Charity Commission report highlights cultural activity’s pubic benefit

Four arts organisations at different ends of the size scale have been given ringing endorsements by the Charity Commission for their public benefit work.

The Royal Opera House, The Castle Players, Gwent Ballet Theatre - known as the Independent Ballet Wales - and the Young Concert Artists all have charitable status and have been assessed as exemplars to other charities for what can be done for the public good.

The assessments help to demonstrate that the public benefit principles are flexible enough to apply to very different arts charities in terms of profile, size and operation, yet clear enough to distinguish them from organisations which are not charities.

The commission’s report found that they “provide real examples for the rest of the charity sector, to help in their awareness and understanding of public benefit” it said.

“The arts charities have shown how they are accessible to a wide range of people, which confirms their uniqueness as charities” said Dame Suzi Leather, chair of the commission.

In an exhaustive appraisal, the commission looked at the Royal Opera House’s range of ticket pricing which went from £210 down to £4 in the 2009 season, to give ‘a wide range of ticket prices which will be affordable to those who cannot afford the most expensive tickets’. It also looked at other benefits, such as free lunchtime concerts, big screen broadcasts and schools matinees, training programmes and its complex and wide-reaching education activities.

Largely self-financing, the Castle Players is a community drama group based at Barnard Castle, County Durham, which each summer stages a play – usually a Shakespeare comedy - each summer in the grounds of the Bowes Museum, and smaller winter production which tour to rural venues. Ticket prices range from £14 to £1, and many seats are free, and 80 members, many of them participants.

Independent Ballet Wales, formed in 1986 and based in Newprot in Gwent, offers classes and workshop led by professionals and tour the UK and Ireland. They run workshops in schools and community centres, and in 2007-9 4,000 took part.

And the Young Concert Artists Trust (YCAT), also based in Covent Garden, which sets out to support and promote outstanding young classical soloists and chamber ensembles by giving them support and management, typically over a period of three to five years, to help establish themselves professionally. It also acts as mentor for finalists in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition.

In her first pronouncement, new London Arts chair urges ‘hold your nerve’

London’s arts organisations have been told to hold their nerve in the face of funding cuts, and to ‘think smarter’.

The warning comes from the controversial new chairman of Arts Council England, London, former Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley.

In 2008 the Evening Standard under Wadley campaigned vigorously for Boris Johnson in the election for Mayor of London, which Johnson won. But his nomination of Wadley as chair of the London arts board last September was opposed by the then culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw.

After a re-run of the appointment process, Wadley was approved by the new Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, who has imposed a 4% cut on this year’s funding of the Arts Council. Since the Budget, the arts are facing cuts of at least 5% a year for the next four years.

‘Yes, it is a challenging time to take a job in the arts and yes, we must all think smarter, but we must hold our nerve,’ said Ms Wadley in her first pronouncement since becoming chairman. ‘I will do all I can to advocate for the arts in London - and defend excellence and innovation.

‘’London is a cultural powerhouse, and many people choose to live and work in London because of its fantastic cultural life. With the 2012 Olympics just two years away and more visitors than ever coming to London, it is critical that this vitality is maintained’ she added.

The foreseen cuts to the arts are a knock-on from the 25% cuts being meted out to all non-ring-fenced government departments, including DCMS, with an announcement from the Treasury on the comprehensive spending review expected in mid-October.

‘Confidence in the cultural sector must be maintained and we must not lose sight of the immeasurable contribution the arts make to all our lives,’ said Wadley, who has also joined the board of the Northern Ballet Theatre, the Mayor of London’s music education steering group, the advisory council of Arts & Business and is an advisor to Greenhouse Schools Project, a charity which provides sport and dance programmes in deprived areas of London. ‘Our partnership with the London boroughs is key here and I am looking forward to working with them in the coming months.

‘Our arts bring billions of pounds into the UK’s economy and it is vital that London does not lose its economic competitiveness - or its creative edge.’

Meanwhile, as part of last year’s planned Arts Council economy exercise, Arts Council London last week left its offices in Clerkenwell to move into the national headquarters in Westminster.

In the next few days we will hear which one of four short-listed bidder will be the chosen UK City of Culture for 2013. There is to be one every four years, but as the first this one will set the early standard. The idea was the brainchild of the TV producer Phil Redmond who was the creative director of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008, and the aim was to build on the 2008 “which had significant social and economic benefits for the area”, the culture department said in launching the scheme last year. “In deciding on the four cities recommended - Derry/Londonderry, Birmingham, Norwich, and Sheffield – the panel was influenced by the expected step change each city was asked to envisage, if they gained the title and subsequent media spotlight”. Here is what each has too offer.

