The NI Assembly's new Programme for Government believes the arts don’t matter at all

 

The Assembly believes the arts don’t matter – we have to tell them that it does!

(An immediate response to the draft Programme for Government 2024-2027, titled "Our Plan: Doing What Matters Most")

The NI Assembly believes the arts don’t matter ... 

The draft Programme for Government 2024-2027, titled "Our Plan: Doing What Matters Most", published on the 9^th September, shows the struggle that is underway to save the arts in N Ireland. This draft PfG primarily focuses on economic recovery, public health, education, and infrastructure, with absolutely no explicit mention of direct investment or initiatives to support the Culture, Arts, and Heritage sector. This egregious omission has set off alarm bells across a sector that has enjoyed only neglect, underinvestment and a reduction in living/working standards caused by 13+ years of austerity on the part of the Assembly and government departments.  Bear in mind that these sectors, culture arts and heritage, have just completed two major pieces of work in ministerial taskforces, producing firstly a cogent plan for the recovery through the Covid crisis and then latterly, a Culture arts and heritage Strategy completed in 2022, with scores of organisations and their leaders taking part.

Whilst the stark absence of any references to culture and heritage shouldn't necessarily mean these sectors will be neglected entirely, but given bitter experience and the catchy title of the draft pfg “Doing What Matters Most”, it is evident what government now thinks – that creativity and culture are definitely not priorities and essentially do not matter in this society.  This lack of visibility in the stated core governmental priorities begs questions about the ongoing support of these sectors in the next government funding cycles and ultimately, the sustainability of arts and culture in this corner of the globe...

The draft PfG does manage to set out a broad framework for public policy, and its undoubtedly possible that specific initiatives might emerge through funding schemes, possibly through departmental budgets such as tourism or education, but to reduce even the editorial commitment to culture, arts and heritage, is yet another body blow to a sector that has been pummelled for a decade or more and now sees its value not noted ONCE in a draft programme for government. Unbelievable!

As a sector, we must coalesce around a determination to place the arts and culture at the heart of society and seize this consultation process, running from September to November 2024, to press government for stronger representation in policy and commitments to fund our sector sustainably in the finalised pfg.

The 2024-2027 PfG “Our Plan: Doing What Matters Most” shows massive divergence from earlier pfg’s regarding the role of the arts.

1. 2016-2021 Programme for Government

In the 2016-2021 PfG, culture, arts, and heritage were explicitly recognised as critical to Northern Ireland's identity, social cohesion, and economic development. Specific outcomes relating to these sectors included:

• Outcome 5: Emphasised "a more creative society," with a direct commitment to supporting the arts as a means of fostering innovation, creativity, and inclusion
• Investment in Culture: Funding and strategic initiatives targeted cultural projects, aiming to enhance Northern Ireland’s cultural offering as part of its tourism and international appeal. The recognition of the arts as a driver for tourism and economic regeneration was clear in the 2016-2021 document.
• Community and Cohesion: Arts and heritage were also tied into improving community relations and reducing division. Initiatives were often designed to support cultural expression as a form of healing from the legacy of the Troubles, with government-funded programmes aimed at both promoting Northern Ireland’s heritage and fostering dialogue across communities

But now in contrast… 

2. 2024-2027 Programme for Government

The current draft PfG for 2024-2027 makes absolutely no direct mention of culture, arts, or heritage as priorities in its key outcomes. This lack of explicit focus on the sector marks a worrying departure from previous government programmes and signals an unambiguous threat to the sustainability of these sectors:

• Reduced Visibility: While the previous PfG (2016-2021) included a specific outcome tied to creativity and the arts, the 2024-2027 draft shifts attention to broader societal goals like economic recovery, health, and environmental sustainability without any reference to arts, culture or heritage. This is itself is remarkable, but all the more so if one remembers the crisis in race relations continue to reverberate locally for a society that is still emerging from conflict.
• Post-Pandemic Priorities: The new draft is heavily focused on rebuilding the economy and health services after the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, cultural funding has been further deprioritised. Bear in mind that only last year, culture arts and heritage leaders spent months working on a ministerial taskforce to address these concerns, and develop a strategy, and yet that vision is now cast aside completely. The clear message to be heard by our sector is that neither our input, nor the industry that works across all sections of our community, employing thousands, matters.

