One Steinway or scores of old joannas…what has the greatest impact? (or “what’s that in the room?” “It looks like an elephant”)

Piano on Jesus GreenCredit: University of Cambridge- See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/news/tinkling-in-the-streets#sthash.JFFKV7z9.dpuf

If it wasn’t a crisis before it is now.

The 10% local authority cut by central government is a disaster for arts organisations up and down the country, but rather than being helpless this is something that the Arts Council can respond to and must.  If not decades of work will be thrown away and may not be replaced for decades to come, if ever.  But there is an alternative strategy.

As the Arts Council ponders how to deliver the 5% reduced funding (on top of the 30% over the last few years) that has been settled on by the DCMS for 2015/16 (and onwards), the real double whammy for arts organisations comes with the subsequent information that local authorities face a 10% cut in the £21bn they currently receive from central government.  

On the one hand ACE has been talking about the inevitability that it will reduce the number of arts organisations that it funds on three year funding plans (the National Portfolio Organisations or NPOs), on the other hand many of these organisations are also funded by local authorities.  Despite the Culture Minister, Maria Miller’s claims in the Guardian that the arts are in good hands with this government and that the sector is being unnecessarily gloomy, the potential for devastation across the arts nationally is very real. 

As Nicholas Hytner said only a few months ago the disaster is not to to the big organisations "whose priviledged status and ability to raise funds shelter them, but for the majority of others....especially those outside London".

In recent times local authorities in Somerset, Newcastle, Westminster have all either threatened or delivered 100% cuts to the arts, and while these stand-out examples grab the headlines how many others have been steadily reducing their support? - I know mine has, we are small but I'm guessing that we are a litmus example - 40% less funding than three years ago...

Local Authorities have statutory items that they are obliged to support eg roads, education etc, and many of them 'obviously' do not regard art and culture as vital – and even when they do see the social and economic benefit of the culture sector they can feel that they simply have no choice but to cut back on things that they don’t have to fund (Chief Executives’ salaries aside).

It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Arts Council engages with this very real situation and takes strategic decisions about how it is going to deliver its own funds and then communicate this absolutely clearly with the LAs. 

The first issue before the communicating of course will be what ACE decides to do.  The hard-core of the current situation is that there is little wiggle room left.  In the last few years the Arts Council has seen its funds reduced by 30% (that’s before this new reduction of 5%) and has managed that by re-organising the Arts Council itself, reducing costs and also reducing the National Portfolio of funded organisations.  Who would have wanted to be in that position; as a friend of mine  put it "ACE were handed a gun and invited to step outside the room with some of the children".  Thus far ACE have managed reasonably well with a difficult situation, not easy.

So now that we are down to the knuckle it might be best if ACE makes its decision about how to deliver this new round of cuts/redefining the Portfolio in direct relationship to the situation with the local authorities.  I'm not here to criticise my colleagues at ACE but the last time this happened the whole LA thing didn't really get dealt with strategically, it was all a bit made up as we went along.  A strategic decision has to be made, a clear decision to be communicated; there are not enough ACE officers left to be negotiating with hundreds of councils, and Harriet Harman hasn't the time to get involved in all of them (she did in Newcastle) and let's face it she ain't going to be so welcome in say Chichester or any of the other blue or yellow coloured ones.

The reality is this:

• Many, many, of the current ACE funded organisations - the NPOs - are also supported by their local authorities;
• ACE funding is a significant factor in leveraging that local authority support (this support is not always easy to garner, bearing in mind that local authorities have all sorts of political hues, agendas, axes to grind);
• If the Arts Council withdraws support from regional NPOs local authority support will almost certainly also be withdrawn, PAY ATTENTION!! these local authorities are already looking for where to deliver cuts, ACE withdrawal will be a certain signal to cut;
• Without funding by ACE and local authority most organisations, if not all, will quickly cease to operate;
• The local authority funding may take years to re-materialise, if ever;
• The portfolio and the national arts ecology will change irrevocably; years of work by dedicated, skilled, passionate workers, in scores of organisations will come to an end or be greatly curtailed.

The argument coming from the sector and the Arts Council over recent times has been to emphasise the arts contribution to the economy as well as its more obvious social and even more obvious creative and cultural impact.  The mantra is that the arts contribute richly to local and national economies, are responsible for generating many more pounds in the economy than is invested in it, the arts are therapeutic – from the ‘feelgood factor’ to the, well, therapeutic benefits of arts in healthcare, the arts are a vital educational resource, an inspiration etc etc; sometimes it seems we forget that it is simply a bloody good thing to have some bloody good art and culture (Johnny and Joanie Foreigner are full of admiration for our culture by the way).  

