A New Year, A New Low - provisional funding

And so another financial year has come and with it, one looks forward to the year ahead. For any business that seeks to assist people, this is the time for implementing plans, consulting with beneficiaries, renewing programmes and processes and a general reinvigoration of an organisation. Others may even be preparing for festivals or big events. Of course, for those working in the arts sector, that renewal would be the expectation but, it appears, thanks to the neglect of the sector by the Department for Communities, that unfortunately is not the case. Instead, we received word from the principal funder of arts and culture here, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, that the Department had not signed off on their budget so we can only be offered a provisional indication of funding!! And of course, for all those offered, that represents funding at a standstill  - same as last year, same as the year before perhaps...perhaps all the way back to 2014. 

I know that many out there think the arts and cultural sectors just seem to greet and gurn about funding all the time and constantly rattle the begging bowl before whoever is in charge. And you’d be right for thinking that for a very good reason. The arts in the north could never command the sorts of funding levels that they have come to appreciate in the Republic for the last decades. Nor could Northern Ireland assert that we received anything like the funding per head received in England, Scotland or Wales our nearest comparator, where the Welsh government could distribute £10.35 per head, where our administration could only muster a mere £5.07. The South of Ireland enjoys a comparative figure of £25.90 - over 5 times the level of investment that we ...(ahem) enjoy. (Figures based on ACNI strategy consultation, 2022/23 financial examples). 

The Taskforce believes the NI Executive should  collectively champion and invest in culture, arts  and heritage. While a future Minister for the  Department for Communities must spearhead  this, Ministers of all departments need to  recognise and value the key contribution these  sectors make to their departmental priorities and  to the well-being of society. The Taskforce presents this report to support Government in  finalising a strategy and action plan which can be  brought forward for wider public consultation.  

However, right now the sustainability of these  sectors in Northern Ireland is perilous. Long standing structural underfunding; a stagnated  post-COVID recovery, and cost-of-living crisis is  risking closure of organisations, venues and loss  of heritage, including physical and historic  infrastructure. Local talent, innovators and  creative entrepreneurs are compelled to leave  these sectors and our region in increasing  numbers.  (R Johnston, chair - Investing in Creative Delivery - A Report from the Culture, Arts and Heritage Strategy Taskforce - July 2023) 

And those of us who volunteered for months, on both the Ministerial Covid Recovery Group in 2019 and the Culture and Arts Taskforce last year (who produced the report from which the excerpt above is drawn), understand from our colleagues across the breadth of the sector, the precarious situation that we all endure as we wait for a government strategy to emerge but now, ironically with the return of the Assembly and its executive, things have really reached a new low. 

I have been ceo of my organisation for more than 20 years and have worked in this sector since my youth. I have NEVER known it so bad. To have a whole industry, which employs over 5,000 people, to be informed, over a week into a new financial year, that the main distributor of essential public funding cannot offer any guarantees of any funds! It's incredible.

And we have sadly grown used to the sad reality that standstill funding is as much as can be wished for and we all understand that there are significant pressures on all public expenditure. We all know this from bitter experience since 2014. And we all have learnt to be patient in our nail-biting anxiety around when we might receive word of our funding for the year ahead, through a Letter of Offer and indeed, what we might receive. 

Over the years, that date we receive that letter has slipped back further and further. But for our sector now, in the second week of a new financial year, to have only a provisional offer of , at best, “standstill funding”, with a clear statement from that funder that the governing department has yet to agree any budget for the year, well this is a significant new low, and by some degree. 

If only we had a fully-functioning government administration back at Stormont, with a minister in charge… oh, wait …of course we do. 

Now, we all know that in a universe where everything is relative, the term “standstill” is by no means a fixed term either. Whilst it is defined as “a situation or condition in which there is no movement or activity at all” , when it comes to funding, that is not the case. The value and buying power of money shifts constantly and often dramatically. Economic shocks, like wars or commodity crises are nothing new and affect the value of the money in our pockets day and daily. This current so-called “cost of living crisis” as the media would have it, is yet a steeper decline in living standards that we have endured since 2014. 

Over that decade, it is interesting to note the changes in value of money. Say an arts organisation was granted £100,000 in 2013/14 and over the intervening years, have been on “standstill”. Given all that has happened to wages and interest rates, with inflation etc, what does that “standstill” represent? Using HM Treasury’s own deflator indices, we can understand just that. 

In 2013-14 that £100,000 granted now has a real terms value in 2024-25, of £133,306 - meaning that if actual “standstill” funding was to be provided, an additional £33,306 would be required. 

