Over the
years that I have been writing this blog and trying to muster some thoughts around
how we might defend ourselves against the swingeing ongoing cuts that threaten
livelihoods, professions, practice, creativity, educational attainment, health
and wellbeing, civic participation, community development, international
profiles, tourist offerings, economic growth – it seems that mostly I’m talking
to the sector without really penetrating the halls of government and in any
case, there are other factors to consider as well.
Last time
out, we had a rally, we urged a minister in face to face and rather frank
discussion (we did – I was there!) and we saw the development of the first
all-party group on the arts established at Stormont. Of course now, we live in
a place that has not has a government since December effectively. And the
countdown is on to an early October Assembly election.
So here and
now, I really wonder what we should do as a sector because both what we have said
and what we have done clearly has not worked – brutally evidenced by newest
wave of in-year cuts announced last week by the Arts Council of Northern
Ireland.
The value of the cut to the Council means that we will have to impose a 5% cut on our exchequer allocation to your core costs. We will, however, be able to continue to offer you the full amount of our Lottery award towards your programming costs." Here is the effect of the cuts across the sector. You’ll notice that I have added in last year’s figures as well.
The press release on the Arts Council website reported “The good news is that the Arts Council was able to mitigate the effect of this cut to core organisational costs for the overwhelming number of Arts organisations. The Council has ensured that their programming funding is supported by the Arts Council’s National Lottery funds and therefore remains secure."
Extracting good news from The Arts Council’s announcement has the air of “things could be worse”. For 2017/18 exchequer grants for core costs of arts organisations total £8,369,796, while national lottery funding of £4,701,891 supports programming. For the eagle eyed and hyper-mathematical, the figures supplied on the ACNI website press release didn’t quite add up, but we get the general drift, even if the awarding of an additional 50 quid to the Lyric may not feel like much of an uplift to them, considering that others received relatively much more.
The Arts Council does have its reasons for these
three instances (actually, its just two, following a correction regarding funding that was announced last year but not subsequently updated, apologies for that) that appear to go against the otherwise universal trend of cuts
and I am not for one moment going to single out colleagues or question those
decisions - but instead I wanted to draw attention to the “mitigation” as the
Arts Council puts it, and the effect on organisations and indeed others wishing
to prevail on arts funding, like artists, community groups, bands etc.
The press release
on the Arts Council website reported Roisin McDonough commenting that “In the
context of an uncertain funding environment, this announcement of £13 million
will support the valuable work our artists and arts organisations deliver for
the benefit of everyone in Northern Ireland. The ACNI messaging is rather
interesting in that they are putting forward a very positive face on this –investing
a headline figure of £13M, but of course, this is also a reduced figure and in
trying to shore it up, “the mitigation” that ACNI speak about, they are having
to reduce other allocations of Lottery funding. This is not a zero sum game.
Annual funding against all available
grant funding
The public funding of the arts is a somewhat closed
system, with 2 main channels of resource – one from government voted for funds
called Exchequer and the other flowing from our slice of Lottery funding. Most of
the time, you will see details of Treasury funding, the allocation made by
ministers and their departments and ultimately paid for by tax receipts. It is
this funding source that hitherto has been the most contested because it is
ultimately under political control. (But we have no local Assembly, I hear you
say. True, but we do have government departments that are still making
decisions precisely because they have no Assembly with no budget to tell them
otherwise. N Ireland is running out of money because we only get, as I’ve
mentioned before, maximum percentages (75% and 90%) of our bloc grant offered
when there is no budget in place.) National Lottery Fund money is dependent on
how many people play the growing variety of games on the various nights of the
week and how may scratch cards are purchased etc etc. Its an aggregate of a
great many investments as well. Unfortunately however, the income trend for
both is declining, but Lottery funding to the arts is currently dropping far
faster than Exchequer.
Last year, 15-16 ACNI had a reported £10.77 M in available grant aid, this year (2016/17) it may be more like £8.5M and the trend into 2017-18 looks even more dispiriting.
So, how do
we lobby for change when we have no Assembly and further uncertainty around
lottery funds. To whom do we turn when we see the funding that the Arts Council
is provided slashed year for year and that trend is utterly unsustainable for a
sector that should and must be central to this or any society.
I think one
thing that we could do right away is to promote the Lottery and the funding we desperately
receive far more than we are doing. There are 107 arts organisations whose
programming is almost wholly dependent on people playing the Lottery. For an
organisation like Community Arts Partnership, it means that funding flows back
to those areas where people are most likely to be playing. It means that almost
5,000 people across all age groups, and areas have the chance to participate,
create and author their won art work. For every organisation, there is a debt
of gratitude to each and every Lottery player that perhaps we should be more
willing to publicise.
For a
sector, that is rightfully publicly funded and as such principally dependent on
government and public investment, where do we turn. Is it pointless asking that
to a sector that continues to find other money and competes in every possible instance
for funds and philanthropy? Bearing in mind the characteristics of arts funding
across the UK and the low level of philanthropic
giving, the struggle to analyse and identify solutions is as complex and urgent
as the areas of activity as John Holden puts it Culture
is often discussed as an economy, but it is better to see it as an ecology,
because this viewpoint offers a richer and more complete understanding of the
subject. Seeing culture as an ecology is congruent with cultural value
approaches that take into account a wide range of non-monetary values.
Non-monetary
some values may be, but their translations into real economic value and intrinsic
cultural value is evident. But of course, not
everything that counts can be counted as an apocryphal Einstein would have it.
There is an indisputable
and fundamental right to participate in the cultural life of our society, enshrined
in statute and chartered declarations, conventions and protocols. Therefore
that relationship between the arts and polity necessitates citizens’ access and
public investment. The same attaches to
investing in health. We do so because it saves lives, it protects workforces,
it offers a safety net to the most vulnerable, and it promotes the ideal and
outworking of equality. The arts do the same. Recently, we saw a restatement of
what public investment in the arts and in health might ideally look like for a
neighbouring state like GB. Perhaps they might yet achieve that in the not so
distant future.
The NHS is
the second largest employer in NI. Investing in health pours money into our
economies as well as our health and well-being. The arts do the same, employing
over 5,000 full time equivalents and promoting a creative economy, supporting the
civic and personal health and well-being of this place and its people.
At the
recent “Assessing the Challenge” meeting on May 17th here in CAP,
what was clear was that the arts sector very soberly understood the challenges around changes that could
be made about how we operate together but also how we should lobby for the continuation
and furtherance of our role. At this rate of in-year cuts, in a very short
space of time we will see the arts shudder to a halt.
As for local
Exchequer funds, we need a new strategy, a new conversation. ArtsMatterNI is
meeting again on Wed 21st June in CAP, to take forward the
conversation that we re-began in May. Do join us, or participate on-line and
offer your wisdom and support.
The arts need support.
The arts
matter.
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