The Stage

Cultural leaders hit out at “short-sighted” funding decisions

Published Wednesday 20 October 2010 at 17:51 by Natalie Woolman

Comprehensive Spending Review: Arts leaders have hit out at the government’s decision to cut Arts Council England by almost 30% over the next four years, saying it is “short-sighted”, “demoralising” and that it “borders on idiocy”.

The comments were made in spite of the fact that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has asked ACE to ensure that the total financial support for its regularly funded organisations is not cut by more than 15% across the next four years. It is not known yet whether ACE will be able to achieve the necessary savings without cutting deeper into the RFO portfolio.

Mixed reactions from leading industry figures to the CSR settlement, and the cut DCMS handed down to the arts council, are listed below. It will be updated as The Stage receives more responses.

Rachel Tackley, Theatrical Management Association president:

“As recipients of public money we must, of course, share the burden of reducing the budget deficit, but to disinvest what now is a lean, well run industry that makes a net contribution to our national debt seems short-sighted in the extreme.”

Louise de Winter, National Campaign for the Arts director:

“It’s a rum day when cuts of 15% can now be greeted with some measure of relief; we’re not saying these cuts won’t hurt, but they will be more manageable than was previously feared.”

Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre:

“By any measure, the 30% cut to the arts council grant is dismaying. A large number of immensely valuable enterprises will stop stone dead. Obviously, in the context of massive cuts to public spending across the board, we must put our heads down and work with a 15% cut to the arts council’s regularly funded organisations, if the arts council is able to achieve this. However, it would be foolish to underestimate how tough the challenge will be for many excellent companies.”

Christine Payne, Equity general secretary:

“Cuts of 15% across four years to front-line art providers, while very unwelcome, are better than we had been lead to believe.

“There is no doubt that these cuts will hit theatres and other publicly funded live performance hard and we will be monitoring closely how Arts Council England implements them.”

Michael Oglesby, Chairman of Bruntwood and philanthropist:

“Today’s cuts in public funding to the arts are disappointing but probably inevitable in the light of the current financial crisis.

“Art over the centuries has existed because of patronage - corporate patrons are now more important than ever for securing the future of the arts in the UK.”

Tom Morris, Bristol Old Vic artistic director:

“Considering the strength of the cultural sector’s contribution to economic recovery, today’s budget announcement is particularly disappointing. To cut an industry that has such a powerful record of quarter-on-quarter growth throughout the recession borders on idiocy; not just from a pragmatic point of view, but also in terms of the many immeasurable benefits that the cultural sector offers the nation.

“The sad truth is that these reforms will make the cultural industries less accessible to the wider community, both as consumers and creators of art in every medium. Cuts of this scale are beyond short sighted.”

Alistair Spalding, Sadler’s Wells chief executive and artistic director:

“There is no avoiding the fact that this is bad news for the arts and very tough indeed with cuts being immediately front loaded at 14%. Most arts organisations are in effect businesses, and are therefore facing additional challenges for example in cuts to local funding and a more difficult fundraising environment.

“And while larger organisations such as ourselves may be better able to absorb the cuts, they will certainly have a disproportionately negative effect on smaller organisations who will be placed in a precarious position.”

Michael Boyd, Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director:

“This will be a big blow to theatres - especially those who will also be losing local authority funding - and audiences will be the poorer. We are concerned that the settlement for the arts council doesn’t allow it sufficient room to manoeuvre. We know cuts are likely to be front-loaded next year, but we hope they can be applied so as to allow time to plan for the future, reduce costs efficiently and find new sources of funding.”

Ian Brown, West Yorkshire Playhouse artistic director:

“This is demoralizing for all cultural industries which have more than proved their worth both economically and socially.

“As a direct result of these government reductions there is the potential that a whole generation of people will lose out and be unable to enjoy the fruits of a complex and diverse cultural landscape. I strongly believe that these cuts will make no, or very little, impact on the UK’s deficit and that what we are looking at is a very conservative approach to subsidised arts funding.”

Erica Whyman, Northern Stage chief executive:

“In a region such as the North East the scale of the overall cuts and implied redundancies will be pretty devastating. However, I was relieved to hear the government’s commitment to limit the cuts to front-line services, including front-line arts organisations. There does appear to be a recognition that the arts play a vital part in our economy and an acknowledgment that they could be very swiftly damaged.”