NORWICH
Norwich’s bid is a bold one, which they are calling the “whole city experiment”. Sitting as it does at the far corner of East Anglia, it has always suffered from being perceived as slightly apart from the rest of the country, but it has a sound cultural base.

The annual Norfolk and Norwich Festival has become a national event and will play a key part in 2013. There also five theatres, including the Theatre Royal the Playhouse and an open air theatre. At the University of East Anglia it has the Sainsbury Centre, the internationally recognised contemporary art gallery. The Castle Museum, which used to suffer badly from lack of repair and resources, has been restored and relaunched as a major museum and gallery with which the Tate has an association for travelling exhibitions. Although there is no major concert hall of international standard, St Andrew’s Hall has served well with a wonderful acoustic that attracts orchestras such as he London Symphony regularly. And it has the Writers’ Centre, a literary initiative that is spear-heading Norwich’s bid to become a Unesco City of Literature.

But Norwich’s is a “tale of two cities”, according to the bid. The centre looks prosperous and refined, but outlying are poor areas with a high level of deprivation. A third of Norwich’s children are living in households dependent on state benefit of one sort or another.

So the bid, which is supported by Labour leadership contender Ed Balls, is to “use culture to change the whole city, for all of its citizens”.

BIRMINGHAM
The city has long boasted of its “second city” status, and with its world class orchestra and concert hall, museums and galleries, ballet and dance companies and theatres such was a close call to be the European Capital of Culture two years ago.

But at the centre of celebrations in 2013 will be the opening of the new Library of Birmingham, pictured, the largest public sector cultural project in Britain which is rising on Centenary Square next to the Birmingham Rep theatre. In addition, there will be a brand new autumn festival and a special exhibition of the extraordinary Anglo Saxon Hoard at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery along with A City in the Making, a new history gallery that will tell the story of Birmingham and its people.

It is the youngest city in Europe, in terms of the average age of its inhabitants, and there will be a whole programme of activity designed, led and curated by Birmingham’s young people. There is already a group of children, young people and their families from across the city developing the programme.

Also, a large part of the bid has been MAC, the Midlands Arts Centre, which opened on May 1 after a £15m expansion and refurbishment. It had been one of the first in a wave of arts centres in the 1960s and has now, says its director Dorothy Wilson, been transformed for a new generation with the biggest display of contemporary art in the West Midlands.

DERRY~LONDONDERRY
The long-awaited publication of the Saville Report into Bloody Sunday, the day in 1972 when 13 young civil rights protestors were shot dead by soldiers, was a watershed for the Derry~Londonderry because it absolved the protestors and victims of any criminal blame and allowed the city to move on at last. Northern Ireland as a whole had agreed that Derry should be the bid city rather than, for instance, Belfast, and the whole province is behind it.

A key element of the bid, the presentation team for which included Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister, is the transformation of Ebrington Barracks, once the headquarters for British soldiers in the region, into an arts centre. The former parade ground is to become a large performance space for pubic events, larger than Trafalgar Square, and a contemporary art gallery is to be created out of the former headquarters building, the Clocktower. The square will also be surrounded by museums, artists’ studios, galleries, cafes and restaurants to create an artistic quarter. A giant new piece of public sculpture has been commissioned by the city Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier for the site at a cost of £800,0000.

The area in which Ebrington stands, Waterside, has been historically cut off from the walled city by the river Foyle, but is being linked by a new pedestrian bridge being built with European money, the Peace Bridge.

The bid presentation included a film, Voices , in which ordinary Derry people speak about what the arts in their city mean to them. “The great strength of the Derry-Londonderry bid” said temporary director of development Oonagh McGillion “has been the people of the city, and it’s the fact that it is the people of the city who deliver the message in the film that makes it so moving”.

SHEFFIELD
Sheffield is representing the north with its bid, and has the support of, among others, Manchester City Council, the Peak District National Park, Leeds City Council, neighbouring South Yorkshire boroughs and the region’s tourism agency.

The bid is about the people, communities, businesses and organisations in the city creating, making and participating in the 2013 programme. “We know our programme can cut it with the best internationally and we will invite the rest of the world to experience it here with us in Sheffield” the bid declares.

Sheffield already has an admired track record for delivering major events and boasts the largest theatres complex outside of London. The Made in Sheffield brand is globally recognised and its central role in the bid has been the platform for the city and the region to accelerate the selling of the city’s contemporary image and wider tourism offer.

