What’s happening to arts funding?
A fascinating blog from the Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) shows how much overall public investment in the arts has changed over time. Analysing a dataset on arts funding in England, it reflects the decline in local government funding. This has fallen by more than 30% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20. There has been an overall decline in local government budgets over this period, with local projects and significant leverage being lost.
There are some new competitive funds (eg Action Zones and tax incentives tied to specific outcomes), but there is a decline in the ‘soft power’ of the arts. The PEC finds that real terms investment has decreased by around 21% from 2009/10 to 2019/20 and calls for a new deal to bring clarity and a common understanding of the type of investment most need in the arts.
A report from the Commission on Culture and Local Government identifies four Cornerstones of Culture and cultural placemaking: capacity and resilience in place; leadership and power; funding and an effective evidence base. The report contains a broad selection of case studies including Sheffield Museums' Young Makers project who worked online with young people during the pandemic.
Cultural spend is a small part of what they do, but councils remain the biggest public funders of culture nationally, spending £2.4 billion a year in England alone on culture and related services.
The report calls for more to be done to improve access to high-quality cultural education, along with stronger pathways to creative industries, from school, through to Further Education, Higher Education, and employment.
And the UK’s creative industries have lost out on £163m from the European Union’s Creative Europe project following Brexit. This is according to analysis from the UK Trade and Business Commission, shared with the Independent Newspaper and featured in Arts Professional.