So it would seem that if these arguments for culture are TRUE then the Arts Council is faced with a no-brainer: the wider NPO must be protected.  To do anything other than seek to protect as many NPOs in as many parts of the realm would simply be wrong and counter to all of the arguments that ACE itself has put forward?

Let’s hope so.  However, thus far ACE has said that a reduction in the number of National Portfolio Organisations is inevitable - and ACE means scores of reductions, not just one.  

But is it?

This is a matter of choice.  

There are 696 organisations in the national portfolio.  

I have an old Elvis Costello lyric running around my head, it goes:

“One day you’re gonna have to face a deep dark truthful mirror, and it’s going to tell you things that I still love you too much to say….”.  It’s time for the mirror.

In this next bit you might have to forgive what looks like shouting.  It isn't shouting, it's my attempt at emphasis of some big issues that we have to decide about with regard to what we want for OUR LIVES:

• FIVE of the National Portfolio receive 25% of the Arts Council’s funds between them – £95million (NINETY FIVE MILLION POUNDS - PER ANNUM) in subsidy is shared between the London centric big five (I won’t name them, you can have a guess, you need to use the word Royal three times and Opera twice).  
• As a ‘visual’ comparison £95m would fund 2375 (TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE) organisations at ACE’s lowest level NPO (£40k per year) like mine, (we do just masses of stuff); or it would fund 633 (SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE) organisations at 'the average' £150k per year (eg Walk the Plank who deliver massive celebratory shows across the UK and Europe – they have just opened the Derry/Londonderry City of Culture with the acclaimed, inclusive, accessible, celebratory ‘Return of Colmcille’ see a video of just part of it here - they receive £150k pa).  

The ACE portfolio has been urged to be sustainable and up and down the country and so many are desperately seeking to be so with limited margins - and succeeding (how? - because they are brilliant/amazing/desperate to deliver to their communities and their shortage of funding makes them ever more imaginative by necessity – a great deal of begging and borrowing goes on).  How sustainable are the big organisations that need such huge funding?  What do such huge amounts of money actually do?  Every expensive purchase or bespoke make at the elite end must be measured against projects not happening in a small or needy community or social sector or schools elsewhere.  In the case of the Royal Opera House it was reported that its top two salaries added up to £1m between them and that 14 staff were paid more than £100k per year.  Is this affordable?  Is it appropriate in the subsidised sector?  Is it desirable?  Is this what ACE funding is for?  

The Telegraph seems to think that the fat is not in the temples but in the land and that "too much is flung in a sentimental and indiscriminate way at education and community work"  but is this true??

How do we measure the #culturalvalue of these things – for we must?  Who decides?  Is it now time to end the status quo – because we simply can’t afford it and/or because it doesn't give us what we want or should have?   As Charlotte Higgins wrote in the Guardian recently “it is unclear whether the Arts Council has the appetite for the inevitable public relations fallout should they cut off a large, famous, well-connected arts organisation to salvage the grass roots”.   At a recent ACE meeting of the northern National Portfolio Organisations in York this was all referred to as “the elephant in the room”, and it was also pointed out that the larger subsidy dependent organisations were also the more likely to be able to attract that philanthropy/corporate sponsorship that has been encouraged by the government.

We can’t keep not looking in that mirror.  The choice now is between the huge money to a few versus losing organisations up and down the country and in the process losing all of the ‘culture is important, and economically and socially essential’ points that have been made and understood by local authorities and communities over the past 30-40 years, and that could take decades to re-grow.

The purpose of this article is not to argue against the work of anyone.  It is to point out there are choices to be made.  It's not me who said we can't have both.  But it seems we can't.

So which do we go for?  Standing by the portfolio and giving a clear message to local authorities about the value of the arts, or….not?  Say something. Now.

A counter narrative to fundamentalism

In the aftermath of this dreadful  but somehow expected attack on the streets of Woolwich there has been some interesting and broad discussion about the need for a new ‘counter-narrative’.  I have heard and read the phrase repeatedly – a call to create something that speaks louder than the madness of fundamentalism.