3. Potential Impacts

• Funding Concerns: The absence of explicit goals for arts and heritage in the 2024-2027 PfG raises immediate concerns about further and perhaps more profound funding cuts. While earlier versions of the PfG linked cultural initiatives to tourism and economic strategies, the current draft shifts away from these linkages, severing what had been a clear strategic initiative ( and one of course that is employed by neighbouring jurisdictions to global and national effect.)

• Consultation Opportunity: The ongoing consultation process offers a chance for stakeholders in the culture, arts, and heritage sectors to push for stronger representation and clearer funding commitments in the final version of the PfG​

 

The PfG 2024-2027 marks a clear shift away from the explicit support for culture, arts, and heritage seen in the 2016-2021 iteration. While the previous PfG recognised the arts as a key driver for social cohesion and economic growth, the current draft lacks any direct references to our sector.

When comparing the 2024-2027 draft PfG with previous versions, in terms of culture, arts, and heritage, key trends emerge:

1. Reduction in Visibility of Arts and Culture: In earlier iterations, particularly those from 2011-2015, cultural heritage, linguistic diversity (e.g., Irish and Ulster Scots), and the promotion of arts as community development tools were explicitly addressed. For example, the PfG for 2011-2015 emphasised celebrating cultural and linguistic diversity and included actions related to the provision of resources for Irish medium education, respect for ethnic minority traditions, and cultural participation by disabled and elderly citizens. The emphasis was not only on supporting these sectors but also promoting inclusivity across communities. 

2. Cultural and Economic Development Links:

The 2016-2021 PfG made stronger links between culture, arts, and economic goals, framing the creative industries as contributors to the regional economy. There was an effort to tie arts and cultural activities into broader social outcomes, including mental health improvement and community cohesion.

Whilst arts purists may have baulked at the time and complained of social engineering and instrumentalism, the arts aren’t even mentioned now.

However, by 2024-2027, while the framework continues to promote community well-being, there is a complete absence of specific policies or any stated commitments aimed directly at the arts and cultural sectors.

3. Broad Social and Economic Focus:

This latest draft of the PfG, primarily focuses on broader economic, health, and educational outcomes, with culture and arts having no explicit role in this strategic overview, where the arts and cultural sectors have explicitly, constantly and consistently supported these areas.

The arts contribution to the UK economy (evidenced in figures around GVA and GDP) leverages huge benefit when compared to the comparatively low level of investment. N Ireland contributes hugely to this leverage. 

Similarly, the impact of the arts on mental, emotional and physical health has been proven and charted again and again in community and health settings.

As for education – how many successful engagements has the sector carried out in just the last few weeks, never mind consistently, year on year,  across our schools, community centres and centres of learning.

The new framework offers no role for cultural and artistic contributions as key enablers of societal progress, and will undoubtedly lead to further reductions in funding if this is not addressed coherently, cogently and across

This approach by the Northern Ireland government suggests that while earlier programmes may have recognised the intrinsic value of culture and arts and indeed how that value might be applied, the more recent iterations only prioritise measurable economic and social outcomes, the reductive neo-liberal framework that can only count beans.

Our sector and all who have benefited from it over the years, must fight back before we are swept away.

Let’s compare the so-called ‘Doing What Matters Most’ programme with that of our near neighbours in the Republic of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland for a moment. 

Just a brief scan around reveals so much.

