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Contribution of the arts and culture industry to the UK economy

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Contribution of the arts and culture industry to the UK economy

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Each year we commission a report to showcase the incredible outstanding contribution that arts and culture makes to the UK economy. This report is based largely on the most recent available official data provided by the Office for National Statistics.

The report highlights:

The arts and culture industry has grown £390million in a year and now contributes £10.8billion a year to the UK economy.

The sector contributes £2.8billion a year to the Treasury via taxation, and generates a further £23billion a year and 363,700 jobs.

Productivity in the arts and culture industry between 2009 and 2016 was greater than that of the economy as a whole, with gross value added per worker at £62,000 for arts and culture, compared to £46,800 for the wider UK economy.

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Contribution of the arts and culture industry to the UK economy

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Each year we commission a report to showcase the incredible outstanding contribution that arts and culture makes to the UK economy. This report is based largely on the most recent available official data provided by the Office for National Statistics.

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10 Reasons Why We Need to Fund—and Defend the National Endowment for the Arts

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10 Reasons Why We Need to Fund—and Defend the National Endowment for the Arts

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The Heritage Foundation and conservative groups like it have been trying to kill the National Endowment for the Arts for decades.

Last month, the Trump administration, for the fourth year in a row, released a budget blueprint that proposed zeroing out and winding down the NEA and other government art support. Heritage , so it's basically staffed the current Trump administration not a coincidence that his budget priorities are essentially those of the anti-government think tank, which is almost as passionate about ending the NEA as it is about undermining the science on climate change.

Perhaps with everything going on right now, and with the NEA having squeaked by before, the sense of urgency around the issue has drained. You can't just go on writing passionate defenses of it year after year. Then too, today's NEA itself, as even its critics acknowledge, is not exactly a behemoth of radical interventionist government to get inspired by. Nevertheless, it is worth defending.

The Heritage Foundation is 1997 report authored by "distinguished fellow" Laurence Jarvik, titled "t remains a in debates today, and its language has sunk into still promoting its Ten Good Reasons to Eliminate Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts ," as the definitive source on " why there is no need for the federal government to be spending your money on these programs." I the ground water of conservative argument about the NEA-which is, after all, the job of a conservative think tank.

And actually, as a distillation of anti-NEA talking points, I find it useful. I think it's important for NEA advocates to actually understand the spectrum of arguments ranged against them, and not rely on dated or off-target counter-arguments. So I thought I would put down, here, replies to each of Heritage's "Ten Reasons."
Anti-NEA Talking Point #1: The Arts Will Have More Than Enough Support Without the NEA
Reply: Defenders of the NEA often use the talking point that its funding accounts for a very, very small amount of the budget: something like 0.0004 percent. But foes can turn this around: What is paltry is easy to cut. Trump's 2021 budget proposal says explicitly that the NEA and NEH "make up only a small fraction of the billions spent each year by arts and humanities nonprofit organizations."

But the NEA was never designed to replace private support. The very second item of National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 states this clearly: "The encouragement and support of national progress and scholarship in the humanities and the arts, while primarily a matter for private and local initiative, are also appropriate matters of concern to the Federal Government."

Instead the NEA was designed to help correct for the biases of private support. It was hatched in 1964, the same year Dylan penned The Times They Are a Changin', and it was very much of a piece with the spirit of Johnson's Great Society. That is, the idea was that government action could be used to correct some of the problems that, left to itself, the US's affluent society-then in the middle of a historic boom, but simmering with unrest-let fester.

The emphasis, as you can read in its first report of 1964-65, was that the arts ought to be recognized "as a vital part of our national life, and not a luxury." The initial commission that studied it had come to the conclusion that the relentless focus on practical subjects in education had led to widespread discontent with the materialism of US society. It thus focused on expanding access to the arts and funding ideas and artworks deemed vital but not necessarily profitable.

Let's not be naïve about it: much like the Johnson Administration's eventual support of the Civil Rights Act, the passage of the NEA was also meant as a chess move in the Cold War. Capitalist America was in ideological competition with the Soviet Union for global hegemony, and trying to cut against the image of the US on the world stage as a bigoted, rapaciously materialist society served an objective. The act itself made its propaganda value clear: "The world leadership which has come to the United States cannot rest solely upon superior power, wealth, and technology, but must be solidly founded upon worldwide respect and admiration for the Nation's high qualities as a leader in the realm of ideas and of the spirit."

Flashing forward, that background impetus for government art funding helps explain why it was after the Cold War ended in the late '80s that the NEA came under withering attack, as US politicians no longer felt the same ideological need to soften the image of capitalism to the world; capitalism had become the only game in town. Since then, conservatives have either demonized or let the NEA go to seed. In 1990, the NEA's budget was $171 million, which after inflation adds up to something like $338 million; for 2020, it's $162 million.

But the problems that it was set up to address-the construal of art as a "luxury" when left just to private patronage, and major gaps in access to creative resources in a wealthy but very unequal society-definitely remain. And through its modest grant-giving today, the NEA still does what it was designed to do: attempt to foster access to the arts for people of many different kinds, mainly through supporting non-profit institutions that can use the lift.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #2: The NEA Is Welfare for Cultural Elitists

Reply: The NEA was founded in the '60s with a rhetoric of promoting "progressive" and "experimental" art, and took heat afterwards for discriminating against realists. In the late '80s, it became a flashpoint of public controversy, with "artists" proving easy to demonize as godless deviants.

But honestly, all this is a very dated idea of what the NEA does. The NEA is quite self-consciously populist in focus these days. It boasts of promoting such initiatives as the Creative Forces program, a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs that, as its website states, "increases access to community arts activities to promote health, wellness, and quality of life for military service members, veterans, and their families and caregivers."

Last September, the Jacksonville Daily News reported on an Open Studio exhibition for Creative Forces, which gives a sense of the hoity-toity audience it serves. "It's like a safe space for me; a place I can go and express myself," Army vet Robert "Shrek" Harrell, an artist in the show, said of the Creative Forces program. "It gives me time to be with myself in my mind, and gives me some peace and a way to heal."

