Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
120-136)
RT HON
BEN BRADSHAW
MP AND MR
JONATHAN STEPHENS
20 OCTOBER 2009
Q120 Mr Ainsworth: The question is
really whether there is going to be a Sustain 2 because the problem
with private giving will not go away any time soon I do not think.
Mr Bradshaw: No, although there
are signs that the reduction is slowing. I do not think there
is a contradiction between saying that there has been a fall-off
in private giving; there tends generally to be a fall-off in private
giving. If you look at what is happening in the United States
and the impact there, because they are so much dependent on the
private sector it has been devastating for their museum and arts
sector—mass closures, redundancies and so forth. Thanks
to our mixed economy we have been able to avoid that here. At
the same time you can have growth in the visitors' numbers and
growth in spend by the public and by government, but that does
not mean to say that for some organisations the impact of a reduction
in private donations can be quite serious. That is where I think
it is right for government to step in.
Q121 Mr Ainsworth: To make up the
total difference?
Mr Bradshaw: I cannot confirm
whether the total difference has been made up in these cases.
I am sure that the Arts Council can help or the individual organisations
themselves might be able to help provide you with figures, but
certainly helping out where a strong case is made that otherwise
the impact would be damaging.
Q122 Mr Ainsworth: It is unclear
from your brief whether or not the Sustain Programme is going
to be replicated or continued in some way.
Mr Bradshaw: I cannot confirm
that. I cannot say, because we do not know, whether the total
reduction in private giving in the last year has been made up
for by public investment. I would very much doubt it, but I think
what we have tried to do and what the Arts Council has tried to
do is to target its help where it has felt it has been most needed,
I think with good effect as well.
Q123 Mr Ainsworth: Can I quickly
ask about the "night less ordinary" programme which
your department announced just over a year ago? Has this been
successful and how would you judge its success given that, as
I understand it, the objective here is to get people into the
habit of going to the theatre which obviously takes time to establish?
Mr Bradshaw: The first three months
for which we have data I think were very encouraging, both in
terms of tickets that were given out and in terms of the evidence
of new attendance by people who otherwise would not have attended.
However, it is early days and I think we are going to have to
make a more considered assessment of how it is doing when we have
more figures and more data. Clearly I think the measurement of
its success is whether it hits the original target in terms of
the number of tickets given out and whether we can show that it
is attracting new young people to the theatre who would not otherwise
have gone to the theatre. If you look at some of the initial performance
some theatres have been doing much, much better than others both
in terms of allocating all of their tickets but also in terms
of the number of first time attendees that they are attracting.
I would hope that as the scheme develops over the coming months
that those theatres that perhaps have not performed as well can
learn from the experience of those that have. I think overall,
by and large, if you look at the response on the Facebook site
of the young people who have benefited from this it has been a
tremendous bonus to many people seeing high quality British theatre
that they never imagined they would have a chance to see otherwise.
Q124 Mr Ainsworth: Have there been
regional differences?
Mr Bradshaw: I am not aware that
there have been clear regional differences; there have been local
differences. I think the Nottingham Playhouse has been one of
the most successful; the Royal Shakespeare Company has been very
successful; the Theatre Royal in York has been very successful
in terms of both the numbers and the proportion of those taking
advantage of it who had never been to the theatre before. We will
be analysing with the Arts Council very closely the performance
of the various participating theatres to see what more we can
do to make sure that all of them who are taking part perform at
the level of the most successful.
Q125 Mr Ainsworth: There has been
some criticism within the theatre sector that this is a short
term fix for a long term problem. Presumably the really important
thing here is to be able to assess over time whether flinging
free tickets at a whole bunch of people actually gets them to
go back to the theatre and become habitual theatre goers.
Mr Bradshaw: I think that is absolutely
right and you may know more about the genesis than I do, but did
this not come out of one of the recommendations of the McMaster
review that suggested that we should have a free week which we
did not accept because we felt, for that very reason, that in
a week of free tickets it is impossible to actually get people
into the habit of visiting the theatre that they then never lose
through their life time and that is what this scheme is designed
to achieve. I think it is fair to say there was a lot of scepticism
about it when we announced it, including among theatres themselves.
On my visits I have spoken to regional theatres who are taking
part in this and they have said to me that they did not really
think much of this idea but actually it has been a great success
and they had really enjoyed doing it; it had got people into audiences
that they would never have had before and it encouraged them to
engage with a group of young people they had not really engaged
with before. As I say, I would not claim that we can be certain
at the moment that it has been a huge success, but we will want
to learn from the first few months to try to make sure that it
is further down the line.
Q126 Mr Watson: I want to talk to
you about a gallery that we have allowed to go to the wall in
my constituency and that is the Public Art Gallery in West Bromwich.
The Arts Council were the lead partner, the main funder. It went
tens of millions of pounds over budget. The Arts Council have
recently walked away with it having made an investment of £32
million. My concern is that the Arts Council does not make the
same mistake again. If I have caught you on the hop here, I am
not aware that they have done a review of what went wrong from
their point of view even though they were with the project from
day one. I was wondering if the Department had sought assurances
that they have done some form of internal inquiry at least about
the mistakes that they have made in bringing this project to what
was a very difficult ending.