If we look at the amounts of government funding to support the arts locally, take that 2011/12 amount of c£14m in revenue funding above. For that amount to be maintained (so-called “standstill”) that number would have needed to be £18.355m for the year 2023/24. However, the amount ACNI actually received was £9.682m, meaning, in real terms, there was a shortfall of £8.673m or 47%. And of course, as we enter a new financial year, the disparity is rising. The Arts Council themselves calculated that they required an additional £23m last year, just to “align better with our counterparts” ie to catch up with Wales for a start. 

But, that was then of course. We have a brand new Assembly now, fresh from hiatus, with a new minister and loads of new money, as agreed by UK Government, whose Command Paper heralded the return of the Assembly at Stormont and “sets out a series of measures to visibly evidence the government’s commitment to Northern Ireland –  and to strengthen it further –  as an integral part of the United Kingdom both now, and for the years ahead.”

A representative of the political party that “won” these concessions is now charged with guiding the Department for Communities. We’ve heard about all the budget wrangling on the airwaves, because of course there was the offer of an extra £3.3bn to Northern Ireland, expressly to stabilise our public services. And we know that £600m of that was to support public sector pay increases. But there was an unallocated £1 billion to stabilise the public finances across the board. 

But for an arts organisation, funded to the same amount of funds as it was in 2013/14, how do they support pay increases when in real terms they are almost 25% worse off, even with so-called “standstill” funding? How do they pay for light and heat? How can they ever hope to compete in a Creative Industries sector so underfunded locally?  Then read about the ambition that we all share for the creative sector in Northern Ireland…  

ACNI’s 10 year strategy closed for consultation last Friday. In it, ACNI states its ambition for our sector and our society:

We have derived a set of outcomes for the art sector, and a set of outcomes that the sector then delivers as a result for society. The outcomes overlap and are reliant on one another. ARTS SECTOR 

● A more financially stable arts sector. 

● A sector that develops and looks after its people and is more inclusive. 

● A sector that is better supported to develop through experimentation and innovation. SOCIETY 

● A sector that contributes to social and economic benefits and cares about the environment. 

● People from all backgrounds can enjoy arts experiences.  

● A sector that is more valued across society and government. 

(https://artscouncil-ni.org/resources/strategy-2024-2034)

The logic of this interconnected set of outcomes is clear - support our sector to support our society. But, yesterday, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland could only make a provisional offer of standstill funding, only because the sponsoring government department has not agreed a budget. Fair play to ACNI to actually try to offer the sector some modicum of surety when they, the board and directors of that arms length body, have no certainty about their own budget. 

But really minister, is that what the arts and cultural sector and indeed our society deserve, bearing in mind what ordinary people believe here:, 

• 87% of respondents to the General Population Survey believe that arts and creativity play a role in good health and wellbeing, and ... 

• 81% believe that arts and creativity contribute to creating a shared future / cohesive communities.

• 81% believe that arts and creativity play a role in stimulating the local economy.

• 56% believe that arts and creativity have a role to play in providing a sustainable environment.  

So, having struck this new low of entering a financial year without an agreed budget for this sector, can anyone here ever hope for better at all? Will the arts and cultural sector see any benefit from the Command Paper the Windsor Framework delivered and the much vaunted additional £3.3bn? And if not, what comes after hope is gone because it was all that was left at the bottom of the box? How long can any resilience last after a decade of pummelling and austerity? 

Ultimately, the path to our sector’s recovery and sustainability after a decade of testing its resilience, requires more than a well-articulated vision, or a screed of well-intentioned and ambitious strategies. It requires our government in Stormont to recognise the value of the arts here and more importantly the value of people's lives associated with the arts, whether as producers, audiences or participants. The arts matter, even if government keeps acting otherwise! 

A world of words

From the moment we’re born, how we relate to each other and to the world around us depends so so much on what we hear and what and how we say it. The sounds we make as children and how we relate them to our parents for example shows a striking commonality the world over. The evolution of language for a person and even a species stretches so far beyond back... back beyond our knowing, beyond our remembering and it is of course intriguing. The striking similarities of sounds that we make in early infancy that offer us comfort (the m and d sounds of mum and dad) are shared by a multitude of highly diverse cultures across the globe.

The development of our social bonds helped determine the accompanying development of our language. How we speak and what we say has always mattered, to bind us, as family groups, tribes and peoples. So that arc of language development and creativity takes us from prehistory right through to today. The nuance of the noises we make and the ideas we transmit within them is more ancient than any history. 

The ancient inhabitants of this island have been finding ways to speak locally to our immediate peers, but also more regionally to our fellow tribes for over 30 millennia. As our interactions became deeper through our ability to travel more easily, we developed more ways to communicate more diversely. And with the later formalisation of writing and reading, we strike a crucial moment in our developmental story, so much later on than our aural linguistic traditions. But we never stopped singing when we started writing.

