Written evidence submitted by the Chief
Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA) (arts 214)
1. INTRODUCTION
CLOA is the professional association for Strategic
Leaders in the culture and sporting sector of Local Authorities
in England, Wales and Scotland (Vocal). Over many years, professionals
from CLOA have worked with central government, Local Government
and many national organisations to help influence and inform policy
development to ensure the sector contributes fully to local communities.
CLOA has worked successfully with a range of
partners and particularly with the LGA, IDeA and with colleagues
on the National Culture Forum has continually demonstrated the
contribution that culture and sports services make to people lives
by improving their health and well-being, enabling older people
to be more independent and improving education, the economy, community
safety and community cohesion.
We have also been a key partner in helping improve
how these services are delivered working in collaboration to implement
"A passion for excellence" the sectors own improvement
strategy. CLOA and the National Culture Forum, represent and co-ordinate
the views of all the sector professional organisations on issues
of common concern
2. KEY POINTS
Firstly we commend to you the detailed responses
of our member bodies, the Museum Association and the National
Association of Local Government Arts Officers (nalgao). Beyond
these we'd like to emphasise the following points:
— Cuts in funding from both central and
local government will hit all arts and heritage organisations,
but particularly those serving our most deprived communities.
— Any budget cuts need to be phased in
and agreed between funders and with the organisations involved.
— Arts organisations already work well
in collaboration with one another, but could do more to combine
back room functions.
— Local authorities will need to invest
in capacity building across the sector if it wishes to outsource
both service functions and assets.
— Current levels of cultural funding a
small part of overall public spend. Cuts will mean a diminution
of access and outreach work.
— Funding partnerships between Arts Council
and local authorities need to be stronger, more consistent and
demonstrate better understanding of the different reasons for
giving support.
— A proportion of lottery funds should
be delegated to consortia of local authorities to meet locally
determined priorities, as is the case in Wales through the "Community
Chest" fund.
— The proposed restoration of the original
proportions of lottery funding for arts sports and heritage is
to be welcomed.
— Lottery funding is for special projects,
not ongoing programming and currently needs matched funding, which
are increasingly difficult to find. The match funding requirements
need to be revisited as this does not help the poorer Councils
or communities.
— Business and private giving are part
of the current mixed economy of the arts and heritage sectors,
but they cannot make up for shortfalls in public investment.
— Smaller organisations (outside the major
cities) find it much harder to get sponsorship and need locally
focussed pools of support.
— The creation of endowments and local
community foundations are excellent concepts and the government
should do all they can to make these attractive to the private
sector, without falling for the idea that they have solved the
funding conundrum—this is only part of the answer.
3. IMPACT OF
SPENDING CUTS
3.1 It is important to remember that the
UK's cultural organisations are a success story. They attract
inward investment, provide pleasure for both visitors and local
communities and make a major contribution to our society's wellbeing.
Society has long accepted that it should actively support arts
and culture, but at the same time, it is seen as a "non essential"
area, ripe for cutting when times are hard. We often look across
the pond to see how America supports its cultural activity, and
common belief has it that they are much less reliant on public
funds. However, recent research has demonstrated that London based
cultural organisations (of every size) are more efficient that
their USA counterparts in earning income. Larger organisations
certainly gain more of their support from the private sector and
endowments (41% in New York against 12% in London) but smaller
organisations (turnover less than £3.7 million) which are
the majority in both countries, receive 39% of their income from
public sources in USA against only 36% in the UK. Therefore, it
is important to remember that, all over the world, public funding
plays a major role in supporting access to arts and heritage.
3.2 Spending cuts in the field of arts and
heritage will have major effects. The DCMS is already one of the
smallest spending departments of central government. This spending
is roughly matched by local authority spending nationwide, but
here the average spend by each authority on the whole of the culture
and leisure sector is rarely more than 3% of its total budget.
However, this is a sector which is both vital to the health of
the economy (the creative industries being the fastest growing
sector since the early 1990s) and to the social wellbeing of our
communities. Cuts of 25 % + on already tight budgets from both
central and local government will mean the demise of many smaller
organisations, particularly those serving our more disadvantaged
communities and a reduction in activity and access from those
larger ones which do survive.
3.3 CLOA is in no doubt that it will be
very difficult for arts and heritage organisations to sustain
their core functions if they suffer the "double whammy"
of central and local government cuts at the same rate, and on
the same three year timetable. We would argue for the cuts to
be phased in so that organisations have time to plan reductions
in service and raise other funding. It is also vital that all
public funders discuss the phasing of their cuts together with
their clients.
4. ARTS ORGANISATIONS
WORKING MORE
CLOSELY TOGETHER
4.1 Most arts organisations already work
very leanly and in partnership with other like minded organisations
across the cultural and wider third sector, particularly in the
field of co production. There is always room, however, to explore
other forms of collaboration. These are likely to be around touring
programming and shared back office work. For instance, the Arts
Council supported "Thrive" programme has led to a number
of audience development/marketing collaborations.