Mr Bradshaw: If we have not done
that then I will do so and either write to you directly or copy
it to the Committee if you would find that helpful.
Q127 Mr Watson: Thank you, that is
very kind.
Mr Stephens: I am conscious that
the Arts Council does regard it as important to learn lessons
from this area. This was a Lottery funded project and they clearly
attach importance to ensuring that value is secured for the public
from the Lottery fund.
Q128 Mr Watson: So they would produce
some publicly available report.
Mr Stephens: They are certainly
conducting their own review of lessons to be learned. As the Secretary
of State has said, we can make sure at the appropriate time that
the conclusions are shared.
Q129 Mr Watson: Two floors of this
Will Alsop designed building are currently empty. You could put
the Staffordshire gold haul in there. Perhaps in your discussions
over the haul with the Regional Development Agency (RDA) you could
suggest it as an option.
Mr Bradshaw: That sounds like
a good one for the local paper.
Chairman: Regional newspaper as well.
Q130 Mr Watson: Do you worry about
the death of arts and film criticism? The rather excellent Cosmo
Landesman, the film critic with the Sunday Times, has written
about the newspaper industry getting rid of their specialist journalists
and he quotes a writer, Harry Knowles, who says, "So much
about "So much of our culture, particularly in films, is
driven by PR and hype. We need those voices that say, 'Hey, this
is crap, this is just useless and here's the reason why'."
Is our culture being diluted by the PR industry?
Mr Bradshaw: No, I would not say
that is a fair assessment. I think we still have a very healthy
cultural criticism world in both our broadcasting and our newspaper
landscape and on-line increasingly as well and also on blogs such
as yours.
Q131 Mr Watson: I have just one point
on libraries and the digitisation of collections. Vivian Reding,
the European Commissioner, recently said that the creation of
a Europe-wide public registry that could stimulate private investment
in digitisation whilst ensuring that authors get fair remuneration
and that if we do not reform copyright rules on orphan works and
libraries swiftly, digitisation and the development of attractive
content offers will not take place in Europe but over on the other
side of the Atlantic. Ninety five % of published works are not
available to purchase now; is the Department doing any work to
accelerate copyright reforms at European level in this area?
Mr Bradshaw: Yes, we are and we
are hoping very much that the Spanish Presidency will pick this
one up and run with it. As you are probably aware, we will support
an extension of the copyright term to 70 years as long as it is
the creator, the artist, the writer themselves who get the benefit.
There is a new Spanish culture minister who is very engaged in
this whole area and they have indicated that they do want to make
progress on this and we would certainly support them in doing
so.
Chairman: We are very nearly at the end.
We have a couple more questions for you to cover. Adrian Sanders?
Q132 Mr Sanders: Sports are an important
issue to a lot of people. Would you like to see test cricket again
on free to air broadcasting?
Mr Bradshaw: I do not have a very
strong view personally but I am aware that a lot of other people
do and that is why my predecessor announced the review that is
being conducted by David Davies and will report shortly. I am
acutely aware not least because I have a cricket-mad godson whom
I took to Lords in the summer who strongly bemoaned the fact that
because they do not have Sky at home he could only watch the highlights
on Channel 4 and that was it; he could not get to watch the test
cricket. I do not want to pre-empt anything that David Davies
may come up with because it is an independent review and it is
quite right that it should be so. He will make his recommendations,
we will make our preliminary recommendations which will have to
be statutorily consulted on so everybody will have a fair crack
at the whip at expressing their view on this.
Q133 Mr Sanders: Would you accept
that there is definitely a link between the amount of coverage
a sport gets and participation?
Mr Bradshaw: No, not necessarily.
Someone told me the other day that the Grand Prix had one of the
highest—if not the second highest—level of television
coverage but that does not mean to say we are all going out racing
cars around tracks. There is not a direct link but I accept that
television coverage is important and access to the important national
sporting events on free to view television is important. There
is also, as I am sure you will be aware, the counter argument
from sporting organisations and some of the other television companies
about the income that is generated through television rights for
sports. There is a balance that needs to be struck here and that
is why we constantly review this as an issue and why we have asked
David Davies to do that. I look forward to receiving his report.
Q134 Chairman: It has been suggested
that if we are to be successful in our bid to host the World Cup
in 2018 FIFA are saying that we will have to substantially de-list
the World Cup matches. Are you aware of that?
Mr Bradshaw: I am vaguely aware
of them having made that recommendation but it is not something
that we would need to make a decision on now. I think some people
would have quite strong views on that recommendation but FIFA
have made no formal approach to us.
Q135 Chairman: You would not rule
it out?
Mr Bradshaw: I would have to consider
it but it does not sound to me to be a very sensible suggestion.
Q136 Chairman: Secretary of State,
we have covered a huge amount of ground. There are still areas
that we have not touched on; is there anything else you would
like to tell us about?
Mr Bradshaw: No, not really.
Chairman: In that case can I thank you
very much indeed, and also the Permanent Secretary.
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