As I’ve said, here amongst our ministers and their departments in the North/Northern Ireland there is now a marked absence of any explicit reference to the culture arts and heritage sectors. While general public spending is discussed, cultural investment does not appear anywhere, leaving the status of ongoing or new initiatives in the arts and heritage sectors completely unclear and worryingly absent. This contrasts sharply with approaches in the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

Republic of Ireland:

Cultural policy in the Republic is highly evolved and painstakingly consulted upon and developed. It is always integrated into broader governmental priorities. Through frameworks like Culture 2025, the Irish government places culture at the heart of public policy, recognising its importance for social cohesion, identity, and economic development. This all-of-government programme aims to integrate creativity into public policy, touching on key areas such as Creative Youth, Creative Communities, and cultural health and well-being. Moreover, the Irish government has committed to doubling its funding for arts and culture from 2017 levels by 2025.

The Creative Ireland Programme (2017-2022) further emphasises key pillars such as enabling creativity in children, investing in cultural infrastructure, and promoting Ireland globally as a hub for cultural and creative industries. Culture 2025 also commits to doubling public funding for culture by 2025 and has extensive support for Irish language, biodiversity, and creative industries.

Scotland

Although constantly in the news for the wrong reasons around funding over the last months, The Scottish Government consistently highlights the importance of culture through its A Culture Strategy for Scotland (2020), which underscores culture’s role in fostering individual and community wellbeing. Like the ROI, Scotland commits significant investment into creative industries, cultural participation, and heritage conservation and even in light of sever funding pressures, has sought to maintain that commitment. A key element is that culture is seen as a critical element for achieving Scotland's National Outcomes, with funding provided to both national institutions and community-level arts initiatives.

Wales

In Wales, our most comparable neighbour in terms of previous funding frameworks (although enjoying twice the funding level per capita) , Wales enjoys a cultural agenda that is similarly well-supported through policies such as Cultural Recovery Fund for arts and culture sectors and the Wales’ Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). This places culture and heritage as essential to well-being, sustainability, and national identity. There is a strong commitment to safeguarding the Welsh language and promoting heritage tourism, with substantial investment in national museums, heritage sites, and creative industries.

In contrast, Northern Ireland’s PFG says NOTHING… it does not outline even one specific cultural funding commitment or initiative!

It’s clear that policy makers and indeed citizens in neighbouring countries, (who by the way already enjoy cultural investment many times greater than the level of funding here) understand that public investment is critical in supporting a far greater sense of national identity, civic participation, community wellbeing and of course, global recognition of the cultural wealth of these nations. Their governments have consistently embraced culture arts and heritage as a huge driver of national benefit in a multiplicity of settings and relationships, from local community through to international relations.   

Northern Ireland’s current PFG lacks any comparable commitment.

For any contemporary nation to ignore culture, arts and heritage and excise all mention from a document entitled “Doing What Matters Most” speaks volumes about how out of step and utterly myopic our collective government is. 

Ministers chorus “Our Plan” but its disregards the most basic elements that make society, that makes this place tick – the reasons that we think as we do, the humanity that underpins our language and our interactions, the creativity that we must harness for our collective future and the very essence of how we reflect ourselves today and everyday!

To deny the arts is to undermine any attempt to support our collective quality of life, for citizen or state, child or institution, us’ns and them’uns. 

We must push back and not just for the thousands of jobs in this sector, but for the inalienable right of all of us to enjoy the benefits of a cultural life and participate in our society.

ArtsMatterNI offers its resources, platform and collective intelligence to fight back against this casting aside of our sector's role and respond robustly and collectively to this dismissal of our role. 

https://www.artsmatterni.co.uk/

Contact us on artsmatterni @ gmail . com and let's do this... 

The Arts Matter.  NOW MORE THAN EVER

Best

Conor Shields

Vote Early, Vote Arty

In the current UK election campaign, the major political parties have taken distinct positions on arts funding and related cultural policies. I note these parties first as there is a degree of concensus that given arts funding is a devolved matter, that local parties are may well have to accept more general decisions surrounding funding and see what happens with NI's block grant, the allocation of which is a devoled to Stormont - although judging on Monday's so-called "Mini-Budget" , there isn't very much love being shown for the arts in financial terms - squat actually. 

So a quick look at the runners and riders is always worth a look...