The NEA also supports Challenge America, a program specifically designed to give a helping hand to communities that might otherwise not have access to art programming-i.e., it is specifically targeted at non-elite communities.

Just as an example, we are talking about a grant for North Carolina's Tsali Care Center to support artists from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to offer art classes to the nursing home's residents (who are also generally tribal members). Or a grant to support an art exhibition and other programming for a Dia de Los Muertos festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Or a grant for the Georgia Mountain Storytelling Festival in Blairsville, Georgia, which showcases "traditional and contemporary Appalachian stories."

All of these seem extremely worthy, and difficult to frame as welfare for elitists.

I actually don't love making such arguments, because I think that there ought to be room to fund art that isn't directly justified as community service.

But what I think is very important to stress is that the NEA is modestly redistributive. Private philanthropy is notoriously unequal, flowing to flashy showpiece institutions and pooling in localities where rich people are concentrated. The art market is even more a direct reflection of the concentration of wealth, and wealth has never been more concentrated.

"Low-dollar and mid-level donors have declined by about two percent each year for more than fifteen years," one report on trends in philanthropy found recently. The result was "an increased bias toward funding heavily major-donor-directed boutique organizations and projects." And so you get the mega-project of the Shed in New York's luxury shopping playground Hudson Yards, with its flashy "Bloomberg Building," at the very moment that the comparatively ultra-modest but beloved Bushwick nonprofit NURTUREart has to shut down due to a "confluence of resource challenges and a shifting environment for non-profits."

On this level, the argument for a National Endowment for the Arts is clearer now then it has ever been. Compared to when the NEA was founded, the United States has grown drastically more spatially unequal, with certain big cities and regions sucking up investment and cultural amenities. Even experts who argue that the NEA should be even more narrowly focused on small, non-elite institutions-I'm thinking of Diane Ragsdale -stress that NEA funding tends to be more equally distributed, since that's part of its mandate, and also see it as a potential instrument for correcting for otherwise dire trends in private giving.

But don't take my word for it. Trump's NEA secretary, Mary Anne Carter, made the case well last year:

For every county in America that has a high school, National Endowment for the Arts is there, either through our Poetry Out Loud competition or our Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge. The same cannot be said for private foundations. A review of the art giving of the top 1000, yes, 1000 private foundations shows that those private dollars don't reach 65% of American counties. In contrast, the National Endowment for the Arts is in 779 more counties than private foundations.

779 counties, 25% of America where the National Endowment for the Arts provides funding where the top 1000 private foundations do not.

A few examples: in Kentucky there are 59 counties that receive funding from us that have no private dollars out of 120 counties. In Alabama 40, in South Carolina ten, Alaska eight, and in my home state of Tennessee 21 counties with our funding but no funding from the top 1000 private foundations.

Access to arts funding should not depend on one's proximity to private philanthropy. This is what makes support of the National Endowment for the Arts indispensable.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #3: The NEA Discourages Charitable Gifts to the Arts

Reply: This is a bit of a wonky debate, but argument rages over whether government funding of the arts "crowds out" or "crowds in" private funding. Supporters like to say that the NEA serves as a "Good Housekeeping" seal, encouraging donations from private foundations, corporations, and individuals, an effect that certainly feels true to a lot of small organizations who use an NEA grant to attract the attention of other potential backers.

When the new attempt at termination was announced last month, an NEA spokesperson told my colleague Eileen Kinsella that its grants "are leveraged by other public and private contributions up to 9:1, significantly increasing the impact of the federal investment." (Indeed, its grants generally require securing matching funds.)

Opponents such as the Heritage Foundation like to say that government support merely "crowds out" private funders, who will take their money somewhere where they think it is more needed if the government is present. And any "Good Housekeeping" effect, they say, simply shifts patronage that would go to one organization to another organization, rather than encouraging additional giving.

I actually find it baffling to try to boil this down to a universal law. For instance: private giving went up in the '90s after the cuts to the NEA caused by the Culture Wars. Does that therefore prove, as some economists have argued, that government arts funding had previously been "crowding out" private patronage?

I don't think so, because a) the increase in private funding happened during a huge economic boom that lasted the entire decade, and b) the spectacular public character of the Culture Wars debates that led to the NEA cut framed it in the public mind as a needy cause worthy of supporting, with copious PR points and good vibes going to the private philanthropists who stepped in as Congress cut funding. (The way the researchers put this, in their charmingly inscrutable way, is that "publicity" has a "non-linear impact" on the public-private funding calculation.)

When an economic crisis hit in the early 2000s and progressive concern recentered around the Iraq War, the conversation moved on: "Data from the Conference Board for 2000 to 2010 suggest that corporate funding for the arts dropped by half after inflation over this period." And that's not really because George W. Bush's NEA stepped back in to crowd it out. The NEA was still down by a third from its heights after inflation at decade's end.

A final note: Even if there is a fixed pie of private arts funding, and the "signal" of an NEA grant simply shifts those donations around, it does not follow that this cannot be a useful operation. Larger, well-endowed institutions are easier able to court donors and to frame themselves as winners. The "Seal of Approval" from the NEA most benefits small institutions who don't otherwise have major marketing budgets or pre-existing networks of big donors to tap into, providing a way to signal, "Hey, this organization is doing good work-might you consider shifting some money from that wealthy, well-established organization to a smaller but critically acclaimed one?"

Anti-NEA Talking Point #4: The NEA Lowers the Quality of American Art

Reply: Heritage quotes a management professor on the evils of state arts funding: "It was the unsubsidized writers, painters, and musicians-imprisoned in their homes if they were lucky, in asylums or in gulags if they weren't-who created lasting culture."

