Written evidence submitted by Havering
Council, Culture and Leisure Services (arts 191)
SUMMARY
— There are concerns that areas with less
developed cultural infrastructure (such as Havering and other
Outer London boroughs) may be disproportionately affected by cuts
to arts and heritage.
— Local authorities will be increasingly
under pressure to make cuts to discretionary services such as
the arts and heritage.
— The funding landscape is difficult to
navigate for small community/voluntary based organisations and
more support could be provided to support the work of such groups.
— Private donations and sponsorship should
be encouraged, but cannot replace core funding. Large high-profile
institutions tend to benefit more easily from this type of funding
than small grassroots organisations.
1. What impact recent, and future, spending
cuts from central and local Government will have on the arts and
heritage at a national and local level
1.1 Spending cuts in this area are likely
to reduce access to arts and heritage for local communities through
the closure of venues, organisations and projects if decisions
are not taken carefully. There is a danger that the impact of
reductions in Arts Council funding could disproportionately affect
areas like Havering, where there is already limited cultural infrastructure.
Reductions which threaten the viability of organisations in highly
populated suburban areas which have only a low level of social
infrastructure will potentially leave communities in those areas
without arts provision.
1.2 Regularly funded organisations are likely
to have to reduce their programme of activities in response to
the cuts, while grants available to local authorities and the
voluntary sector will also be affected. For example, the Queen's
Theatre in Hornchurch (one of the last remaining professional
producing theatres in the country) has been asked to model what
a significant level of cuts would look like in their organisations.
As this is the only RFO based in Havering, the effect of such
cuts would have a greater impact than those of an organisation
in an area densely populated by cultural organisations. These
factors should be considered when implementing "across the
board" cuts to funding.
1.3 At a local level, the October Spending
Review and broader cuts to local budgets will potentially have
a disproportionate effect on arts and heritage as non-statutory
services. Havering is fortunate to have the support of the administration
for cultural projects, but they may not be held as a priority
for other authorities across London and research should be commissioned
to determine the impact of local government cuts on this vulnerable
area. There is also concern that the continuing prevalence of
some services being designated as statutory may force even very
supportive local authorities to reduce funding for arts and heritage,
despite their powerful social as well as cultural role, because
of the authority's inability to make the cuts that are required
elsewhere in their services. In many ways, the very division of
services into statutory and non-statutory is contrary to the Government's
ideals in relation to localism and local determination.
1.4 The current funding situation is also
having a destabilising effect on capital funding and cuts at a
local level are likely to result in the abandonment of building
projects to make the savings. This is a concern for us at present,
particularly in relation to heritage conservation and restoration
projects. While revenue is clearly an important consideration
when determining the impact of funding cuts, we must not forget
the impact on capital which allows us to maintain our historic
environment and to offer high quality facilities in which to hold
arts activities.
1.5 In relation to capital, it is also essential
that access to culture is integrated into all new housing developments
as part of the basic infrastructure of an area. Current rules
make it difficult for Community Infrastructure Levy funding to
be diverted towards arts and heritage, as opposed to other elements
of social infrastructure. We would be interested in hearing more
about how a reformed CIL, could be used to support and maintain
arts and heritage facilities in a local area and contribute to
cultural regeneration.
2. What arts organisations can do to work
more closely together in order to reduce duplication of effort
and to make economies of scale
2.1 Shared marketing could be an area of
focus for efficiency savings and maximising participation across
borough boundaries.
2.2 As funders and providers begin to operate
in an increasingly fragmented funding environment, information
will become an ever-more important commodity. The role of government
in coordinating and sharing information about the sector while
promoting innovation and best practice will be vital if we are
to avoid duplication and to increase efficiency.
3. What level of public subsidy for the arts
and heritage is necessary and sustainable
3.1 At a local level, arts and heritage
are an essential part of the fabric of the community in Havering
for residents and visitors alike. The development of the borough's
as a cultural centre is vital to the local economy and to quality
of life for local residents. Public subsidy is an investment in
the sustainability and quality of the local area. As previous
DCMS reports have highlighted, investment in the arts is also
crucial in addressing social cohesion and a host of other instrumental
benefits such as reducing crime, improving educational attainment,
supporting health and wellbeing for older people and increasing
confidence and self-esteem. Without existing levels of public
subsidy, provision in these areas would be dramatically reduced.
3.2 In terms of sustainability, the emphasis
of public funding should be on increasing the capacity of community
arts and heritage organisations and on delivering instrumental
targets such as those relating to health and education through
the medium of culture. Public subsidy also has an important role
in generating further internal investment and in establishing
a thriving environment in which creative industries can flourish.
4. Whether the current system, and structure,
of funding distribution is the right one
4.1 The Arts Council's regularly funded
organisations should be monitored more closely to ensure that
they are committed to a local community approach and to working
in partnership with other local organisations. In the past there
have been examples of RFOs which are not strategically aligned
with local authorities and do not distribute their work evenly
across the region, despite receiving funding for activities in
these areas. The Heritage Lottery Fund offers a structured approach
for heritage organisations to seek funding and we are supportive
of the recent initiative to increase applications from areas which
have received less funding over the years. In both cases, funding
tends to be easier to access for well-equipped professional organisations
while small voluntary organisations are intimidated by the vigorous
application process. The phasing out of the Awards for All grant
stream for small applications up to £10,000 in heritage and
the arts (which have now been transferred to the Heritage Lottery
Fund and the Arts Council respectively) has complicated the process
for this type of group.