Conservative Party

The Conservatives highlight their past support, such as the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund, provided during the pandemic. Future commitments include ensuring competitive creative sector tax incentives, launching a review of the night time economy, and extending the Community Ownership Fund to support community music venues.



Labour Party

Labour emphasises making the arts accessible to all and plans to integrate arts into their broader Industrial Strategy. Their commitments include supporting schoolchildren to study creative subjects, creating a National Music Education Network, and improving conditions for creative sector workers by banning exploitative zero-hours contracts and enhancing employment rights.


Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats propose using National Lottery funding for the arts, establishing creative enterprise zones, and seeking to rejoin the EU’s Creative Europe program. They also focus on maintaining free access to national museums and galleries and support the role of arts in health and wellbeing. Additionally, they advocate for modernising employment rights for freelancers and ensuring the independence of arts funding.


Green Party

The Greens pledge £5 billion in arts and culture funding over five years, propose VAT exemption for cultural event tickets, and emphasise protecting artists' intellectual property against AI threats. They also advocate for Universal Basic Income to support artistic potential


Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru opposes cuts to Welsh cultural organisations and calls for increased funding from Westminster. They advocate free entry to national museums, support for Welsh-language arts, and the return of Welsh cultural artefacts. They also plan to establish a Welsh Freelancers Fund and support re-developing the participation in Creative Europe


Scottish National Party (SNP)

The SNP focuses on boosting the creative industries' economic potential and supporting cultural sector cooperation. Specific details are lighter compared to other parties, but they share some pledges similar to the Liberal Democrats regarding Creative Europe.


Reform UK

Reform UK lacks detailed arts funding policies and generally focuses on reducing government spending. They propose cutting "wasteful" expenditure by £50 billion annually, which raises concerns about potential cuts to cultural investment. They also plan to scrap the BBC’s funding model without providing a replacement.


When we look closer to home, as my colleague Gordon Hewitt has already pointed out, these positions shift somewhat to reflect a range of local approaches, from increasing direct funding and educational support to emphasising tax incentives and sectoral reviews.

In the current election campaign, Northern Ireland's political parties have articulated various positions on arts funding, reflecting their broader policy priorities.


Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin has emphasised the need to end underfunding through enhanced fiscal powers and multi-annual budgeting to protect and expand public services. While their focus is broader, they acknowledge the importance of cultural sectors and aim to ensure sustainable funding for public services, which includes the arts


Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

The DUP calls for increased funding through revisions to the Barnett formula, advocating for a needs-based uplift to secure more resources for Northern Ireland. They recognize the value of arts and culture but have not specified detailed policies on arts funding in their current manifesto.


Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)

The SDLP supports a comprehensive spending review to deliver a multi-year, costed public service recovery plan. This includes addressing the funding needs of cultural institutions as part of their commitment to enhancing public services and supporting anti-poverty strategies.


Alliance Party

The Alliance Party emphasises fair funding for Northern Ireland, advocating for a fiscal floor and supporting a UK-wide retrofitting program to reduce emissions and combat fuel poverty. They also back welfare reforms aimed at reducing punitive measures, which could indirectly benefit the arts by ensuring more stable funding for public services.


Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)

The UUP's manifesto focuses on collaborative policymaking to tackle rising property prices and rental costs, aiming for an 82% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. While their emphasis is on housing and environmental sustainability, they recognize the role of cultural investment in community well-being and economic development


So, these are the baseline positions that reflect the varied and various approaches of Northern Ireland's political parties towards the thorny issue for all of us…arts funding. There is of course a common underlying theme coming from all the major parties, of seeking greater fiscal autonomy for Northern Ireland and more equitable funding arrangements from Westminster to support public services, including the arts.


Of course, we would never dream of advocating for any particular political outlook or indeed party, but we are always keen to see where future support for the arts may come from. Best of luck to all electors on Thursday!



