Select committee calls for greater urgency in rebalancing ACE funding
Arts minister and ACE should be more robust with councils over support for the arts, report finds
A report by the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee into the work of Arts Council England (ACE), published today, found that “greater urgency” is needed to address “a clear funding imbalance in favour of London at the expense of tax payers and lottery players in other parts of the country”.
The committee also called for an increased and consolidated national museum presence outside London, praising the Science Museum Group’s support for museums in Bradford, Manchester, Shildon, and York.
And the arts council should take a “far more robust stance” with local authorities that “show little inclination to support the arts”, the report finds.
The report also highlighted the lack of a comprehensive arts policy in England, calling for a “clear overall policy statement by the government” that might guide the arts council’s strategic direction.
Arts minister Ed Vaizey was criticised in the report after the committee found that conversations between the minister and local authorities “are not commonplace, if they take place at all”.
ACE needs to do more to broker partnerships with local authorities, businesses, local enterprise partnerships, and international organisations, the committee found.
And while staff at ACE were praised for their hard work and dedication, the report found that “more needs to be done” to improve the transparency of the arts council’s decision making. The committee also said it would be “disappointed” if ACE saw any further fall in its grant-in-aid.
ACE chairman, Peter Bazalgette, said: “The report suggests that greater urgency is required around the rebalancing debate and we are pleased that it has acknowledged that we are tackling this and that there is ‘much to praise in the hard work of the arts council’.
“We share the committee’s desire for a speedy response to the historic challenges to rebalancing. It is difficult to act urgently when our income is shrinking and additional resource would certainly allow for greater flexibility in supporting our ambition to achieve this.
“As the report also made clear, one of the crucial factors for the arts funding landscape is the commitment of local authorities to support culture during this period of austerity.
“To that end, we fully endorse the importance placed on local partnership working and will continue to use our on the ground expertise and knowledge to build connections and broker partnerships around the country that deliver strong cultural engagement.
But a spokesman for GPS Culture, which authored the independent report Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital (ROCC) highlighting the funding imbalance between London and the regions, said: “Our study of the history of the arts council as an institution and our experience of interaction with it over the past twelve months, during which time it has failed to address the issues we have raised, leaves us with severe doubts as to whether it is structurally capable of addressing the recommendations for redistribution that the select committee has made at either the scale, or with the urgency, envisaged.”
Giving evidence to the committee, a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said that the government “cautions against a simplistic distribution per head of population”, stating that “London’s role as a preeminent arts and cultural hub for the whole world must not be undermined”.
And London mayor Boris Johnson said today: “The report represents a lost opportunity, reigniting the overly simplistic 'London vs the regions' debate around arts funding.
“This is based upon spurious calculations and a partial consideration of how the arts are funded. ACE funding represents only one third of the public investment in the arts and more than half of the organisations it regularly funds spend 80% of their time outside the capital.”
The committee found: “A redistribution along the lines suggested by the authors of ROCC would do much to redress the imbalance in funding to benefit England as a whole. We believe this could be achieved in a timely fashion without threatening London’s world status as a cultural centre.”
Sharon Heal, Museums Association (MA) director, said: “The MA welcomes this report as a timely contribution to the discussion about arts funding in England.
“We support the call for a strategic approach to funding and would welcome this being developed as a partnership between ACE, local authorities, and all those interested in making sure that public funding is distributed in an equitable way that achieves maximum impact.”
A DCMS spokeswoman said: “We welcome the publication of this report and will respond in detail in due course. The government is committed to supporting the arts, to provide culture for all, ensuring the economic, social and intrinsic benefits are available to everyone.”
Links
CMS select committee report into the work of Arts Council England
The committee also called for an increased and consolidated national museum presence outside London, praising the Science Museum Group’s support for museums in Bradford, Manchester, Shildon, and York.
And the arts council should take a “far more robust stance” with local authorities that “show little inclination to support the arts”, the report finds.
The report also highlighted the lack of a comprehensive arts policy in England, calling for a “clear overall policy statement by the government” that might guide the arts council’s strategic direction.
Arts minister Ed Vaizey was criticised in the report after the committee found that conversations between the minister and local authorities “are not commonplace, if they take place at all”.
ACE needs to do more to broker partnerships with local authorities, businesses, local enterprise partnerships, and international organisations, the committee found.
And while staff at ACE were praised for their hard work and dedication, the report found that “more needs to be done” to improve the transparency of the arts council’s decision making. The committee also said it would be “disappointed” if ACE saw any further fall in its grant-in-aid.
ACE chairman, Peter Bazalgette, said: “The report suggests that greater urgency is required around the rebalancing debate and we are pleased that it has acknowledged that we are tackling this and that there is ‘much to praise in the hard work of the arts council’.
“We share the committee’s desire for a speedy response to the historic challenges to rebalancing. It is difficult to act urgently when our income is shrinking and additional resource would certainly allow for greater flexibility in supporting our ambition to achieve this.
“As the report also made clear, one of the crucial factors for the arts funding landscape is the commitment of local authorities to support culture during this period of austerity.
“To that end, we fully endorse the importance placed on local partnership working and will continue to use our on the ground expertise and knowledge to build connections and broker partnerships around the country that deliver strong cultural engagement.
But a spokesman for GPS Culture, which authored the independent report Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital (ROCC) highlighting the funding imbalance between London and the regions, said: “Our study of the history of the arts council as an institution and our experience of interaction with it over the past twelve months, during which time it has failed to address the issues we have raised, leaves us with severe doubts as to whether it is structurally capable of addressing the recommendations for redistribution that the select committee has made at either the scale, or with the urgency, envisaged.”
Giving evidence to the committee, a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said that the government “cautions against a simplistic distribution per head of population”, stating that “London’s role as a preeminent arts and cultural hub for the whole world must not be undermined”.
And London mayor Boris Johnson said today: “The report represents a lost opportunity, reigniting the overly simplistic 'London vs the regions' debate around arts funding.
“This is based upon spurious calculations and a partial consideration of how the arts are funded. ACE funding represents only one third of the public investment in the arts and more than half of the organisations it regularly funds spend 80% of their time outside the capital.”
The committee found: “A redistribution along the lines suggested by the authors of ROCC would do much to redress the imbalance in funding to benefit England as a whole. We believe this could be achieved in a timely fashion without threatening London’s world status as a cultural centre.”
Sharon Heal, Museums Association (MA) director, said: “The MA welcomes this report as a timely contribution to the discussion about arts funding in England.
“We support the call for a strategic approach to funding and would welcome this being developed as a partnership between ACE, local authorities, and all those interested in making sure that public funding is distributed in an equitable way that achieves maximum impact.”
A DCMS spokeswoman said: “We welcome the publication of this report and will respond in detail in due course. The government is committed to supporting the arts, to provide culture for all, ensuring the economic, social and intrinsic benefits are available to everyone.”
Links
CMS select committee report into the work of Arts Council England