4.2 Local authorities are already looking
at outsourcing even more of their arts development delivery to
third sector organisations and are encouraging their partners
to look at responding to strategic commissioning opportunities,
thereby answering local priorities, for example, from children's
services and adult social care. This will require arts and heritage
organisations to combine forces to offer the most comprehensive
responses to strategic commission. It will also entail local authorities
investing in capacity building across the sector, to ensure such
opportunities can be taken up effectively, particularly where
authorities are also intending to transfer building assets. This
issue of the need to improve capacity building is strongly supported
by the IDeA and CLOA.
5. NECESSARY
AND SUSTAINABLE
LEVELS OF
PUBLIC SUBSIDY
5.1 Currently, considerable amounts of public
funding are spent on widening access to cultural activity—free
entry to museums, and education and outreach programmes across
arts and heritage, for instance. Widening access costs money and
gives few opportunities for earning more income. Performing arts
organisations could lessen their reliance on the public purse
further by programming more commercially and reducing their commitment
to outreach. Public galleries and museums have much less opportunity
to increase their earned income, but major institutions could
mount fewer, but larger, "block buster" shows, for which
they can charge. Such programme reorientation will be possible,
but to the detriment of widening community participation and understanding.
6. CURRENT SYSTEM
OF FUNDING
DISTRIBUTION
6.1 The current system is complex. Outside
the major companies most arts organisations receive support from
central government via the Arts Council managed and lottery funds
and also from local government. These two funding sources have
fundamentally different emphases—the Arts Council being
most interested in the excellence of the art and local authorities
in the excellence of reach to local communities. If this system
is to survive it will depend on Arts Council and local authorities
working in effective partnership—currently this is very
patchy across the country.
6.2 CLOA believes that local people understand
local cultural provision best and would argue for distribution
to be led locally as far as possible. Current reductions in the
number of Arts Council regionally based officers have led to a
weakening of connection with local need. Furthermore Arts Lottery
distribution is now undertaken from a single base in Manchester.
We appreciate that this is a cost saving centralisation, but at
the cost of loss of sensitivity to local need. However, for the
future we would argue for a proportion of lottery funds to be
allocated to consortia of local authorities to support applications
from their areas against locally determined priorities.
7. NATIONAL LOTTERY
7.1 The proposed restoration of the original
proportion of lottery funds to arts, sports and heritage projects
is welcomed. It would be even better if the restoration were not
delayed until 2011-12.
7.2 Both the Arts Council and Heritage Lottery
Fund are important sources of capital and developmental support
for cultural organisations, but this funding has always been additional
to core activity and cannot and should not replace managed funds.
7.3 Lottery applications have always required
matched funding from local sources. This has often been a hard
call, particularly for smaller organisations outside metropolitan
centres. With the demise of Regional Development Agencies, trusts
and foundations have smaller amounts to give (because of low interest
rates, meaning there are now even fewer sources of match funding.
These requirements need to be eased, bearing in mind this may
well mean fewer projects funded.
8. IMPACT OF
CHANGES TO
DCMS ARM'S
LENGTH BODIES
8.1 The Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council (MLA) has, by and large, understood how to work with local
government providers, whilst the Arts Council has patchy provision.
CLOA is concerned, therefore, at the lack of consultation with
local authority partners and the prospect of some of the MLA's
functions going to the Arts Council, whose remit and philosophy
has been very different. The Crafts Council has not benefitted
in profile or reach by being subsumed into the Arts Council a
few years ago. The MLA is a much bigger and a more strategically
important fish to swallow. This will only work if the MLA sectors
have proper recognition within the reformed organisation and if
there is adequate ring fenced funding to ensure the continuance
of regional museum support through Renaissance and for museum
accreditation generally. In fact ACE could benefit from the MLA's
understanding of the local authority perspective.
8.2 Similarly, although both the Heritage
Lottery Fund and English Heritage have "heritage" in
their titles they have different remits and we would not recommend
amalgamation.
9. THE ROLE
OF BUSINESS
AND PHILANTHROPY
9.1 Business and private giving have always
been part of the mixed economy of cultural organisations, but
it is clear that such funders give in the expectation of adding
value rather than paying for the core activity. They are also
attracted to high profile building and production projects so
that income from sponsorship is practically the preserve of large
prestige organisations. Even large national organisations do not
currently achieve more than 15% of their funding from private
sources. This could be increased but it would take a long time
and would require a major cultural change, not only in the cultural
organisations, but also in business attitudes. There is no quick
fix.
9.2 As stated previously, it is definitely
harder for small organisations outside the centres of major cities
to be attractive to sponsors as it is for many of the community
arts engagement projects that they run. The last government found
it hard to attract private sponsors to their city academy programme.
Arts projects with disaffected young people or in deprived neighbourhoods
are an even more difficult to market.
9.3 Long term support for cultural activity
requires long term investment—and this is where talk of
endowments comes in. We certainly believe this should be explored,
but the initial costs of setting up endowments that will yield
useful amounts of money for organisations are large. It's noticeable
that, in the USA, even large institutions get little more than
5% of their income from endowments.
9.4 The government could certainly do more
to encourage private giving, although this should not be seen
as the main solution to a withdrawal of public funding. It would
help smaller organisations, in particular, if the government encouraged
private giving (through tax breaks, etc) for setting up of local
community funds, which could respond to local need. Individual
philanthropists have been instrumental in encouraging others to
pool their giving for local use. Local and central government
could work together to support such initiatives.
September 2010
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