Aside from being comically over the top ("giving $10,000 grants to small nonprofits is the royal road to totalitarianism!"), this declaration is on-its-face wrong, unless you don't count Velázquez or Bernini as "lasting culture." Most of the things you see in museums were subsidized by royal courts or papal authorities in one way or another.

But I value the modern "artist as dissident" figure too. Does government art funding necessarily turn artists into mediocre propagandists?

The "New Deal produced no true masterpieces," Heritage reports, using the WPA arts projects as an obvious example of bad arts policy. But "producing masterpieces" isn't the best measure for an arts policy designed as unemployment relief in the first place, and arts policy in general doesn't just support individual artworks but helps artists sustain a career, get training, and experiment. Most serious scholars today argue that the New Deal arts program laid the basis for a national arts scene in the United States that did not previously exist, producing a new sense of professional identity and purpose for American art that paid dividends later on.

Jackson Pollock, Alice Neel, and Charles White all cut their teeth as WPA artists, and went on to great renown in diverse ways. You can't beat that record.

As for "masterpieces," I don't know what else to call a work that has entered as deeply into the symbolic vocabulary as Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother, which was created for the Farm Services Administration's photography section.

The NEA, back when it still had individual artist grants (these were a casualty of the Culture Wars fight in the '90s), did a pretty good job supporting artists who were in need at stages in their career when it mattered, and who went on to make important art. Michael Brenson looked at artists who won MacArthur "Genius" Grants only after receiving NEA grants first-which was almost all of them given during the relevant time period where the two programs overlapped: Ida Applebroog, Vija Celmins, Ann Hamilton, David Hammons, Gary Hill, Robert Irwin, Alfredo Jaar, Kerry James Marshall, Pepon Osorio, Martin Puryear, Cindy Sherman, James Turrell, Bill Viola, and Fred Wilson.

In many cases, Brenson points out, they received the NEA grant over a decade before they officially became celebrated as "Geniuses," and the boost helped them stick it out on what was and is a tough path. The fact that Kerry James Marshall, probably the most acclaimed and important living painter today, was allowed to pursue his art full time because of his 1991 NEA grant is part of his official biography.

So you can dispense with the "government funding leads only to mediocrity" line.

On the flip side, however, it may be worth adding that I find no evidence that the alternatives to government funding don't produce their own biases, particularly in the face of concentrated wealth, the collapse of the middle of the art market, and an increasingly inescapable corporate pop culture. The results of those pressures include the "Zombie Formalism" painting boom of a few years ago-where galleries were swamped with blandly gimmicky abstract paintings, courting herd taste in collectors-or every museum desperately trying to get a hold of a Yayoi Kusama mirror room to bring in the crowds.

The private market produces its own pressures: towards flattering rich people and safe corporate ideas of what's going to court mass-appeal profitability. The point of arts funding, once more, is to provide a small counterweight against these other pressures towards conformity.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #5: The NEA Will Continue to Fund Pornography

Reply: This one dates the Heritage article. The year after it was published, in '98, the Supreme Court upheld an advisory "decency standard" for NEA grants. In 2010, looking back two decades on from that decision, the National Coalition Against Censorship wrote:

[I]t appears the decency amendment-coupled with the removal of individual artists grants-did not so much become a reason to censor specific work as have a chilling effect on programming at recipient institutions. It also seems that the amendment shifted the NEA's emphasis from supporting innovative original work to supporting art and art education that would not likely disturb mainstream standards and values.

I'm not aware of anything since that changes the calculation. And yet, the Culture Wars permanently fixed in the public mind the association of the NEA with Andres Serrano's Piss Christ and Robert Mapplethorpe's BDSM photos. It's part of why it is so easy still to score points bashing the agency on Fox News.

It's easy to point out that the Heritage report was more concerned with cherrypicking individual instances of controversial art to whip up outrage against government subsidy overall than with accurately assessing what any of the art in question meant. Among the items that Heritage wants to offer-even today, evidently-as irredeemably offensive is the NEA's support of the organization Women Make Movies. The scandal was that WMM helped distribute films that had lesbian themes.

Similarly, the report cheerfully classed the fact that the NEA's literature program helped fund "" a historical digest of famous gays and lesbians, as "pornographic." The libertarian flacks at Heritage were happy to court homophobia to push their anti-government agenda. That probably seemed a good bet in the late '90s. It looks plainly like nasty opportunism now.

Reviewing today the report's appendix purporting to prove the "regular pattern of support for indecency, repeated year after year," a lot of it fudges the nature of the NEA's support, and a lot more burlesques the works in question very uncharitably, takes hostile reviews as proof positive of worthlessness, and shows ignorance of the field it claims to authoritatively opine on. It refers to William Pope L. as "William L. Pope." It includes as government-funded "pornography" the scandal of MoMA showing Bruce Nauman neons that say "Shit and Die" and "Fuck and Die," because MoMA showed them and received some NEA funding. The horror.

In the end, though, getting sucked into defending individual works is a waste. Not everyone is going to be convinced to like Bruce Nauman. I mean, he did actually represent the United States of America at the Venice Biennale, where his acerbic, difficult work won the Golden Lion for Best National Pavilion in 2009-something like winning a gold medal in the Olympics of Art-but it is challenging for many viewers.

Debating the merits and demerits of individual works of art, and even whether they were individually worth funding? That's a job for criticism.

Outside of that, what you have to defend is the principle of the thing.

In 1989, the year of the NEA supernova of controversy, panelists gave out thousands of grants (298 in the soon-to-be-terminated artist-grants category alone!). These included funding such decidedly non-pornographic fare as a documentary about banjo legend Morgan Sexton and a "radio series about women in old-time music" in Kentucky.

The NEA could boast, that year, of having funded the initial workshops that became the play Driving Miss Daisy, nominated in movie form for Best Picture in 1990. It gave early support to A Prairie Home Companion in the '70s. In the 2010s, Lin-Manuel Miranda workshopped his first musical at the O'Neill Musical Theatre Center, partly funded by the NEA.

