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!
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