4.2 Again, despite work to re-distribute
lottery funding more evenly, there is still a broader geographic
bias that tends to focus funding opportunities on areas where
there is already a significant cultural infrastructure in place,
rather than building it in less developed areas (particularly
in London, where funding clusters in the centre at the expense
of sub-urban boroughs).
4.3 There appears to be a policy disconnect
between the aims of the "Big Society" and the perceived
intention of strengthening funding packages for the large national
RFOs, which is likely to reduce flexibility in the funding options
available for smaller community groups. We would welcome the opportunity
to hear more about how the Big Society model will be implemented
to maximise opportunities for engagement with the arts and culture.
With the myriad of small cultural organisations operating in the
capital, the arts and culture should represent a valuable test
case for the delivery of decentralisation, but there is a concern
that this will not be reflected in the funding arrangements. We
would be very interested to hear, for example, how funding streams
will be re-configured to increase opportunities for small organisations
such as the new Havering Museum (operated by a local community
charity) to access funding to support their work. With only two
Heritage Lottery funded professional posts, they rely heavily
on volunteers and generate a great deal of activity in the local
area at very little cost. In this sense, they are a good example
of the Big Society policy in action, but opportunities to apply
for the all-important funding to continue the work of the professional
staff beyond the current short term funding arrangements are few.
We would be interested to know how the Government's proposals
to integrate arts and heritage into the decentralisation agenda
will address this type of situation.
4.4 More broadly, we would like to see arts
and heritage integrated coherently into the current proposals
relating to education and the re-organisation of the NHS, particularly
in terms of public health. As research has demonstrated clearly
in recent years, participation in cultural activities can have
a profound impact on health and education outcomes for all age
groups. It would be helpful to see support for the commissioning
agenda in relation to arts/heritage and health and education form
part of the overall funding policy recommendations.
5. What impact recent changes to the distribution
of National Lottery funds will have on arts and heritage organisations
5.1 We are supportive of the intention to
increase the amount of Lottery funding going to the original "good
causes", and the subsequent increase in funding for the arts
and heritage. We have some concern about the future of the Big
Lottery Fund, which is a useful source of funding in relation
to parks and open spaces and other areas of work that do not naturally
fall under the remit of arts and heritage, such as children's
play. We welcome the government's intention to make future applications
more accessible to the community and voluntary sector; however,
the local authority plays a key role in building the capacity
of community groups and would want the opportunity for local publicly
funded organisations to apply for funding in this area to remain
open.
6. Whether the policy guidelines for National
Lottery funding need to be reviewed
6.1 At present it is difficult for small
community organisations to access arts Lottery money due to the
inflexibility of the funding streams. Former smaller scale schemes,
such as Arts 4 Everyone were more easily accessible for smaller
voluntary sector groups. The integration of the arts and heritage
streams of Awards for All into the main lottery funding programmes
as been detrimental to small local organisations accessing the
funding as they find the system harder to navigate; knowing which
agency to approach can be difficult and intimidating for community
and voluntary groups.
7. The impact of recent changes to DCMS arm's-length
bodies—in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council
and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
7.1 We have received considerable support
and advice from MLA London in the course of establishing a new
voluntary sector operated local history museum in the borough,
so were dismayed to hear this organisation was being cut. They
have been supportive in providing small grants, but more importantly
in offering advice and training and in helping to develop partnerships
and raise standards in the museums, archives and library sectors.
It is extremely valuable to have an organisation with a national
strategic overview of best practice and new opportunities in the
museum sector, which has contributed to the rapid growth, and
improved accessibility of high quality museums across the country
over the last few years. We hope the Museums' Hub will be able
to fill the gap to a certain extent, but it seems unlikely that
the current level of support will be continued—this will
have a particularly impact on small museums, especially those
operated by the voluntary sector, which benefit more from low
level support structures than larger organisations.
8. Whether businesses and philanthropists
can play a long-term role in funding arts at a national and local
level
8.1 While support from businesses and philanthropists
is always welcome and should be encouraged, it is essential that
such sources of funding are not relied upon as core funding. Philanthropy
is easier to secure for large, high-status national organisations,
which will doubtless benefit from such schemes, but more localised
community projects and organisations could be marginalised by
an over-reliance on the type of funding. It should not be assumed
that private support will flood in to fill the gap left by public
funding, particularly for community organisations which may not
have the expertise and networks to draw down private sponsorship.
Investment tends to generate more investment, and without a certain
level of core funding organisations will not have the capacity
to seek out sponsorship and private support. In this situation,
private patrons could have more influence over the direction of
arts and heritage organisations, potentially affecting the social
outcomes of their work and the types of audiences benefiting from
their services.
9. Whether there need to be more Government
incentives to encourage private donations
9.1 It would be helpful for the Government
to raise awareness of the opportunities associated with private
donation and to offer support to organisations in developing their
unrestricted funding strategies. However, as above private donations
will tend to disproportionately benefit high-status organisations
and more work needs to be done to encourage this funding to filter
down to the local community. Government incentives to encourage
private funding should not replace core funding, particularly
for smaller and more vulnerable organisations.
September 2010
| 
