News and Policy Brief – June 2010
In this month's Policy Brief, an update on the new government, the cultural agenda, first speeches, and initial announcements on policy and funding cuts. Also read on for news on higher education issues, apprenticeships and sector reports relevant to contemporary craft.
1. New Government: the cultural agenda
Our attention this month has inevitably been focused on the new coalition government.
The shadow ministers we had been watching most closely in opposition retain their departmental briefs in government. Jeremy Hunt is the new Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport and will have overall responsibility for DCMS and its remit. Ed Vaizey is now Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries. Based in DCMS (which retains its title and does not become DCOMS despite the addition of the Olympics) , he will also report to the Business Secretary on telecommunications and the digital economy. John Penrose is Minister for Tourism and Heritage, and Hugh Robertson is Minister for Sport and the Olympics. All ministers are Conservatives, leaving DCMS as one of the few government departments without a Liberal Democrat in a ministerial post.
Programme for government
An outline of the government’s legislative agenda for the coming five years was published in The Coalition: our programme for government document. Key commitments for culture were all familiar from the Conservative manifesto and included:
- Maintaining free entry to national museums and galleries. – Reforming the National Lottery, with aims to increase transparency, limit administration costs, ban lobbying and re-channel a greater portion of funds into the arts and heritage. – Expediting the rollout of superfast broadband across the country.
Measures in Business with some relevance to the craft sector include fostering opportunities for procurement from small business, promoting local (rather than regional) economic development and enhancing the competitiveness of the UK’s tourism industry.
On communities, the coalition agreement promises “radical devolution” of power to local government and communities and a review of local government finance, which will undoubtedly have implications for local government arts funding. Read the full agreement here
Queen’s speech
Parliament opened officially on May 25th with the Queen’s Speech, which outlined the government’s agenda for the coming year. None of the 24 bills included in the speech made direct reference to culture and the creative industries but several bills will have repercussions for the craft sector.
-The Academies Bill aims to facilitate transition for schools to academy status, granting them greater freedom from local government.
-The Decentralism and Localism Bill will enable the government to transfer decision making powers to local councils.
-The Public Bodies (Reform) Bill signals a reduction in the number of non-departmental public bodies (quangos). It will give Ministers new powers to abolish, merge and transfer NDPBs into government departments, and contains measures to review the function of all NDPBs every three years, rather than every five as at present.
Initial spending cuts
As promised in the Conservative manifesto, the government has announced £6.2 billion of cuts from Government spending in 2010-11 financial year. Savings include £600 million from reducing the cost of NDPBs, £1.165 billion of reduction to grants to local authorities and £1.15 billion of savings in discretionary areas such as consultancy. Further indications of overall long-term Government spending plans will be given in the emergency Budget on June 22nd and Spending Review setting budgets for every department will follow in the autumn.
As part of the initial round of savings, DCMS will be required to cut £61 million from its budget. This will be achieved through a 3% cut to the department’s core budget and a 3% cut to all DCMS funded bodies, (including the national museums, Museums Libraries, Archives (MLA) and Arts Council England) as well as £27 million from the Olympics. On top of this basic 3% cut, DCMS also announced a further reduction of £5 million to the funding of the Arts Council. DCMS has suggested that it may be possible for ACE to mitigate the effects of this cut by drawing on its reserves, which it has not been able to access up to now.
ACE Chair, Dame Liz Forgan DBE, commented that the organisation did not understand why it had been singled out for higher percentage cuts than other bodies receiving DCMS funding and expressed concern about experiencing a cut within the financial year. She outlined how ACE would manage the cut:
“We will do our utmost to minimise the impact on the frontline but we cannot guarantee that there will be no effect. Only £23m (5%) of our overall grant-in-aid budget goes on running costs so the vast bulk of our income goes straight to art. It would therefore be impossible to meet a cut of this size from running costs alone. Use of our historic reserves, which the Department has not allowed us to use to date, will have to be agreed with our Trustees and the Charity Commission and their use will need to be in the best interests of the arts.”
The full Arts Council statement can be read here
Jeremy Hunt’s first speech as Secretary of State
In his first speech as Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt reiterated the plans set out in the coalition agreement. He promised a major drive to increase philanthropic giving, reform of the national lottery and Gift Aid scheme, preservation of Labour’s free entry to museums, the continued mainstreaming of cultural policy and support of an arms-length principle from government.
These measures indicate a shift towards mixed funding for the arts through combinations of philanthropy, public and private money, but all grant-giving organisations will have to cut their admin costs to 5% of overall budget and the only concrete commitment to new money came from an increase in the share of National Lottery profits. Although he returned repeatedly to the funding limitations for the arts imposed by the current spending climate, he attempted to soften the bleak message with his promise that the arts would not be singled out as a ‘soft target’ and assurance of ‘cross government commitment to the arts’. He also asserted that he would personally champion the associated economic and social values of culture.
