National Theatre executive director Nick Starr has called for Arts & Business to have its £4 million of public funding removed to help mitigate cuts to front-line cultural organisations in the autumn spending round.

Cuts of as much as 25 to 30% are expected to be made to arts subsidies this autumn. Starr said he felt many within the industry shared his view that the cash Arts Council England gives to A&B could be better spent elsewhere and called for the organisation to support itself using private money.

Starr, who is also on the boards of the Young Vic and Bush Theatres, told The Stage: “A growing number of people in cultural institutions, I’m finding, are coming to the view that it’s time for Arts & Business to take a lead at this time, and find ways of existing without their subsidy. It feels increasingly uncomfortable that their arts council grant is almost twice that of the Royal Court and Young Vic. Colin [Tweedy, chief executive of A&B] is a tireless champion of his cause, and he will be furious with me for saying this, but I suspect I speak for many.”

Tweedy has recently published a number of articles in the national press insisting the arts could do more to raise money from private sources and, responding to Starr’s comments, he accused the NT’s executive director of “an attempt to silence us” and a “blatant attempt at censorship”.

He said: “Arts & Business has been warned of an attempt to silence us. For 34 years we have aspired to be the voice of not only the arts, seeking private sector support, but also the private sector itself. It is, however, now clear that it is our articulation of the role and value of the private sector in support of the arts that is intolerable to some at this time of crisis. The issue is not about cost-cutting, but a blatant attempt at censorship.

“In response to the changing financial climate, Arts & Business has already told ACE that we wish to find ways of going forward within a new kind of operational model. We have been strange bedfellows since 1999, when our public funding was transferred from the DCMS to ACE.”

Tweedy added: “We are here to help the sector raise money, not to raise money for ourselves. According to analysis by Frontier Economics, during 2008/9 for every £1 we received, we helped turn this into £4 to £6 for our cultural members.

“We remain a major part of the solution for our 7,500 cultural partners, not any part of the problem. We must work alongside one another, otherwise we will do untold damage to the UK’s hard-won pre-eminence in the arts. Collectively we can ensure our futures are in our, rather than others’, hands.”

Earlier this year, A&B was hit with a 4% in-year cut, amounting to £160,000, when it was singled out - along with Creativity, Culture and Education - for extra cuts from ACE, which had been forced to find £19 million savings from its regularly-funded organisations. All other RFOs received a 0.5% cut in subsidy.