Taking a few examples of things that the NEA directly or, more often, indirectly funded that offended conservative sensibilities, and caricaturing government art funding as a whole as being a scheme to corrupt the youth? That's textbook demagoguery.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #6: The NEA Promotes Politically Correct Art

Reply: There are interesting debates on this score. Governmental arts-funding systems are inherently subject to political pressures. That does tend to put pressure on artists to make work that avoids controversy. This is, frankly, a complaint that some artists have about more social democratic arts-funding systems-though they usually wouldn't give them up, either. The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies has some very thought-provoking discussion about what mix of "arm's length" policies best guarantee security and freedom for the arts.

As we have seen, a lot of the NEA's intensified focus on "community-focused" arts came in the wake of the Culture Wars. So if what you mean by "politically correct" is safe, carefully workshopped, offends-no-one expression, you might be able to make a case that the agency does somewhat tend towards this kind of work. But it is precisely the right's relentless efforts to demonize the NEA that have led to such "political correctness."

But that is not what Heritage meant by "politically correct" art. It meant that the "radical virus of multiculturalism" has "permanently infected the agency, causing artistic efforts to be evaluated by race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation instead of artistic merit."

Yet the one big piece of evidence Heritage mustered was an article by one-time Los Angeles Times theater critic Jan Breslauer in the Washington Post decrying how "race-based politics" had entered arts funding. It's worth, then, reading the volley of letters that the Post received rebutting Breslauer. Calling it "a crazy quilt of misinformation," Olive Mosier from the NEA wrote: "[Breslauer's] suggestion that artists of color have been presented more for their race or ethnicity than for their artistic excellence is demeaning and untrue. The isolated examples of those who contort themselves to qualify for a grant are the exception, and certainly not part of any rule here at the National Endowment for the Arts."

What is true is that, as already mentioned, arts funding has been a small way to offer support for underserved communities: poor communities, minority communities, rural communities, disabled communities, veteran communities. Guaranteeing access to the arts for a wide spectrum of the citizenry is part of what the NEA was designed to do: "The arts and the humanities belong to all the people of the United States," is the first line of its founding act. But saying that it takes those factors into consideration is rather different than saying that it is placing "political correctness" over "artistic merit."

The idea that there is some easily accessed universal standard of "merit" to judge art by is false. Cultural background matters a lot in terms of what is considered good. The factors that make a great fiddle player and a great violinist are a little different. The NEA funds both.

Here is what Michael Kahn, the legendary artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater, wrote the Post in response to the Breslauer essay that Heritage touts:

Such policies do not result in 'pigeonholing artists and pressuring them to produce work that satisfies a politically correct agenda,' as Breslauer maintains. Rather, such policies provide in a small measure the means through which these artists may flourish and grow. By encouraging this dialogue, the NEA has created artistic possibilities in an environment that had previously not been hospitable.

Just so.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #7: The NEA Wastes Resources

Reply: Heritage writes that, "[l]ike any federal bureaucracy, the NEA wastes tax dollars on administrative overhead and bureaucracy." This is stated as a universal law.

But there is no universal law that makes this "private = good, public = bad" calculation axiomatically true. In health care, for instance, government programs like Canada's spend far, far, far less on administration than we do in the United States, where our welter of private insurance companies compete to spend on advertising, marketing, administration, executive salaries, and shareholder profits. Just 17 percent of Canada's health expenditures go to administration; 34 percent of US health expenditures go to such things.

When it comes to the arts-and arts advocates should know the following fact, so that they can discuss it honestly-we are always talking about a battle over how the government gives away money to support the arts, not whether it does.

Our government gives away astronomically more money in tax breaks than it does in direct grants of money to the arts. The tax break for charitable giving is the single largest way that the US government gives to the arts-orders of magnitude more important than the NEA.

If your objection to arts funding is that it's wasteful to spend tax money on arts, the NEA is just an incredibly small, random fight to pick, while the tax-break model means that, essentially, government is subsidizing the social calendar of the wealthy, who get to write off their gala tickets and charity-auction purchases.

This model, of course, seems like a good deal from some angles: It incentivizes rich people to give to causes by allowing them to get the social and PR boost for doing so, while at the same time making sure the government isn't on the hook for the whole bill, since donors can only write off part of their contribution. (Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tipped the benefits of charitable giving even more towards the top.)

In an age when, for decades all over the world, the balance of power has shifted away from the state and towards the wealthy and corporations, this has appeared to be a good deal. We may admire governments like Germany for their strong public arts support, but Europeans have been talking of the need to move towards "US-style" arts funding for some time.

There is, however, a dark side to this system. Or multiple dark sides.

For one, it skews the priorities of institutions towards short-term thinking. It has led US arts institutions to overbuild, for instance, as it is very hard to get private patrons to fund boring things like operations and maintenance, because what donors want are flashy new buildings and other highly visible initiatives to put their name on, which lead to the most prestige. Just to keep up in the race to court donors, an arts system so heavily dependent on private giving is stuck in permanent expansion mode.

For two, cultivating patronage is not without its own wasteful administration costs. Rich people don't just give-they need to be romanced. In the '90s, for every new dollar of private giving raised, institutions incurred 25 cents more of fundraising costs.

Grant writing, of course, has its costs too: an often-cited figure puts it at about 20 cents for every dollar raised. The preferred special event/benefit model, on the other hand, is thoroughly the most wasteful way to raise money for nonprofits, with an average of 50 cents spent for every dollar raised (and plenty of events that yield very little after the lavish amenities to lure the patron class are paid for, while sucking up vast amounts of staff resources.)

The most cost-effective way to get money is "major gifts"-but, to repeat something that has been a theme here-it is the glamorous, established, most-connected major institutions that are best positioned to attract major gifts. Government arts funding is certainly not "wasteful" if it is viewed as helping to correct for this imbalance.