A transcript of this speech is available here
National Lottery consultation
Following the announcement of plans to reform the National Lottery, DCMS has published a consultation on the proposed changes, which would see the percentage shares for arts, heritage and sport increase to 18% in and 20% in 2012 (with the Big Lottery Fund’s share reduced first to 46% and then to 40%).The Crafts Council will be preparing a response to the consultation which has a deadline of 21st August 2010. The full text of the consultation is available here
Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee
John Whittingdale has been appointed unopposed as Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. For the first time elections have been held for committee chairs, positions previously filled by the party whips, but John Whittingdale’s was the only nomination for the culture committee. The Committee members of all Select Committees are expected to be announced in July.
Announcements from the Department for Education
Legislation to allow more schools to become academies, including primary schools for the first time, is a priority for the new government. Academies have more independence in terms of their curriculum and more administrative freedom. In addition, the Department for Education has announced that it will not implement the new primary curriculum, developed after an extensive review by Sir Jim Rose. The Crafts Council had contributed to the consultation and welcomed the new curriculum (see the policy briefing from December 2009 for detail), which gave greater prominence to art, craft and design and which we felt offered many potential benefits.
2. Higher and further education
Higher and further education remain within the remit of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in the new government. Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business and Skills, and David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, have both made major speeches setting out their vision for their areas of responsibility.
Vince Cable largely endorsed the previous government’s approach to higher education, which sees it as serving the needs of business and the economy. However, he also asserted that he understood the personal and long-term economic value of learning for learning’s sake and noted, “Philistinism is bad economics”. The full speech is available here
David Willett’s speech contained welcome endorsement of the importance of technical skills in general and craft skills in particular. He noted the importance of finding ways to combine intellectual and manual skills – a key characteristic of contemporary craft – and referenced the work of Richard Sennett and Matthew B.Crawford, one of the speakers at Assemble
He also described a vision for higher education which recognised the importance of its economic contribution, but which did not define this too narrowly:
“...there is enormous value in further and higher education which cannot just be captured by utilitarian calculation– benefits which are not readily measured as patents registered or spinouts floated.
I recognise the importance of all those courses and degrees which – through their rigour – increase the intellectual capability of the nation and its skills base.
I’m all in favour of curiosity-driven research whose applications may take time to emerge, if at all. Intellectual enquiry is worthwhile for its own sake.”
The full speech is available here
Spending cuts announced last month, as part of the governments promised £6bn efficiency savings, include a £200m cut to this year’s higher education budget. This will include a reduction in the number of extra student places, which had been promised by the last government, from 20,000 to 10,000 and an £82m reduction in universities’ teaching budgets, which is likely to lead to redundancies and a pressure on student places.
UK Graduate Careers Survey 2010
The annual survey of final year students at UK universities undertaken by Highfliers Research was published at the end of May. The findings showed that final year students are very pessimistic about their immediate career prospects, with only a third confident of finding a graduate-level job on completion of their degree. Arts and humanities students were particularly worried about their job prospects. Full details here
The Highfliers research looks at student expectations. The Crafts Council will launch its own research into the actual early career progress of graduates from craft courses in higher education, Crafting Futures, at Assemble on 22nd June.
Fair access to higher education
The Office for Fair Access, published its report on widening access to highly-selective universities in late May. The report was authored by Sir Martin Harris, chair of the Office of Fair Access and was commissioned by the previous government in November 2009 to inform the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance, currently being conducted by Lord Browne. The report finds that the most highly-selective universities in the UK have had only limited success in widening their intake to include more students from poorer backgrounds. The report argues that it is both socially unacceptable and economically wasteful that too few talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their full potential. The report is available here
Comparability of UK degrees
The Higher Education Policy Institute, an independent thinktank, has published a report on comparability of UK degrees. The report concludes that achieving genuine comparability, so that degrees from different universities are seen to mean the same thing, is neither feasible nor necessarily desirable. The report is available here
Apprenticeships
BIS has announced plans to create 50,000 new apprenticeships, through an investment of £150 million in 2010-11. In parliamentary discussions on the proposals, a number of MPs referenced the craft sector. Sir Alan Beith, MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, asked about the provisions for blacksmithing and other heritage crafts in the apprenticeship initiative. David Willets confirmed his commitment to improving the scheme so that qualifications in craft skills are properly recognised and funded – which he argued had lapsed under the previous Government. Read the full exchange here
In a Lords debate on the Queen’s Speech Baroness Garden of Frognal welcomed the apprenticeship scheme for its potential to harness skills in the adult workforce and contribute to the new Government’s central aim of reducing the deficit. She argued that at a time of austerity in government spending other sectors including craft have an important role to play in creating apprenticeships: ‘It is essential to engage the next generation in meaningful training for work, to re-skill adults, to encourage aspiration and to reward achievement. Craft, manufacturing and service industries all have the potential to increase their productivity even in times of hardship.’