It has left me wondering who will speak this new narrative?  The teachers who feel oppressed and oppositional to the Education Secretary? The arts and culture sector that has been urged to focus on its economic merits above all else?  The press – that is so mistrusted with regard to morality that it has to be investigated by parliament?  Television – with its seemingly endless prime time pumping out of karaoke and senseless shallow nonsense about celebrity? The High Street – struggling to find its feet and purpose against the warehouses of giant supermarkets and online delivery (which we see being addressed more sensibly and creatively by Dan Thompson @artistsmakers than by the depressing Mary Portas)?  

Who speaks the new narrative - McDonalds?

Some have stepped forward to say that this attack has been long-awaited, surprised that it has not happened before now.  What is it about 21^st century Britain with the constant barrage of the narrative of greed, intolerance and trivia that it seems not that surprising that  something like this might breed?  

The counter-narrative that is needed is the one of tolerance, fairness and culture.  Instead the daily news provides the ammunition for the hate fermenters, we see unfairness, bankers greed, debt and poverty, smart weapons used on illiterate people, the deaths of millions for the want of a few pence sandwiched between the latest stories of technological advances in apps for us.

The arts and culture sector should be the free mouth that speaks the narrative that can save us and in many places it is.  What better sector to reach the disaffected, who better to create new anthems and encourage creativity and the inner spirit that has no god’s axe to grind? 

From Danny Boyle’s expensive but hugely successful reminder of what this society has within it and where it came from, to the inclusive and personal work of artists and organisations working with the most disadvantaged – the failed, the prisoners, the future failers, the pre-rioters, the homeless, the kids, there are examples everywhere of why we should support the arts and what the arts does for us beyond economic terms.

There are so many examples of great public cultural works and festivals, performances, arts education and social projects, some that inspire and reach out to broad congregations, some that work and are directed at small, isolated and disadvantaged groups and individuals.

I read this week an ‘article’ from Conservative Home calling for all councils to cease funding the arts.  Conservative Home is an online blogging/news site for grassroots conservatives, it is owned by former Treasurer and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, Lord Ashcroft, so should be taken seriously.  The article is all about promoting the free market approach to arts ie no subsidy, if the unsupported arts are any good they will survive, if not they will not have any market value and they will die.  Is this the new narrative that is needed?  The narrative that says a Big Mac and fries must be good because millions buy it?  

Is this the ‘counter-narrative’ that will breed tolerance and save young people from each other and save us all and make a better world?

The arts and culture sector does more than the money it costs to either the ticket or tax payer.  It inspires and provides an alternative to the intellect killing of the free market media with its lack of morality and flag waving boorishness.

The arts and culture sector must be both smart enough to understand itself and what its role is, and brave and articulate enough to speak up. 

We need three things: 

• increase not cut the public funding of the arts; 
• make the arts a statutory responsibility that local councils must support; 
• for artists and arts organizations to remind themselves of what our responsibility is and what we owe the public in return.

There is no doubt that there is a desperate need for a counter-narrative that speaks – one that offers an alternative to the chest beating fundamentalists and flag wavers and dog eat dog free marketers from wherever they come.  The art and culture sector speaks loudly, it is one of the things that archaeologists and historians use to measure societies past.  In our present we must use it and support it to express our best and most positive values and against that which is corrupt and most vile, from wherever it comes.

So stirred I made a blog dammit

This is our Culture Minister.  Recognise her?

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/76991/maria_miller_speech_to_british_museum.html

A few weeks ago I received an email asking if I would like to go along to hear Maria Miller’s big speech on Culture at the British Museum (link above, have a butchers). I thought yes, but then again thought I might get myself into a ‘Chrissy in the Boys from the Blackstuff” situation (where he stands up at George’s funeral during the vicar’s eulogy and says “’…’scuse me vicar. But George wasn’t like that….”). It’s not some form of cultural speech Tourette’s that I have, it’s the compulsion to challenge stuff that doesn’t seem right – like Chrissy. So I didn’t go. 

I’ve seen one tweet since the speech saying “Maria Miller’s speech deserves closer study and thought than some knee-jerk reactions might suggest”. Apart from that all the others I have seen seem to be pretty non-hysterical and considered opinions. I do agree that the speech ‘deserves’ closer study, though to be picky I’d use the word ‘warrants’. 

Firstly I want to say…about bloody time. Not “about bloody time she spoke like this about culture”, I mean it’s about time she said something at all, maybe she has, maybe I missed it. 

