The Stage

Northern Ireland arts braced for cuts and job losses

Published Friday 10 September 2010 at 16:36 by Michael Quinn

Northern Ireland’s arts sector is bracing itself for job cuts and closures following the announcement that the region’s Arts Council is planning for a 20% cut in its spending plans over the next four years.

The reduction is larger than had been feared and may still be increased depending on the outcome of the comprehensive spending review next month.

Speaking to The Stage, ACNI’s arts development director Noreen McKinney said the outlook was “bleak” with “somewhere between 15 and 20” of its 96 annually funded clients under severe threat, and warned “we may have to find more savings, possibly up to 25% as new facilities come on stream”.

McKinney’s comments come in response to evidence presented to the Northern Ireland Assembly by Deborah Brown, finance director of the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, who said that “widespread and unpalatable” funding decisions are inevitable and will have “a very significant impact” on the region’s arts industry.

A 20% reduction will see DCAL’s current allocation of £109 million slashed to £87 million by 2014/15.

“This takes us back to funding levels of 2001 and will have a very negative impact on what we can do. We’ve never experienced a Golden Era in arts funding in Northern Ireland; there has been chronic under-funding at the very lowest level, equating to less than the price of two tickets to the cinema per person.”

Extensive spending on capital projects over the past decade will end early next year with the opening of new homes for Belfast’s Lyric Theatre and Old Museum Arts Centre at a combined cost of £36 million. But, McKinney says: “There will be little scope for new projects or even modest refurbishments, and that has to be a concern. The main pressures we’ll face will be finding the funding to keep the doors open and the lights on”.

Concerns about the cuts have been exacerbated by indications that Arts Minister Nelson McCausland intends to ring-fence funding for a number of projects, including the World Police and Fire Games, which are due to be staged in Derry in 2013, a region-wide IT project for libraries, and, despite it being four years behind schedule, and criticised as misguided and flawed, the controversial £12 million Ulster-Scots Academy.