Read her full speech here
3. Other news
London developments
Veronica Wadley has been appointed London chair for Arts Council England. She is the former editor of London’s Evening Standard and had applied for the job in 2009, when her appointment was blocked by the then Secretary of State, Ben Bradshaw.
The Mayor of London’s draft cultural strategy has opened for consultation. The strategy covers the period 2010 to 2014 and the Crafts Council will be working on a response before the closing date of 6th September 2010. Read the draft strategy here
Cultural Forum
Arts & Business (A&B) and the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) have launched a new forum focusing on the funding needs of the arts sector, and how private giving can help meet those needs in the difficult economic climate. The forum will be democratically elected from members of A&B and NCA and nominations will be invited later this month, with the first meeting of the forum planned for July. More details here
Big Arts Give
Arts & Business has launched The Big Arts Give, a scheme designed to promote philanthropy in the arts and culture. The scheme is being run in partnership with the Reed Foundation and the Big Give and aims to realise donations of £3m for arts organisations, with a challenge fund of £500,000 to help encourage donations and build longer term relationships with donors. Arts charities have until 9th July to apply to take part. Ed Vaizey said at the launch of the scheme, “I think the Arts & Business Big Arts Give is a terrific idea and I hope, in particular, that it will unlock additional funding for some of our smaller cultural bodies.”
Full details of the scheme can be found here
Creative Survival in Hard Times: new report from New Deal of the Mind
This report was commissioned by Arts Council England as a follow up to last year’s report, from NDOTM, Do it Yourself: cultural and creative self-employment in hard times (reported in our policy brief in December 2009). It makes recommendations about how the government and the sector can help young people who want to pursue a career in the creative industries. The report reiterates some of the recommendations of Do it Yourself, including the idea of a new enterprise scheme based on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme of the 1980s, which gave financial help to unemployed people setting up in business and boosted the careers of many in the cultural sector. It also looks at ways of helping support freelancers, and recommends ways of making access to the creative industries fairer. Read more here
Culture of Innovation: new report from NESTA
In January we commented on NESTA’s interim report Culture of Innovation: an Economic Analysis of innovation in arts and cultural organisations. The full report has now been published. The research examined how cultural organisations can innovate in a difficult funding environment and the report proposes an ‘innovation framework’ for both organisations and funders. The report argues that the full range of benefits should be considered when measuring the public value of cultural institutions. It suggests that recent research has concentrated on economic values at the expense of values which are harder to measure such as aesthetic values and shared experiences.
The report also stressed the importance of investment in research as a means of examining issues, such as innovation, which are relevant to the sector as a whole. It argued that arts funders and organisations should make proper provision for this kind of research, an area where the Crafts Council has a strong track record. The report is available here
European Commission Creative Industries Consultation
The European Commission has launched a consultation on “Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries”, which aims to gather information from European cultural organisations and individuals about the requirements for developing a stimulating and enabling environment for cultural and creative industries in the EU. Questions focus on three key issues:
-Increasing support for cultural and creative industries through access to ICT and funding as well as developing partnerships with education and between organisations in the cultural and creative sectors.
-Strengthening the role of the cultural and creative industries in local and regional development and improving the mobility of cultural workers and goods within in the EU and beyond.
-Further developing the economic and social benefits of the cultural and creative industries.
The Crafts Council is currently preparing a response to the consultation which you can read here
New National Occupational Standards for Craft published
The new National Occupational Standards for craft were published in April. The standard was developed by Creative & Cultural Skills in collaboration with a panel composed of representatives from the sector, including the Crafts Council.
The standards are intended for businesses and qualification development agencies to extract the relevant units The standards follow a set pattern, common to other industries, but during the consultation process, the Crafts Council successfully recommended the inclusion of units that relate to portfolio working and digital technology and encouraged the inclusion of the phrase ‘innovate and experiment’ as a key part of makers’ practice.
The National Occupational Standard for jewellery was published at the same time, but the Crafts Council was not involved in this piece of work.
The full text of the standards is available here
Heritage Lottery Fund, Skills for the Future
The Heritage Lottery Fund has announced investment of £17m in 808 training placements with museums and heritage organisations. The programme is designed to develop the skills needed to care for the UK’s collections and historic environment, and includes some programmes focused on traditional craft skills. Full details here
4. Parliamentary round-up
In the opening round of parliamentary debates on foreign policy measures announced in the Queen’s Speech, Foreign Secretary William Hague made reference to the importance of culture in fostering links with the Middle East and deepening ties with emerging economies, notably China and India. See p.18 of the Hansard report here
The debate in the Lords on the Queen’s Speech also touched on the importance of creative industries at home. Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall reminded peers that the creative industries were a significant contributor to the UK’s economy. She noted that creative industries could have an important role to play in a strategy for economic recovery that emphasised investment in SMEs. She questioned whether the new government had fully understood the economic potential of the sector and the importance of both public and private funding in the light of the additional cuts administered to the Arts Council England. Her full speech is available here