Finally, it's worth noting that an arts system that tips things so far towards private tax breaks has made US institutions ever more dependent on currying favor with the rich-which has now left them in a terrible bind, and the target of agitation, as exposure of corporate misdoings throws a harsher and harsher light upon the patron class. Just as dependence on government makes institutions vulnerable to anti-government movements, dependence on the mega-rich makes institutions vulnerable to popular protest-and our country has grown so skewed by its extreme levels of inequality that it is cracking apart.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #8: The NEA Is Beyond Reform

Reply: The only reason to believe this is if you dogmatically believe that, by its nature, the NEA is bad.

It has reinvented itself over the years in many ways, partnered with new organizations, and created new categories of funding. In the recent past, these have included its Our Town grants (established 2010) for "creative placemaking," which is essentially arts funding targeted at local economic development, and the Blue Stars Museums program (also established 2010), which makes museums free to active duty military and their families.

There are debates about what the best forms government arts funding might take, definitely. You can argue over how it divides up its funds between larger and smaller institutions. You can lament the loss of the individual artist grants. You can suspect that the "creative placemaking" doctrine amounts to substituting a weak arts policy for a strong regional economic development policy.

But, to me, the fact that foes of the NEA tend to be more interested in debating whether it should exist rather than debating what it should do seems to suggest that opposition to it is actually about something else entirely... I wonder what that could be?

Anti-NEA Talking Point #9: Abolishing the NEA Will Prove to the American Public That Congress Is Willing to Eliminate Wasteful Spending

Reply: This is that "something else."

The will to cut the NEA has very little to do with the tiny NEA itself. It is symbolic. It has everything to do with government arts funding as a symbol of the government doing things -something opposed ideologically by Heritage, not because what the NEA does itself actually is provably bad or particularly unpopular, but because conservative think tanks simply define government spending as wasteful, a priori, and art funding seems an easy symbol of this waste.

Anti-NEA Talking Point #10: Funding the NEA Disturbs the U.S. Tradition of Limited Government

Reply: Here's the last thing I will say: The NEA is not even my preferred arts policy.

My preferred "arts policy" actually looks just like good social policy. It looks like robustly funding public education, including arts programs for all students-subjects that have been cut in general, even as affluent parents keep them for their own kids. This kind of public funding cultivates a future audience for arts, proves the social benefit of the arts, and, of course, provides jobs for artists that employ their talents.

It would look like a housing program and an end to turning cities into luxury playgrounds for concentrated wealth. Having a cheap place to work and an affordable place to live are what make art scenes thrive.

It would look like a robust social safety net, to provide the kinds of defenses against extreme precariousness that make it easier to sustain a creative practice if you don't happen to be born into a fortune.

In comparison to all these things, the NEA is an example of limited government intervention. But I'm in favor of it, I'm in favor of expanding it, and I'm in favor of defending it as a symbol of a much broader principle: not giving in to the austerity-for-the-many, worship-of-unchecked-capitalism mindset that institutions like Heritage continue to push, year after year.

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10 Practical Reasons Why We Need to Fund-and Defend-the National Endowment for the Arts | artnet News

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The Heritage Foundation and conservative groups like it have been trying to kill the National Endowment for the Arts for decades. Last month, the Trump administration, for the fourth year in a row, released a budget blueprint that proposed zeroing out and winding down the NEA and other government art support.

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The benefits of arts engagement for people experiencing mental health issues

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The benefits of arts engagement for people experiencing mental health issues

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This research was conducted by Sue Hacking, Jenny Secker, Helen Spandler, Lyn Kent and Jo Shenton at the University of Central Lancashire and Anglia Ruskin University, UK.

Summary

This paper looked at arts participation among people with mental health needs. It reports improvement in levels of empowerment with promising effects on social inclusion and overall mental health for participants in 22 out of 51 arts projects taking part in a wider UK research project between January and March 2006.

People with more severe mental health concerns reported significant increases in empowerment and mental health improvement

88 new participants aged over 18 and with mental health needs were invited to self-complete questionnaires on empowerment, social inclusion and mental health within four weeks of joining the arts project and again six months later. Results from this sample indicated a significant increase in empowerment and improvement in mental health and social inclusion regardless of demographic characteristics, change in medication, use of mental health services or type of mental health issue experienced.

Participants who believed they would benefit from arts participation truly did

The authors report no changes in occupational or educational activities and the short follow-up period might have prevented these effects from being studied sufficiently. They also highlight limitations relating to the small sample size of the study, the use of simple questionnaires and not being able to capture a wider range of potential benefits. Finally, they recognise the possibility that participants' mental health might have been stabilised prior to the arts participation, and that some natural improvement over time to have occurred throughout the study.

This summary is by Anna Kolliakou, King's Knowledge Exchange Associate

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The benefits of arts engagement for people experiencing mental health issues

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This research was conducted by Sue Hacking, Jenny Secker, Helen Spandler, Lyn Kent and Jo Shenton at the University of Central Lancashire and Anglia Ruskin University, UK. This paper looked at arts participation among people with mental health needs.

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Manchester City Council Report for Resolution

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Manchester City Council Report for Resolution

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The economic imperative for investing in arts and culture

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The economic imperative for investing in arts and culture

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In this age of fiscal restraint, one of the easiest targets for spending cuts is the arts. While our politicians do all the dirty work, voters are largely to blame because most of us don't make too much fuss about it. Given the choice between a cultural centre or more hip replacements, it's usually not a contest.

But economically, we're making a mistake. There are several reasons why investing in culture is an economic imperative.

The first is that culture - including both arts and amateur sports - can mitigate the ups and downs of other industries. More diversity is healthy for any economy. Artists and athletes pay taxes, and their spending causes a multiplier effect throughout the economy. This is the argument offered by culture advocates, especially when justifying tax-dollar support.

While this is true, it's not the strongest economic case for public financing for arts and culture. Governments could also hire people to dig holes and then fill them again. The hole diggers would also pay taxes and their spending would have the same multiplier effect. But their labour would be pointless.

