Arts Council England
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CMS Select Committee: The Arts Council and the wider cultural landscape

You can watch the session in full here. Below is a round-up of some of the session highlights.

Recently, our Chair and Chief Executive, Sir Peter Bazalgette and Darren Henley, appeared before the Culture Select Committee. The session was part of the Countries of Culture inquiry, which launched in March to examine the wider cultural landscape.

Investment in arts across England

Much of the session focused on how we go about investing in arts and culture across England, as well as the impact of reduced local authority funding. Sir Peter said, “local authority cuts are the single biggest issue facing the sector at present”. Darren added that we would not be able to fill the gap left by local authorities, currently the sector’s largest investor.

In response to the Arts Council’s ‘we’re in, if you’re in’ message to local authorities, Paul Farrelly MP asked what would happen in areas where councils had withdrawn support altogether. Sir Peter acknowledged: “We have a most difficult balancing act to perform, but we intend to perform it”, but said the Arts Council may have to withdraw funding “as an institution that might be failing because its other sources of revenue have dried up” would not be “a proper place to put public money”.

Darren pointed to the Arts Council’s 260 relationships with local authorities, through which we share best practice, and help develop new models, partnerships and investment.

Speaking on the distribution of our investment across England, Andrew Bingham MP noted our commitment to shift funding outside London. Darren said we remained “committed to moving more money to different parts of the country,” and that by 2018, 75% of our Lottery funding would be invested outside London. He pointed to programmes such as Creative People and Places, and Strategic Touring, which both invest in areas of low engagement in the arts.

The success of partnerships

The Committee was interested in the growing contribution of universities, who want to make their local areas great places to work and study. Darren pointed to Teesside who are running mima, and other examples of universities like Sunderland and Reading, who are supporting local arts and culture.

Chair, Jesse Norman MP, asked about the Arts Council’s contribution to local museums, which he said played an important part within their communities. Darren and Sir Peter affirmed our role as the museum development agency, and said we would need to continue to work in partnership with their other, bigger funders. 

Diversity

In response to Nigel Huddleston MP’s question about the drive to increase diversity in the arts, Sir Peter outlined the Creative Case for Diversity, and stressed the importance of measuring and publishing data. He confirmed diversity would form part of NPO assessments in the next investment round.

Resilience

On resilience within our sector, and alternative revenue streams, Sir Peter highlighted schemes such as Catalyst, and said arts organisations are “trying very hard to diversify their revenue and in many cases succeeding”. He said there’s more to do, such as helping philanthropists to understand existing tax incentives.

Leadership and innovation

Darren went on to highlight the vital importance of leadership, saying he’d seen in all the places he’d visited that “great organisations tend to have great leaders”. He pointed to programmes such as the £1.5m Developing Sector Leaders fund which support the next generation of creative leaders. Darren explained that we want to ensure artists and organisations have the skills to apply for Arts Council funding, saying, “we do a lot of work on the ground …trying to build up that capacity… We don’t want just to be funding the same people for the same work all of the time.”

The Committee asked about our work around digital technologies. Sir Peter recalled a visit to Sheringham Little Theatre in Norfolk, which screens NT Live, bringing more great arts and culture to local people, diversifying the theatre’s revenue stream and attracting new audiences. He confirmed Arts Council/BFI research showed digital screenings did not have an adverse effect on existing audiences, and stressed the many opportunities the “digital millennium” would bring for arts and culture.

The session closed with Sir Peter calling on the committee to play a role in championing the value of arts and culture in national and local government.

The Arts Council submitted written evidence, which will be published online when it has been formally accepted by the committee.  You can follow the progress of the rest of the inquiry here.

Local government, partnerships and place

The success and sustainability of the arts and cultural sector depends on effective partnership between the Arts Council and local government.

Find out more

 

Channel website: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/

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