Sheffield will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of stainless steel in 2013 but also sits at the heart of the most digitally connected region in the UK. The £90 million Digital Region initiative will bring the first major deployment of super fast broadband in the UK to our city, providing endless possibilities for our 2013 programme and the city’s digital future.

And, like the orthers, it has recruited celebrity support, in this case Michael Palin. “Someone once noted that all the Monty Python team were provincials” he said “and I think that coming from Sheffield gave me a fresh and unconventional outlook on life which has helped me in my creative work and been with me ever since”.

Search launched to find private funder to fill subsidy holes after Osborne challenge

The National Campaign for the Arts have joined forces with Arts & Business to create a new forum to “reanimate” private sector cultural support to meet the government’s challenge for alternative funding.

Twenty forum members will be elected by the combined membership of the two organisations’ of 1,650 member bodies, focussing at first on England.

“The forum will be the independent voice for the arts focusing on the immediate needs of the arts and the role of the private sector in helping to deliver those needs” said Louise de Winter, director of the NCA. “It will be democratically elected ensuring that voices from large and small, metropolitan and regional organisations are represented. We will be offering the forum as the consultative group that the government can work with to make the best decisions for our cultural funding ecology going forward.”

It is to go into action almost immediately. The formal call for candidates was made yesterday, and the first dialogue of the elected forum members wil take place before the end of July.

Colin Tweedy, chief executive of A&B , said: “The chancellor has challenged the nation to begin a dialogue on the way forward. Arts & Business with the NCA are immediately responding by creating a dialogue with our combined arts memberships of over 1,650 cultural bodies, to identify the impact of where cuts might fall, where growth can come and how we can build our collective cultural capacity for the future.”

Winter added that arts organisations were particularly vulnerable to local authority spending cuts. “It is often those organisations away from the metropolitan centres that struggle with business and private funding” she said. “This forum provides an opportunity for the sector to identify strengths and weaknesses and create a platform on which arts organisations can build stronger relations with private funders, particularly in the regions.”

National charity Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) has described the £1.6 million cut in its funding from Arts Council England as” very painful.”
But CCE chief executive Paul Collards added that the organisation had managed to make the cuts “ without impacting on the schools and children involved in the Creative Partnerships creative learning programme.”

Instead the reductions in spending have fallen on training schemes, community engagement and research, he said. But Collard warned that any future cuts “will not be able to be made without a dramatic impact on the children and young people in schools who currently benefit from Creative Partnerships.” He added that individual artists and frontline cultural organisations would also feel the impact.

“It is important that the government recognises the value of engaging children and young people with the arts through creative and cultural education – this is vital for life long involvement with the arts, and independent evidence has proven that our work helps to raise attainment levels, improve attendance and increase pupil motivation, ”said the CCE boss.

CCE was amongst the biggest loser in the £7million worth of cuts announced by the Arts Council. Other cuts will hit Arts and Business and regularly funded arts organisations will face a half per cent cut in funding this year.

News focus
Last month Arts Council England published its blueprint for how it proposes to deal with its funding clients. Here ACE’s chief operating officer, Althea Efunshile, outlines what it will mean.

The publication of The relationship between Arts Council England and its regularly funded organisations marked a significant step in the development of the relationships between the Arts Council and the organisations we fund. The document sets out clearly what a regularly funded organisation can expect from the Arts Council and what we expect in return. It covers topics such as funding agreements, knowledge sharing, self-evaluation and artistic assessment.

Our relationship with RFOs is a partnership which needs to be based on openness, clarity about one another’s different roles, mutual respect and trust. This publication is about making clear the framework we use to support, monitor and assess each of our funded organisations in a way that is consistent, but that also responds to individual needs and circumstances.

Self-evaluation and artistic assessment
One of the most significant new steps is the development of an online self-evaluation framework, which will be published on the Arts Council website in the coming weeks. Of course, many arts organisations already self-evaluate very effectively, but this new flexible development tool will be specially designed to support all our funded arts organisations to evaluate their own work.

We believe that in order to reach their full potential and to inform their future plans all arts organisations should undertake periodic self-evaluation. It’s up to each organisation to decide how best to do this, with our framework supporting organisations in their own evaluation.

The self-evaluation framework focuses on six key areas:

o Vision
o External environment
o Artistic aspirations and programme
o Participation and engagement
o Organisational capacity and capability
o Business model

It was developed after consulting with our funded organisations who also helped to “road test” the framework. We expect it to continue to develop and improve as we learn from the feedback organisations give us.

