The Stage

DCMS plan for kids’ shows criticised as election stunt

Published Thursday 7 April 2005 at 10:40 by Ruth Gillespie

Industry experts have criticised proposals revealed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that would give every child in the UK the chance to perform music live to an audience and to take part in a theatrical production before the age of 16, branding it a pre-election publicity stunt.

Culture secretary Tessa Jowell unveiled the Creative Sparks initiative last week as part of the government’s five-year plan to improve artistic and creative opportunities across the UK. In it she promised that within the next ten years no child will leave school without having had access to “high quality arts”.

However, leading figures in the arts world have accused the government of using the move to gain positive publicity in the run-up to the General Election on May 5 and have questioned how such a major project would be funded in light of recent budget cuts.

Victoria Todd, director of the National Campaign for the Arts, said: “These big gestures will happen over and over again in the run-up to an election. They will happen about all kind of things like education and health. It’s a great idea but let’s just see what happens when the new ministers are elected. Until they are installed there is not really anything to talk about. Let’s just see what happens after the election - whether a new minister takes hold of the idea then.”

The government’s Creative Partnership scheme, which was set up precisely to promote such links between schools and artists, received a budget cut in the recent three-year funding review announced by Arts Council England, with funds dropping from the budgeted £45 million a year to £32 million in 2005/6, rising to £35 million in 2007/8.

Spokesman for the National Association of Head Teachers Jeff Holman said: “We would support the idea of children having increased opportunities to perform in public. However, we are concerned about where the funding would come from because a scheme like this would be very expensive in terms of teacher time and expertise and in terms of equipment, such as instruments.

“In many cases schools couldn’t afford to do this on their own and a lot of Local Education Authorities have already cut back their music and drama services in favour of supporting core subjects like information technology.”

The proposals, if they do come to fruition, will mean that within ten years every child in the UK will be guaranteed the opportunity to perform music live to an audience, to make an individual piece of art work, to visit an art gallery, museum, library, historic building or archive, to write and read aloud an original piece of creative writing, to create a piece of media art and to take part - on or offstage - in a theatre production during their school career.