Any fool can make spending cuts, but it takes wisdom to see past them

It has long been a management school truism that organisations that take tough decisions early recover from recession faster than those that wait to be overwhelmed.

The same applies to the arts. Do something before others do it to you; be active not passive; take control of your future even when it looks bleak.

So, firstly: some things not to do when recession bites, funding is cut, and budgets are under pressure.

Don’t moan. We are all in it together. No one will be impressed by hard-luck stories.

Don’t cut the education and outreach budget. It is extraordinary how often this is the first cargo to be jettisoned in a budget storm. If education is that expendable in a time of crisis, it exposes earlier commitments to educating the next generation as hollow.

Don’t radically alter your programming in the hope that a few cheap, popular events will solve the problem. They won’t, and you will have sold your soul in the process.

Don’t cut your ticket prices – those who really can’t afford to come because of hard times will not be coaxed in by a few price reductions. It is the better off who grab cheap offers. And you hit precious income streams just when they are most needed.

Don’t cut internal budgets across the board, guaranteeing equal quantities of misery. This is ineffective, and shows no awareness of real priorities.

Don’t cut your regular maintenance programme. You will regret it when the roofs start to leak. But do take a hard look at the capital programme as such – do you need to start a new-build project just now?

The lesson within all these “don’ts” is not to meet recession by cutting the wrong things. And now here are some management “do’s”. They are all about income – generating it, conserving it and managing it.

Do make sure you get the maximum take-up from Gift Aid – very few organisations can point to a 100 per cent response rate. This is easy money. It is also an example of self-help that stakeholders and governments like.

Do make sure your website has a voluntary box for “suggested additional donation” over the ticket price itself. You will be surprised by the size of the response.

Do review your ticket pricing and push it upwards if you can. Most arts organisations underprice. Many members of the audience can and will pay more. Do you have a dynamic pricing policy where prices are adjusted according to increased demand?

Your commercial income – hospitality, bars, conferences, car parking – is likely to be hit first and worst. Try not to let this drag down the entire arts budget and business plan.

Ask your stakeholder/principal funder to ringfence the commercial side of the budget, and agree on a repayment of whatever commercial debt accumulates during the recession until it eases.

The most important response to funding cuts is to look hard at your own organisation. I believe that every arts organisation has its own unacknowledged agenda, consisting of a programme of restructuring and reform that they know they should carry out, but lack the determination to act upon.

A funding crisis offers the perfect opportunity to do what has previously been shirked. Reform in a time of recession, too, offers the prospect of emerging from recession better organised.

And, above all, be clever. The arts are about ideas, thoughts, innovation, a bit of madness, the unexpected. Even if you can’t fill your venue with big performances, turn it into a place for ideas, debates, provocation, discussions, human and social engagement.

This is a tough programme. Even if you don’t put it all into effect – and it is worth trying to do so – it will mitigate the impact of funding cuts. It’s very unlikely to solve them all.

But doing what you need, what you can, what you must, allows you to do something else – to make a hell of a fuss, in public, about whatever cuts have been imposed.

Any fool can cut spending. It takes someone wise to say that arts cuts that damage a decade of wise investment in the arts but contribute nothing to solving the national indebtedness are stupid. They are.

We must stop being apologetic about what the arts have achieved in the last decade. The extra funding has been well used in providing the highest level of artistic quality and excellence across the spectrum; arts organisations are well led, managed and run; attendances are high and remain so in the recession; arts organisations relate to their diverse communities as never before.

During the last decade, the arts have not only set and maintained the highest standards of excellence and quality in what they create.

They have absorbed the social outreach agenda into their system, their outlook and their values. When museums and galleries were made free, attendances soared; when more funds were provided for theatre, more tickets were bought.

The arts work – we do our job for society, community and people. They are a success by any criteria. Why cut them? If we don’t ask that question, no one else will.

John Tusa is the chairman of the Clore Leadership Programme