The self-assessment framework sits alongside the new artistic assessment scheme, which saw 150 artistic assessors appointed in January this year. These assessors, who have knowledge and expertise across the arts, experience the work of our funded organisations and report on its artistic quality. Over time, these assessments will create a broad and diverse evidence base to help inform the Arts Council’s investment decisions. We’ll share these reports with the organisations that are assessed, providing a helpful context for their own discussions about artistic quality.

The new relationship framework also introduces a new scheme of peer appraisal for the nine RFOs that receive more than £5m a year from the Arts Council. These appraisals will take place every five years, involving respected figures with expertise in particular areas. They will provide the Arts Council with a detailed picture of the organisation as a whole and will give the organisations themselves an opportunity to reflect on their work, providing expert insights to challenge organisations to be the best they can be.

Great art for everyone
The Arts Council is currently developing a new strategic framework, setting out our long term goals for the next ten years. We can only achieve our goals by working with our partners, and in particular through the creativity and talent of the artists and the arts organisations we fund. Our recently completed consultation, Achieving great art for everyone, gave the arts sector a real opportunity to share their views about the direction they would like to see us take over the next decade.

Our regularly funded organisations represent the majority of the public funding that we distribute. They have a responsibility to be as ambitious and effective as possible and we have a responsibility to ensure that we support them in a way that best enables them to be so. We hope The relationship between Arts Council England and its regularly funded organisations helps us all to achieve this, allowing our funded organisations across the country to thrive.

In her The Other Point of View column in AI 252 Dea Birkett questioned how much coaching there is for gallery assistants the National Gallery in exhibition subject matter. Here one of them, Simon Spier, responds.

Below, Dea Birkett adds her latest observations, followed by the National Gallery’s response to them…

Speaking as both a gallery assistant at the National Gallery and an undergraduate student of art history, I feel indebted to the gallery for the knowledge and inspiration I have gained. The passion I have for the subject is very much fed by my time here. Since receiving my weighty Companion Guide to the collection on my first day as a gift from the gallery, my understanding of Western European painting has never ceased to flourish.

I have worked full-time for one year within the visitor services and security department, and while the department also includes a specialised information team – here to answer any queries from visitors about the gallery and its collection – I have never been deprived of any activities or benefits which staff in academic positions have access to.

For each new exhibition hosted, including the recent Kobke show mentioned in your article, the curator always provides a fantastic “staff talk” outside of opening hours, and open to all staff. Gallery assistants who wish to attend are even paid an overtime rate for their time.

In addition to this, my colleagues and I are able to reserve free or discounted tickets to many of the lecture programmes and courses which the gallery’s education department organises.

Furthermore, the ID held by gallery staff gives us free access to most other museums and galleries in and around London, and a select few in different areas of the country, so the scope for learning is not limited to our own collection.

With all this in mind, one of the aspects of my job of which I remain most proud is to be responsible for the safety of the priceless works of art that hang on the walls, and during hours of duty this has to remain our top priority. At the same time, I am thrilled when visitors approach me to ask questions about the collection. It makes me value my front-of-house position in the gallery all the more to know I’ve given the information needed to help someone make the very most of their visit.

The pleasure of my job is being able to keep an eye on the security of the room as well as absorbing information from the paintings themselves and the many guided tours which pass through.

so Dea made a return visit…

I was cheered to hear back from the National Gallery that “All of our staff, including gallery assistants, are provided with special tours with curators for every exhibition held”’. This good news encouraged me to return and have another attempt at appreciating the Christen Kobke exhibition. I spotted two gallery assistants in the room.

I approached one. “Can you tell me about these paintings?” I asked.
“No - not really” he said.
“Do you know anything about them?”
“No.”
I waited. Then asked, “Have you had any training about the paintings?”
“No” he said. Then added, “Why don’t you go and look at the short film next door? That might help you”. He then suggested I went and bought the catalogue in the shop.

So I approached the second gallery assistant.
“Can you tell me why these paintings are important?”I asked, “I don’t know them at all”.
“Neither do I” he said. “I know nothing about them. You probably know more than I do!”
“Have you been told anything about them?” I asked.
“No” he said.
He then suggested I went to the shop and bought the catalogue.

Perhaps the National Gallery will argue that I went on the wrong afternoon, that I just happened to come across a couple of gallery assistants who hadn’t had any training. But that’s a defence that’s no defence. Either you have a training programme for your gallery assistants or you don’t. You don’t have a training programme for some of them, some of the time.