Caroline Miller, Dance UK director:

“Such a deep cut, being made at such a rapid speed - almost half the savings have to be delivered in the first year - is bound to undermine all the recent success of the arts sector. The ACE cuts are just one strand in a vastly changed economic picture for the arts, these cuts are accompanied by numerous diminished funding sources, including local authority cuts, greatly diminished contributions from trusts and foundations, and less business sponsorship opportunities.”

Julia Fawcett, The Lowry chief executive:

“Although some may say that today’s CSR announcements were not as tough for the arts sector as feared, they would be wrong. This is not good news for the arts. The devil is, of course, in the detail. A 30% reduction in arts council funding, combined with local authority cuts of almost 30%….there is no doubt that arts organisations large and small and ultimately their audiences are going to suffer.”

Nica Burns, president of the Society of London Theatre:

“The British theatre is an extremely well run, lean, highly successful industry, creatively the best in the world. It makes an essential contribution to the cultural heart of the nation. For a current investment of £450 million via the Arts Council we generate over £3 billion for the UK economy. Whilst we accept the need for cuts like everyone else, 30% is very hard for us to bear and will undoubtedly cause long-term damage.

“As we already raise large amounts in sponsorship and private investment, this public investment is not replaceable. Given the amount of money we return on investment in the theatre industry, cuts this severe are a poor business decision.”

John Smith, Musicians’ Union general secretary:

“We all knew that cuts were coming, but funding cuts of 14% in the first year means that many organisations will really find it difficult to survive. We would have preferred to see the cuts spread out over a longer period of time to give the arts time to adjust.”

Tony Hall, chief executive of Royal Opera House:

“Jeremy Hunt has made it clear that front line arts organisations such as us should not be cut by more than 15%. This is not as bad as some sectors. It is encouraging that the government has listened to our concerns and recognizes the value that we all bring to this country.

“It’s still going to be very tough, but we have been given the chance to manage our way though what will be a very difficult few years. We will hear from the Arts Council next week the details of our future funding.”

Andy Field, co-director of Forest Fringe: “What worries me as much if not more than 15% cuts to ‘front line’ organisations is the concomitant 50% cuts to the arts council. Even in the arts people seem to have little time for what they term ‘bureaucrats and administrators’, in the arts council and beyond it. Their work is considered implicitly of less value than that of ‘front line artists’. Too easily we parrot this inertia-inducing, conservative rhetoric - right from the start Jeremy Hunt has described ACE as ‘a grants distribution agency’ in tellingly dismissive terms.To us it should be more than that. It should be a body of people who seeking out, engaging with and supporting the development of new organisations, sensitive to the fact that they need the same opportunity offered to those that came before them. We need there to be someone who might notice us.

“To reduce the arts council to nothing more than a skeletal distribution mechanism is to make it almost impossibly hard for us to make ourselves heard - for the work that we believe in to be nurtured and valued. I believe in an arts ecology in which our great established institutions can be complemented and nourished by later generations of artists and producers. I’m glad those artists who are presently arts council funded are being so brilliantly championed, but I’d like to think there can be some consideration also for the means by which future organisations will find themselves in that same position.”

Nick Starr, executive director of the National Theatre: “I think the maths probably will work. It’s not implausible that the arts council could reduce the level of cuts passed on to RFOs to a maximum of 15%. But that doesn’t mean that some very valuable things won’t go simply because they aren’t in the RFO portfolio, and it doesn’t mean that everyone [in the RFO portfolio] can cope with a 15% cut.

“There are some organisations that are absolutely fantastic, but run on pretty tight finances. For them, losing 15% over four years isn’t going to be easy. Also, there will be organisations within the portfolio that the Arts Council will want to give increases to. So, let’s not trap ourselves into thinking that everyone has to have a decrease because that’s not going to make for a dynamic arts scene.

“I think the current arts council is led in such a way that it can be very imaginative and properly radical about how it shapes its future portfolio. But, the real concern here is whether [after these extra administration cuts] the arts council will be able to have the proper capacity and retain the judgment to make the decisions it will want to make.”

Gerry Morrissey, BECTU general secretary: “It is vital that venues can continue to invest in new productions to keep their operations alive for the longer term.

“The arts make a tremendous contribution to the UK’s economy - the sector has also seen significant investment via the Lottery. It would be criminal if venues were allowed to fail because of a rush to cut.”