If we think that only for some 5,000 years have we been reading and writing as a species, isn’t it astonishing the progress that we have made since? And not just the notation of words but of thoughts and ideas in the sciences as well as the arts, that describe phenomena not just of this world, but around very distant suns. 

The ancient art of writing came to Ireland long after cuneiform was developed in ancient Mesopotamia but with the development of Ogham, we not only see the emergence of writing but its interaction of music, art and intercultural connection with neighbouring lands and of course with Christianity. At the same time, on neighbouring shores, ancient Celtic languages vied with Latin and later Germanic and later still French. 

And in all this time, the words we use, the ideas we transmit, the promises we make, have become so embedded in our culture that we almost take them for granted - the promissory notes that translate to money, that has given way to the tap of a card; the bargains and contracts of handshakes and scribed onto vellum that today we enter into every time we click “accept” on our smartphones. 

The sheer weight of words now that we encounter everywhere, everyday can be overwhelming. The Internet contains trillions upon trillions of words, in the mechanics of the software and the screeds of communications. But in all this, there are words that we recognise universally that mean more to all of us, that we have written about for aeons, that reverberate through our own lives and the lives of all people since the dawn of civilisation: Love, Peace, Freedom, Truth and Home. These central ideas continue to hold the most profoundly important place in our writings. They underpin so much of what makes us all who we are. They make up the vast bulk of our writings, ancient and modern. They are the ideas behind the words that have drawn writers to offer their thoughts, poets to offer their verse and philosophers to provide insight, down through the ages. And they continue to be so utterly part and parcel of who we are and how far we’ve come. 

 So this week, if you happen to be celebrating World Book Day along with millions of others, don’t just revel in the diversity of books and the joy our children derive from them; but instead take a moment to recognise the power of creativity, evolution, history and ideals that has forged our human development until this moment and to celebrate the good fortune to enjoy those core themes of Love, Peace, Freedom, Truth and Home if we can, and then recognise the plight of so many across the world who cannot in these immensely troubled times. 

(Dedicated to David George Turkington RIP) 

Spring into Action

 

As February begins, opportunities must be seized. As we note a hopeful change in the seasons and the arrival of our newest government executive, Spring may well be the time of plans and projects, but we all know spring weather is never consistent.  (I've come over all Chance the Gardener* it seems.)

Our individual and collective creative endeavours must be tended to and stewarded carefully over the months and indeed years ahead. So, the DUPs Gordon Lyons now carries much of the high level responsibility for that stewardship as he becomes minister in charge of the Department for Communities, which in turn of course, has statutory responsibility for arts, culture and heritage in our corner of the world.

 

After two years lacking very much progress on the latest programme for government (around the arts or anything else) and a dozen years and more, where the only constant was standing still, this new incumbent will have a lot in his intray as political commentators are apt to quip. If we are relying on old adminsitrative metaphors, to the exclusion of digital efficiencies, then I hope we don’t regress any further given the debate about our postal services...

 

The years of funding our arts to a standstill and then watch them wither, serves no one’s interests. And when a corollary to this underinvestment is the impact on the young to actually engage in the arts, something is badly wrong. Last week, the celebrated culture magus, Melvyn Bragg, drew the House of Lords attention to the fact that education is key to change and "can lead us to a new state of the arts" but that uptake in GCSE music has dropped from 50,000 entrants in 2009 to 29,000 in 2022. Can a contemporary society afford to see its creative future reduce by half and still expect to cultural and creative output not to suffer? The Creative Industries of the UK are reaping the rewards for a generation of earlier investment by a previous UK government. And here, we surely have even more reason to see beyond the immediate and imagine a creative, collaborative future of diversity and dynamism, rather than dysfunction, deminishment and decay.  If this place, half way into the second decade of the 21st century cannot see what so much of the world has seen, that arts, culture and heritage actually mean more to people than trophies, symbolism and codification and matter far more to our physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing and to carving out new futures filled with flourishing careers and creative ambition, how can we make it clearer? I suspect only by repeating our arguments, year after year and pointing to the abundant evidence - and of course, telling the stories of how the arts transform peoples lives.

So, with that in mind and with a few months still to go, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland is seeking consultative responses to its strategy to support those creative benefits and that ambition. 

It’s a rather muted document, carefully tempering expectation with the experience of the last dozen years still reverberating, but also ever-hopeful the seedlings that we so prize do indeed find fertile ground. But given, by its own (I’d say conservative) calculation ACNI reckons we need an additional £23m pa to support the sector and align us to our closest budgetary counterparts in these islands ( ie Wales, where each citizen receives £5.28 more than we do per capita every year) , anticipating anything like that from this new “Assembly Spring” may well be far too optimistic, even for those whose careers are to make the imagined become real (I'm referring to artists here, not politicians obviously). As the chair and chief executive of ACNI opine in unison, "it is a regrettable truth that government investment in the arts sector in Northern Ireland has not always matched the incredible potential and impact it holds".