There’s just a few weeks left of the Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey exhibition. Perhaps I’ll try to go along to that, too. It’s just that I know nothing about Paul Delaroche either. And I might not be able to find a gallery assistant to help me.

…and from the National Gallery

The National Gallery was very interested to read about Dea’s return visit to the Købke exhibition in The Sunley Room.

For some “out of the ordinary” conversations or incidents that happen, our gallery assistants file written reports. We therefore read the report which had been written by one of the two gallery assistants who were approached by Dea at approx 5.00pm on Thursday 22 April. However, as her version of events seemed to be at odds to this report, we decided to watch the CCTV footage of this encounter to find out what actually happened.

CCTV shows Dea walking into the Sunley Room and, after a minute or two she approaches the seated gallery assistant. She has a brief conversation lasting perhaps 25 seconds with him and starts to leave. The gallery assistant follows her, speaks to her again and indicates the location of the cinema. On her way out she stops and speaks with another gallery assistant briefly. She then she leaves the exhibition suite without speaking to any other staff.

Dea’s story is that she spotted two gallery assistants in the exhibition room. “I approached one. ‘Can you tell me about the paintings?’ I asked. ‘No - not really’ he said. She says she asked ‘Do you know anything about them?’ to which he replied ‘No’”. She reports she waited and then asked “’Have you had any training about the paintings?’ ‘No’ he said. Then he added ‘Why don’t you go and look at the short film next door, that might help you’. He then suggested I went and bought the catalogue in the shop” she says.

However, the gallery assistant who she approached states of Dea’s article. “Earlier I had walked round the room looking at some of the paintings and thought if Kobke had lived longer how would his work have developed. When questioned by the visitor the first answer I gave was he had died quite young – before going on to suggest the short film in the cinema or the catalogue on the stand. She did not appear to be interested in spending time in looking, reading, discovering the information / answers she wanted for herself from what the gallery provides for its many visitors – I thought maybe she was someone who couldn’t read but the film would have been useful. I am interested in the paintings and I like to engage with the visitors.”

Not all of the gallery assistants attend the voluntary staff talks which are provided, but with what knowledge they have and without getting diverted from their security responsibilities they are encouraged to learn about the collection and temporary exhibitions in order to assist visitors.

We are very happy to make the CCTV footage available.

Survey shows cultural sector braced for cuts

Workers in the cultural sector are bracing themselves for a Conservative win in the general election which they believe will mean a tougher time for the arts. They think funding for the creative industries should be ring-fenced.

They think David Cameron is most likely to be prime minister in May 7, but that Gordon Brown is by far the leader most sympathetic to the arts. But they also believe that the arts will experience significant cuts after the election.

The findings are the result of a survey by Arts Quarter, the independent survey consultancy that works with the arts and not-for-profit sector.

The survey was carried between April 6 and April 16 among 2,558 named contacts from whom there were 854 completed organisational responses and assessed before the first leaders’ TV debate. It found that 20.5% of those questioned thought Labour had been most explicit in its manifesto pledges for the arts sector, compared with 13% for the Conservatives and 8% for the Liberal Democrats.

It is clear that nobody expects the cultural sector to be free of cuts. “It would seem evident that arts professionals remain sceptical of support for the sector irrespective of outcome” says the AQ report, “but perhaps fear a Conservative win above victory by either of the other major parties in terms of empathy and clarity on policy”.

The most popular response to a question about the post-election impact on the arts was that efforts to generate money from private sources would have to be stepped up, and the next most popular that cuts may have to be made to public programme. Beyond the first year of the new government, preferences were reversed with more believing that cuts in public programmes could be necessary.

But in answer the question “Which of the leaders of the major political parties do you feel is most likely to empathise with the issues relating to your sector in the course of the election campaign”, 36 % said Gordon Brown, 11.6% Nick Clegg and only 3.8% David Cameron.

Opinions have been narrowing. AQ last carried out a survey in September when 81% of respondents predicted a clear Conservative win. Now just 45% do, and most of them expect the majority will be less than 25 seats.

More significantly, 31% of respondents now think a hung parliament is most likely, compared with 4% seven months ago. Now, 12% believe a small Labour majority might be the result, whereas in September none did.

In personal statements in the returns, a recurrent theme was that funding for creative industries should be protected. “Our key message as a sector should be to argue that, as per the Dutch model, funding for the arts should be ring-fenced. It is proportionately a tiny % of the budget” the report summarises. “This country enjoys a rich cultural life and a hugely successful creative economy. We punch well above our weight. But that economy is fragile and any hit to funding will jeopardise it”.