Closer study of the speech leads me to want to comment on what is there, and what isn’t. The ‘commodity’ that is talked about in the speech is the art/culture that is most easily packaged as such. Sugar is a commodity, it comes in a package, we buy it. Ticketed events are perhaps able to be seen as a commodity, so the speech is filled with references to organisations that create ticketed events (though it is wrong to think of these as just as commodity, packets of sugar don’t make you cry - unless dropped from over three feet of course). 

The arts have been learning how to make the argument for their economic impact for some time, its been good to do so, but we must be careful that we don’t fall into the trap of this as being the only argument. If we do that then we will end up valuing art purely by using economic measures, organisations and artists will become like Mills and Boon – of course it’s a good book, it sold millions. There is an old t-shirt saying about eating shit and flies – eat shit, billions of flies do it: ergo must be good. 

What isn’t there in the speech is the encouragement to be imaginative, to innovate, to surprise, delight, shock, engage with our emotions, and most concerning of all there is no reference to participation. 

 Here you go, this is what we (the 'leaders' of the arts sector) are asked to do by the Culture Minister: 
“• to continue to build resilience and self-reliance; 
 • to seek out new artistic and commercial opportunities; 
 • to position yourself squarely within the visitor economy; 
 • and to look for international opportunities which will benefit Britain.” 
We know Maria, we know. But these can’t be all that we should do. 

Arts start with participation. Art is the first tool that we use to learn. We do this first of all through PARTICIPATION in the arts. Babies (US!!) learn language, they listen to stories, they are encouraged to draw and write, to make a mess with paint, draw mummy and daddy (mummy and mummy, daddy and daddy - hey...) and the house and the dog, to play creatively, to build ridiculous imaginary worlds and animals and fantastical beasts and buildings and towns out of linear blocks, their imagination is encouraged, and through our primary school years our imagination is encouraged so that we can perceive the world, its history, our culture, our place in it. 

As we grow older, the arts and imaginative creativity are removed from our curriculum, diminishing in importance, replaced with more ‘serious’ subjects that are more directed towards productivity and away from imagination for its own sake – hey you don’t have to be a Marxist to appreciate why this is so (and no, there is nothing wrong with learning how to work and be productive, it’s just when that is ALL that we are taught that it becomes drudgery and slavery). 

And yet we value those that hold onto that imagination – in our own culture most people around the world have heard of a visionary writer with a beard who wrote sometimes difficult language centuries ago, he is a thing of beauty, or at least his words are. His birthplace may be a commodity, his words are not; art is humanity, NOT just an economic commodity. A monkey with a typewriter could write Shakespeare? No. A human can, only a human. 

The IDENTITY of arts and culture is at the heart of all this – what we perceive them/it to be. 

Appropriation or singular focussing on it as an economic driver in order to justify investment in it is deeply, deeply (DEEPLY) worrying. If this is the primary justification for art then we are lost, and Maria Miller seems to be saying that this is the case, because of the ‘economic crisis’ she says (ie the crisis that has come about due to the devastating impact of the top 1% becoming ever richer, hoarding the world’s cash flow; play Monopoly, how much fun is it when one player owns all the stuff, has all of the money and the only relief is JAIL – yeah, yeah, it’s only a game, not like life at all). 

We should revel and celebrate in our great art, I do, I love it, I love the exceptional. However it is both hit and miss and most importantly of all it is subjective. It is utterly and universally important and ESSENTIAL that you may think that Gormley or Mozart or Harrison or Kane is not for you, or that you think my poetry or drawings or whatever could have been done by a five year old. 

Art is part of culture, culture is us - should WE be valued only on our economic worth?

Use our culture and art if you will to attract people to our country and our cafes and restaurants and to sell our cars (erm…ok not cars, we don’t do cars anymore), and even our philosophy, our way of life. That's ok.

But, and it is a FUNDEMENTAL but, DON'T demand/ask/hope that that is ALL that art and culture can do, because when you do I think of you as a slaver, as a Mammon serving mutton head, as an enemy of humanity, and I really don’t want to do that. Maria I will stand by you and defend your right to express yourself forever, I ask you to do the same for art and culture and to BELIEVE in it as the singular human difference. Maria, fight for that, please.

For those of us in the arts...let's stop dancing to this organ grinder's tune eh, she lists our economic impact in her speech! they know it, what they don't know is the true value of what we do; or maybe they do, and that's what they want rid of...

PS a wee addendum the day after...a couple of blogs that nail the 'economic' argument...http://honorharger.wordpress.com/author/honorharger/ and http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2013/apr/24/maria-miller-cultural-value-economic