UK : Arts funding freeze

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UK : Arts funding freeze

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December 14, 2004 at 12:12 pm

#687624
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General Lighting

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Quote:

Arts funding freeze sparks fury

Charlotte Higgins and Maev Kennedy
Tuesday December 14, 2004

The Guardian

Leading arts figures reacted with fury yesterday after the government announced a £30m cut in funding in real terms – the first such setback to the arts since the Labour victory in 1997.
John Tusa, managing director of the Barbican, described the decision as a “slap in the face” and a return to “the bad old days”. He said that those involved in the arts had been “namby-pamby” in their dealings with the government, and advised them to get “rough”.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport announced that its allocation of funding to Arts Council England would be frozen at its 2005 level of £413m until 2008. Taking into account Treasury inflation estimates, the grant will be worth £10m less in the financial year 2006-07 and £20m less in 2007-08, meaning a total shortfall of £30m in real terms.

This is an extract – full article can be found here..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1373274,00.html

and (unsurprisingly) the Graun is full of further articles.

Sadly, this is the reality of our current situation, there is a war on (whether we like it or not) – that takes £1,000,000 out of the public purse every day in the UK… (thats just frontline costs BTW, it does not include the extra security/policing costs caused by the terrorism paranoia and the the deterioration in racial and community relations)

That said, if you can make the right contacts I’m not sure if this news is all bleak. I see a lot of arts funding going to “big and worthy” projects such as operas and high-brow plays – TBH the bulk of the populace is not interested in; hardly surprising people do not think this is money well spent.

So why not give some money to what are called “quick wins” projects, ones which have less initial spend and are delivered in a faster turnaround time? A lot of the arts projects created by younger people are of this nature; and it would encourage much needed new talent.

I wonder if we could make something good of this situation..
December 14, 2004 at 12:34 pm

#852002
[deleted]

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This is proper shit, ive just finished the third draft of an application for govt funding for our rig dressed up as an art in the community vj thing (which i am actually doing, just happen to ghet loads of speakers and lights too).

at the end of the day its a freeze, so if i get my skates on it wont effect too much, having said that, it will make all those admin people think twice about handing over cash so readily as they have been doing….

fingers crossed for the primal vison grant application please.
December 14, 2004 at 1:45 pm

#852003
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

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Originally posted by USE
This is proper shit, ive just finished the third draft of an application for govt funding for our rig dressed up as an art in the community vj thing (which i am actually doing, just happen to ghet loads of speakers and lights too).

at the end of the day its a freeze, so if i get my skates on it wont effect too much, having said that, it will make all those admin people think twice about handing over cash so readily as they have been doing….

fingers crossed for the primal vison grant application please.

best of luck with this… I work in public sector finance and it may not be such a problem until next april when the new financial year starts –

but if the budget holders have any sense they ought to ensure their entire budget is spent before the year end – otherwise what happens is that Treasury can confiscate the underspend (they will argue the budget holders didn’t need the money anyway) and then reduce the next years budget by that amount!

So if they look at it this way they have more reason to approve your application….
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