Respondents were powerfully in favour of maintaining the arm’s length principle with the Arts Council, and there is a call for a pledge to keep the Arts Council “as there are rumour of the Conservatives wanting to axe it”. The Conservatives have, in fact, said there are no plans to abolish ACE.

There was also overwhelming support for new tax arrangements to encourage individual philanthropic support for the arts.

UK General Election: The Cultural Sector’s Viewpoint is published by Arts Quarter LLP, www.artsquarter.co.uk

What the manifestos say

Labour is the only main party to include the arts in their election manifesto, and for the first time. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats published separate arts manifestos as long ago as February.

Accusations have flown between the arts spokesmen, with Labour’s Ben Bradshaw using an interview win The Stage to claim that the Tories will make “savage” cuts in government funding for the arts despite promises, and he Conservatives’ Ed Vaizey saying Labour “continue to lie about our policies, but it won’t work”.

Labour are promising to make nation al museums and galleries more independent; they will introduce a £10 theatre ticket scheme to encourage younger play-goers; there is to be a biennial Festival of Britain to celebrate Britain’s cultural achievements; and there will be more lottery money for the arts after the 2012 Olympics.

The Conservatives will seek to secure long term funding for the arts based on the mixed economy and the arm’s length principle, which ensures they have he resources to carry them through the good time and the bad; they will give more independence to subsidised arts organizations; they will encourage a more coherent approach to arts funding in schools to enable access performance; the National Lottery will be returned to supplying four good causes, increasing funding to the arts and heritage each by £50m a year; they will change the rules for acceptance-in-lieu procedures to allow living giving of works of art.

The Liberal Democrats will put more emphasis on recognising achievement in the arts; introduce a cabinet committee on creativity; review the via system so that it doesn’t militate against visiting artists; it will more to the arts economically and diplomatically; ensure the Arts Council finances risk and innovation, and distribute more subsidy to the regions; encourage local authorities to maintain their arts support; give more recognition to arts philanthropists; embed culture and creativity in the school curriculum.

News focus
Arts manifesto sets out the importance of our cultural economy

Britain’s cultural capital could be the saving of the economy and lead the recovery, according to a new alliance of leading arts and heritage organisations who have jointly launched a manifesto to make their point.

We have the largest cultural economy in the world relative to GDP, according to the document, Cultural Capital: A Manifesto for the Future, and every £1 invested in culture produces £2. Two thirds of the adult population in the UK enjoy the arts, visit historic sites and go to museums and galleries, and of the top ten UK visitor attractions, eight are national museums.

At the British Museum launch, the museum’s director, Neil MacGregor, said: “We want to give politicians the confidence to put on their CVs not what football team they support, but why life without Schubert is impossible.
“Culture works. This is a bit of national life that is extraordinarily efficient and effective. It is a huge employer and the economic activity it generates is ever more important. Culture gives us our place in the world; it reminds us what we are and what we could be.”

The document sets out to demonstrate that a fifteen-year period of investment has created a public appetite for culture that continues to grow, and that the arts, heritage, museums, libraries and archives make a strong contribution to the economic and social well being of Britain.

It argues that a reduction of public investment would make poor economic sense. As the eyes of the world are on Britain for the Olympics in 2012, sustained funding is essential if our cultural institutions and attractions are to create a lasting legacy of more people taking part and an enhanced international profile. The cultural sector can also make a real contribution to social and economic recovery through offering work, learning, training and social engagement.

The arts and heritage agencies have already contributed £2.2 billion from their National Lottery income to the London 2012 Olympics (the Heritage Lottery Fund is losing £161.2 million; the four arts councils and two film councils are losing another £161.2 million). And this year alone the cultural sector has made extensive contributions to public sector savings through the £20m cut to the overall DCMS grant-in-aid allocation announced in the 2009 budget. Over the last twelve years, English Heritage has lost £130m in grant-in-aid.

“All the more important during an economic downturn, the arts and culture have a new role and sense of purpose in society” said Nicholas Kenyon, managing director of the Barbican. “Whether you’re looking for inspiration, education or entertainment in these challenging times, the arts provide it.”

And Britain’s lead in putting the arts at the head of economic recovery is acknowledged abroad. “We don’t know how long this crises is going to last” said Jean Figuel, the EU commissioner for culture last year. “When it is over, those who have invested in creativity and innovation will find themselves well ahead of the pack.”