A better reason why the economy needs a strong cultural scene is that it helps to attract and retain labour. This is especially important for cities trying to draw smart professionals from around the world. The best and brightest workers are global citizens, and if they (or their families) are not pleased with the cultural amenities, they won't come. Calgary, where I live, is a perfect example: world-class fly fishing and a great rodeo will attract some people, but without fantastic arts and sports amenities, the pool of willing migrants would be shallow. Calgary's municipal government understands this and investing in culture is non-negotiable.

The third reason, however, is the most important. To become the creative, innovative and imaginative citizens that our companies and governments want us to be, Canadians need to willingly expose themselves to new ideas. A vibrant arts and culture community is the easiest way to make this possible.

American neuroscientist Gregory Berns, in the introduction to his 2008 book Iconoclast, wrote: "To see things differently than other people, the most effective solution is to bombard the brain with things it has never encountered before." Living and travelling abroad is a great way to do this, but for most of us that isn't a practical reality. Arts and culture on our home turf offer us the chance to "bombard" our brain with new stimulus without leaving town.

The important part, as Dr. Berns puts it, is to concentrate on things your brain has never encountered before. If you're an opera fan, going to see opera season after season will be enjoyable, but you won't reap the creative benefits that come from exposure to other things. Maybe you need to skip the next performance of Don Giovanni and take in some indie rock. Or if you're a hockey nut, turn off the game one night and take in an exhibit of contemporary visual art. You're not required to enjoy an unfamiliar art or sport (although if you go with an open mind, you'll be surprised). The point is to purposely take it in, absorb what's going on, and let your mind be bombarded. It gets the brain's neurons firing in different ways.

This is where the economy benefits. Canadians need to keep up with global competitors, but we're only as good as our last creative idea. If we want to truly be a country of innovators - looking for new products, discovering environmentally responsible ways to extract resources, finding efficiencies in manufacturing - we need to be creative. No government tax credit can do it for us.

The reality is that tax dollars are scarce. Cultural workers often act like serfs, begging for crumbs falling from the government's table. They need to start exerting more entrepreneurialism - and consumers need to recognize their value. If Canadians purposefully seek out and support cultural events with their own dollars, artists and athletes will have better financial success.

We have to stop thinking about arts and culture as simply nice-to-haves. They are just as important as well-maintained roads and bridges. By giving us the chance to stimulate our minds with new ideas and experiences, they give us the opportunity to become more creative. Arts and culture are infrastructure for the mind.

Todd Hirsch is the Calgary-based chief economist of ATB Financial and author of The Boiling Frog Dilemma: Saving Canada from Economic Decline.

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The economic imperative for investing in arts and culture

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In this age of fiscal restraint, one of the easiest targets for spending cuts is the arts. While our politicians do all the dirty work, voters are largely to blame because most of us don't make too much fuss about it. Given the choice between a cultural centre or more hip replacements, it's usually not a contest.

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Chongqing: The First Underwater Museum in China has Been Built and Opened

From NetEast:

Chongqing Morning Posts reports on May 19, Chongqing Fuling Baiheliang (涪陵白鹤梁) underwater museum - the cultural relic protection projects in Three-Gorge reservoir district, which was invested for over 200 millions RMB, has opened to the public on May 18.

The Visitors In The Underwater Aisle, Visiting Baiheliang at the downside of Yangtze River Through The Round Porthole

Opening of Museum, Attracted Large Numbers Of People

Baiheliang inscriptions located in the upper reaches of Three-Gorge reservoir district of Yangtze River in the north area of Chongqing Fuling district, and it is the only national cultural relic protection units of Three-Gorge cultural landscape, the UNESCO named it as "The only well-preserved ancient hydrological station in the world." It is a giant stone with 1600-meter-length and 15-meter-width and it shows up of the water surface during the low water period of Yangtze River from each December to March in the following year. The stone was engraved with 164 paragraphs of rock carved abstracts from the first year of Guangde period of the Tang Dynasty (The year of 763) to the present age, of which there was 108 hydrological abstracts; 14 stone fish figures, of which there was 3 hydrological signs, counted for 30,000 words. The inscriptions and images spasmodically recorded the historical low water circumstances of 72 particular years in the past more than 1200 years, that contributed the significant historical values to the research of low water rule, shipping and production etc. of the middle and upper reaches of Yantze River.

Due to the construction of the Three Gorges Project, Baiheliang inscription perpetually sank into the downside of the river. For the later generations' viewing this relic, the state has invested 200 million to build the Baiheliang underwater museum. The entire protection project was consisted of four parts - "The Underwater Museum", "The Aisle Connected the Traffic", "The Crash Cushion Cylinder Under the Water",and "The Land-based Gallery". The underwater museum is just as a protection shell built in situ of Baiheliang. The tourists can go down to the underwater channel with the sight-seeing window and enjoy the Baiheliang inscriptions through the glass porthole. It was installed 6 rows and 150 light source groups in the protection body, each light source group was consisted of 9 small lights, while each light hided 8 spotlights and astigmatism lights. Baiheliang underwater protection body is just like a spectacular Crystal Palace. The tourists can operate the camera according to their own needs in the showroom built on the protection embankment of Yangtze River, and have a close-up view of Baiheliang from different angles through the computer screen. Further more, a small number of professionals can also visit Baiheliang by the way of diving.
Source: Dragonsoft Net - Chongqing Morning Post(Chongqing)

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Chongqing: The First Underwater Museum in China has Been Built and Opened | ChinaHush

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From NetEast: Chongqing Morning Posts reports on May 19, Chongqing Fuling Baiheliang (涪陵白鹤梁) underwater museum - the cultural relic protection projects in Three-Gorge reservoir district, which was invested for over 200 millions RMB, has opened to the public on May 18.