 

Still, the strategy represents a future for the arts. I'd urge you, if it merits your support or you think it’s deserves some further spade-work, just follow the link here and respond. https://artscouncil-ni.org/resources/strategy-2024-2034

Further opportunities spring

 

And, a word for the Anne O’Donoghue award (hosted by CAP and funded by the aforementioned Arts Council of Northern Ireland) which closes applications this week. If any arts manager or administrator in the community/health/youth or participatory arts sector can carve out the headspace for making an application to this award, it may well be incredibly worthwhile. With a maximum award of £5k on offer;

• is there a project that can be dreamed up where you're mentored by some arts guru with practical and inspirational thoughts and ideas to help re-potentialise your career? 
• Is your organisation in transition (is there an organisation that isn’t?) where real in-depth advice and guidance would prove to be invaluable?; 
• are there areas of development where you’d really appreciate a deeper understanding or a helping hand?; 
• Is there a programme or two out there, in the big wide world, with which you’d love to work to extend your own ideas but just never afforded yourself the time, headspace or indeed, the cash? 

If you can answer yes to any or all these questions, then you need to get familiar with the guidance and get writing this application right away. The link is here and it closes on Friday, 9th February - ie this Friday. 

So, while Hope may not spring eternal here, at least Spring does indeed offer opportunities ... it’s time to start digging again. 

 

 

 

*if you havent seen 'Being There" or read the book, I suggest you enjoy this timeless classic.

2024 - a legacy year in the making

It is utterly amazing and perplexing how the time flies. It seems like only yesterday that I was doing songwriting workshops in various locations in Belfast for an organisation wanting to support real change in my home city - New Belfast Community Arts Initiative. 

But of course, one cursory glance in a mirror and the realisation that indeed that was almost a quarter of a century ago is all too vivid. 

But, the time I believe (and indeed, the evaluations show) has indeed been well-lived.

24 years ago, on December 22nd 1999, our patron Martin Lynch established this organisation as the Belfast child of the Community Arts Forum. Of course in 2011 through the merger of CAF and New Belfast, a new organisation was born... Community Arts Partnership that now serves the whole region and indeed beyond.
 
Over the course of all those years there have been many trials and tribulations, not least the untimely loss of our good friend and music champion Geoff Harden in 2006, to whom we have dedicated our music studios. We have seen other friends and colleagues battle hard against disease, some winning and some unfortunatly losing that battle. Ill-health can be so hard to endure and so indiscriminate in its impact. And of course, for many of those we serve, their health status has left them more vulnerable to a society that more and more only seems to care for winners. The relationship between poverty and ill-health is so clear and well-documented and yet, for so many in N Ireland, we see public support for the vulberable and the disadvantaged constantly reduce over the last 25 years. Now, we see public services under almost daily existential threat. The harsh Darwinian realities of life are all too often too real today - where has the social contract to protect the weakest and most vulnerable gone, amidst all the squabbling and wrangling, the pettiness and hubris? 

But, some organisations have managed to survive the turmoil of constant cuts to arts and cultural funding over the last 15 or so years, and these surviving organisations, like the people they support, may yet have a longer timeframe to realise their strengths, pursue their dreams, and leave a legacy. And these reflections offer us greater freedom to be who one wants to be, express oneself, and choose what is personally meaningful. Will you support us to take advantage of new possibilities for leading a more fulfilling life?... because engaging in community arts can do just that.

As we enter our 25th year of operation, we renew our offer hope and ambition for better days ahead, through connecting community and creativity. 

I never dreamt that in encouraging community groups and individuals to write songs and express their innermost dreams that I would be here, directing this orgainsation almost 25 years later. And in this year of renewal and celebration, we will herald new strategic developments for this organisation; to not only recognise the legacy of those 25 years, but to build upon it and renew the basis for taking community arts forward into the next quarter of a century. We will be making a series of ground-breaking announcements and opening new possibilities over the weeks and months ahead. Do stay tuned.
 
 
So, I pay tribute (again) to all trustees, staff and freelance artists, volunteers and facilitators who have helped us reach this point and also to all our community hosts and partner organisations and centres of learning, thank you for the ongoing support and participation.
 
To you and all of them, to all our funders, especially our principal supporter, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and to Belfast City Council with whom we have been a multi-annual client for over 20 of those years and indeed to all our colleagues and friends, we wish you a happy and healthy 2024 and we at CAP look forward to working with you and supporting you through dedicated community arts practice, advocacy and delivery for this year and the years ahead.
 
Mind yourselves
Conor
ceo CAP