Sources:


https://about.policymogul.com/blog/election-hub-compare-uk-party-manifestos-on-any-issue/


https://www.cih.org/blogs/general-election-2024-political-party-manifestos-in-northern-ireland


https://www.ism.org/news/general-election-24-manifestos/


https://www.campaignforthearts.org/general-election-2024-what-are-the-parties-pledging-for-the-arts/


https://www.rcslt.org/news/northern-ireland-election-manifesto-roundup/

The empty chair

I wrote last month that the arts locally had never been in such peril as we are now. As over 100 arts organisations representing the infrastructure that the Arts Council of Northern Ireland has nurtured over many decades and to whom they often refer as ‘the arts ecology’ here. A month since that blog post and nothing has changed - no letters of offer, no signed off budgets and therefore, no confidence in how to move forward. There are of course more problematic aspects where the word NO figures prominently - NO money - to pay salaries, overheads, insurance, artists fees etc and NO minister … even though we have a minister apparently…

You see, the Arts Council, to much fanfare, launched its 10 year strategy after an exhaustive process where they consulted art professionals, organisations and practitioners, and indeed engaged across governmental departments and agencies to synthesise a creative strategy to offer some guidance and shape a trajectory for the arts until 2034. And the department that sponsors the arts here,the Department for Communities, was, we were told,  of course approached in a timely way so that the minister would attend. And I believe he had said he would but on the day, NO show. So, NO budget, NO letters of offer, NO minister…just an empty chair where a minister charged with championing and supporting the arts should have been sitting. The chair of ACNI did say he had received apologies from the minister. But couldn’t someone from his staff have read his speech and given us some crumb of comfort that he at least acknowledged the sector??

Instead, we had Gary Lightbody, the mainstay of N Ireland's most prolific contemporary band, offer his thoughts on why the arts should be more valued than they are and to plead, on our collective behalf, that they receive the monies that we as a society deserve. He remarked in his excellent speech that when he meets politicians, the impression he’s left with is that they believe the arts are a luxury that cannot necessarily be afforded. Gary has shown leadership, he had demonstrated knowledge and understanding and offered support. But Gary is a singer in a succesful rock band, and unfortunately, Gary is not our minister for the arts.

But we do know that the current minister for the arts is very keen on asserting his demands that people here be treated exactly the same as citizens across the water in GB. We also understand that as a minister for the economy in the last administration, he was very keen to engage with the business sector and to celebrate their successes. So, why not come to the engage with the arts sector - one of the most efficient business sectors that there is - employing over 5,500 people, creating significant pathways for employment, training and R&D, assisting in facilitating a creative workforce of the future through multiple and wide-ranging schools programmes, and contributing actively to a healthier more engaged society for our young, our elderly, our minorities on the margins and supporting massively the evening economy and bolstering the cultural tourism offering. There is not a corner of life here where the arts are not actively contributing.

Pound for pound, the arts over-deliver and across the years, we’ve had to become expert in so many applied areas of working that an organisation can now switch from delivering a capacity-building training workshop to young artists, to working with groups with a whole range of physical and emotional challenges in the next breath and then celebrating new artistic work on an international stage that evening. There are over 100 annually funded organisations who are doing this type of work, day in day out. And the Arts Council was describing how we collectively see the arc of that work over the next 10 years in their strategy. Still NO show, NO minister.

Then the arts community starts to think - maybe it's US … are we the problem here? Are we?...

too sensitive about being the lowest funded region in the arts across the UK by 50%, or receiving only a fifth as much as they receive per head compared to the Republic …

Are we too progressive in that we challenge the status quo and insist that the arts and access to them is an inalienable human right…
Are we too confident in our skills that we can support people, amateur and professional, to have ambition to get up on that stage and show ourselves for the creative people we are…
Are we too empathic, working with so many people who cannot be reached by formal education, for whom life every day is a challenge and the chance to celebrate achievement is so so limited…
Or are we just too resilient, that having been treated as Cinderella across too many pantomimes, we are still here, decades later and now almost 2 months into a financial year and still have yet to receive any monies from our principal funder because the department can’t decide how poorly to fund this sector??   

And so as we wait on tenterhooks to find out how we support the working lives of 5,500 people, we can browse the net and celebrate the minster attending a variety of meetings elsewhere...

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.