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Two years ago the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace (PSJP) began to investigate the relationship between social justice and art, leading to the recent publication Framing the Discourse, Advancing the Work: Philanthropy at the nexus of peace and social justice and arts and cultur e. I was sceptical from the beginning. Art and social justice are surely about different things.
Art belongs in the spiritual realm as something transcendental to be enjoyed like a beautiful landscape, which at its best can induce what psychologist Abraham Maslow called a 'peak experience'. Social justice, on the other hand, belongs in the material realm, concerned with practical issues of money, food, shelter, safety and relationships, which are way down Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. How could something essentially transcendental be relevant to something so practical?

As the work progressed, my doubts increased. A retreat for philanthropists and artists in the summer of 2013 brought together two groups, each with its own incomprehensible jargon. Lofty but ill-defined terms such as 'equality', 'social change' and 'human rights' vied for attention with 'art' and 'culture'. As well as being baffled, I found myself questioning the zealotry of casting art as subservient to social change.

At the end of the process, however, I have come to see that the relationship between art and social justice is vital if we are to make significant progress with the world's problems, but the relationship is the reverse of that envisaged in the PSJP publication. Indeed, I now see that art is so important that it justifies its place in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 27 states:

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Art as the pinnacle of human achievement ...
A vital link between art and social justice is provided by John Maynard Keynes. In a paper published in 1930, he foresaw a future in which '... for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem - how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.' The answer, said Keynes, lies in art.

This is not to say that art does not have societal value. However, an assessment of that value should depend on the essential meaning of art itself, rather than on the attachment of a contingent purpose given to it by social activists.

Keynes was influenced by philosopher G E Moore who, in Principia Ethica, suggested that 'by far the most valuable things we know or can imagine are certain states of consciousness which may be roughly described as the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects'. According to his biographer, Edward Skidelsky, Keynes lived most of his life in the 'nether regions of capitalist action, but he always had one eye on the heaven of art, love and the quest for knowledge'.

On Keynes' model, therefore, art is the purpose of social progress: we engage with practical action so society as a whole can engage with a higher state of consciousness. Keynes looked forward to the moment (to be achieved in around 2030 on his prediction model) when 'the spontaneous, joyful attitude to life now confined to artists and free spirits is diffused throughout society as a whole'.

This reverses the instrumentalist view that art should be used to further social justice. On this model, art is the pinnacle of human achievement, and the goal of social justice is to enable human beings to reach it.

... or a vehicle for social change?
Both Keynes in England and Malraux in France believed that the mass of the people should have access to 'elite' art, including opera, ballet and theatre. This was uppermost in their minds in forming organizations such as the Arts Council to make public funds available to the arts.

This approach has produced an important stream of funding for the arts. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation, for example, funds art in order 'to widen access and deepen participation in the arts, to improve education and learning through the arts, and to show that the arts make a difference to people's lives'.

However, the overall pattern of arts funding has been criticized on the grounds that it tends to reinforce, rather than challenge, existing divisions of wealth and power. A report by the US's National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy suggested that the large sums ($2.3 billion in 2009) awarded to arts organizations are 'demonstrably out of balance with our evolving cultural landscape and with the changing demographics of our communities ... it disregards large segments of our society'.

The study points out that a growing number of artists and cultural groups are working in artistic traditions from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific Rim, as well as in new technology-based and hybrid forms. Their art often addresses issues of economic, educational and environmental injustice as well as inequities in civil and human rights.

This takes us back into the territory covered by the PSJP publication and its central thesis that the power of art should be harnessed as a vehicle for social change. A survey of arts funders prepared for that research revealed a split between those who funded art largely as an instrument to attain social justice and those who did not see it this way.

A fruitless distinction
I suggest that pursuing this distinction between 'art for its own sake' and 'art for social justice' is ultimately fruitless, for two reasons. First, the idea that support for 'art for its own sake' reinforces the elitism in society is at least partly out of date - not because of any philanthropic programme to increase access, but because of the ubiquity of social media. Ordinary people may not be able to afford a ticket to La Scala, but they can now watch performances of first-class opera on YouTube.

Second, and more fundamentally, art sometimes promotes social justice and sometimes it does not. Consider two original compositions by jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson. 'Hymn to Freedom' was born out of the struggle for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama in the early 1960s and is clearly relevant to social justice. 'St Henri' was written to celebrate the hustle and bustle of the Montreal neighbourhood where Peterson grew up and has no relevance to social justice. Enjoyment of these pieces may be enhanced by knowing why they were composed, but is not a necessary condition, since art does not depend on having a purpose to have value.

Art and creativity
This is not to say that art does not have societal value. However, an assessment of that value should depend on the essential meaning of art itself, rather than on the attachment of a contingent purpose given to it by social activists. In other words, the value of art needs to be determined by its essence. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'art' is defined as:

'The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, ... producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.'

The arts cover:

'... various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance'.

The key concept - appearing in both definitions - is 'creativity'. This is the essence of art and is, I suggest, the central contribution of art to individuals and to wider society. Art is the medium through which human beings engage with their higher selves to reach their full potential - what Maslow called the 'self-actualizing' process. According to the literature on aesthetics, there are two main ways in which this process occurs. The first is by developing new ways of seeing; the second is by developing new relationships with others. Through such processes we are all capable of attaining the state of bliss envisaged by Keynes.

The creativity of the artistic process is much required by the human condition. John Paul Lederach in The Moral Imagination: The art and soul of peacebuilding suggests that a society without art is a society without ways of creating solutions to complex problems. He notes that, as the pursuit of professional excellence in society has emphasized the technology, the technique and the skills of process management, we have too often lost a sense of the art. As a result, he suggests:

'... our approaches have become too cookie-cutter like, too reliant on what proper technique suggests as a frame of reference, and as a result our processes are too rigid and fragile'.

This poses two challenges to philanthropists. The first is to infuse their programmes with art. This is the missing ingredient in a complex non-linear world where the log frame is only good for the technocratic aspects of development.

The second is to embrace a new moral direction. Following Keynes we can see that there is the possibility of another narrative - away from the money-saturated universe of capitalism towards a space where we all have enough to ensure that we can be creative. We replace a materialist account of the universe with a transcendental one. The importance of social justice is that each and every one of us on this planet has sufficient wherewithal (money, food, shelter, education and so on) to be able to embark on our journey to reach our higher selves as set out by Keynes. I believe that this is our birthright.

Barry Knight is secretary of CENTRIS. Email barryknight@cranehouse.eu

Lead image: Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson wrote some songs that were overtly about the struggle for social justice. Photo by Heinrich Klaffs

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Two years ago the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace (PSJP) began to investigate the relationship between social justice and art, leading to the recent publication Framing the Discourse, Advancing the Work: Philanthropy at the nexus of peace and social justice and arts and cultur e.

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A vocal minority in the UK say the arts are parasites on the state, leaching away public money when they ought to live or die by the market. And yet most people agree that museums, galleries, music and theatre are a public good, and should be available to everyone, no matter who they are, not just the wealthy. Take the great national museums as an example - in Cardiff, Dundee, Salford, London, Belfast, Leeds, Edinburgh and elsewhere. They are free to enter, and have a special role as the keeper of civic memories, at the heart of the public realm. The burden of some of their costs is shared so that their benefits can be shared. They belong to us all.

In fact, though, the public purse does not bear much of the burden of the arts. Cultural organisations in Britain have received less and less public funding proportionate to their turnover. In 2010 the coalition government cut the Arts Council England budget by 30%, while local authority support has been shattered by Conservative austerity measures. British performing arts organisations tend to receive only around 20-30% of their funding from public sources. The rest is earned, largely from ticket sales.

In Germany, those figures are reversed. Arts organisations are usually publicly funded between 70% and 80%. As lockdowns are gradually eased, venues in mainland Europe will be able to operate half, even three-quarters empty because of their relatively minimal reliance on the box office. The Royal Opera House in London, by contrast, breaks even only when its houses are 95% full. Socially distant performances in this country will therefore be, without extra financial support, a non-starter. Because of their very "success" at "weaning themselves away from subsidy", British arts organisations face a tougher, slower and more painful exit from the current situation than many overseas neighbours. If they recover at all.

Arts organisations cannot earn at the moment. Venues are leaching money fast; London's Southbank Centre has been the latest to warn of imminent disaster. Wonderful music, opera, dance and drama has been made available online but even when the public is asked to contribute financially, there is no prospect of income from the public for digital activities making up for lost ticket sales. Meanwhile income for musicians from streaming services such as Spotify can be risible: violinist Tasmin Little, for example, has said that 5 million streams over a six-month period earned her a grand total of £12.34.

Many of Britain's workers in the performing arts - designers, technicians, directors, singers, actors and musicians - are freelancers. They now face a desperate situation. Most of them cannot work, there is no sense of when they might be able to work, and a significant minority is ineligible for the government's scheme to help the self-employed. With little current prospect of theatres and auditoriums being fully opened in the autumn, both furloughing and help for the self-employed need to be extended - tailored for the cultural sector rather than tapered - beyond October.

The government's response has been sluggish. There has been much talk of hospitality and sport, other industries in the mass-gathering business, but next to nothing about the arts. A Cultural Renewal Taskforce was announced only on 20 May, two months after venues closed their doors; it feels like a body put together hastily, and lacks expertise from the music world. There is no more time to waste. Unless the government wants to preside over the ruination of the UK's cultural institutions, it needs to step in with a proper arts recovery fund, and fast.
Topics

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The Guardian view on arts and the pandemic: support needed now | Editorial

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A vocal minority in the UK say the arts are parasites on the state, leaching away public money when they ought to live or die by the market. And yet most people agree that museums, galleries, music and theatre are a public good, and should be available to everyone, no matter who they are, not just the wealthy.

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In February 2019, the American photographer Nan Goldin threatened to boycott the UK's National Portrait Gallery if it accepted a £1million donation from the Sackler fund, which was deemed controversial given the Sackler family's connection to the opioid epidemic in the US [Ref: The Guardian]. Following this, in March, the Tate stopped accepting Sackler funding [Ref: The Guardian]. In July, the Louvre in Paris removed all mention of the Sackler family name after protests [Ref: The Art Newspaper] and a trustee of the British Museum resigned in protest against the Museum's relationship with oil giant BP [Ref: LRB blog]. In 2016, BP ended its 26-year sponsorship of Tate Galleries, as well as its 34-year sponsorship of the Edinburgh International Festival, with suggestions that the possibility of controversy influenced the move [Ref: Guardian]. Critics of corporate funding argue that it is immoral for theatres, art galleries and museums to accept funding from big companies with what they claim as morally dubious agendas. On the other hand, supporters of corporate sponsorship point out that without the help of corporate donors the arts would suffer hugely. These questions come at a time where art seems more politicised than ever before, with questions about the morality of appreciating the work of unsavoury or immoral artists [Ref: BBC News], what should be shown [Ref: Spiked] and cultural appropriation [Ref: How to talk about Art History]. So, should corporate sponsorship of the arts be celebrated as an important source of funding for important art? Or do cultural institutions compromise artistically and ethically when they seek corporate funding?
DEBATE IN CONTEXT
This section provides a summary of the key issues in the debate, set in the context of recent discussions and the competing positions that have been adopted.

The arts funding problem
With reductions in public funding, private investment 'has become a significant source of income for arts and culture organisations' (Ref: Arts Council UK). But sponsorship from large corporations is often only a small part of overall funding. BP's sponsorship makes up less than one per cent of the annual income of the British Museum and the Royal Opera House, and just 2.9 per cent of the income of the National Portrait Gallery (Ref: BP or not BP). Nevertheless, supporters of corporate sponsorship ask who will make up the funding lost if we refuse corporate sponsorship. While 33 per cent of investment comes from public funding [Ref: Arts Council UK], with cuts to cultural programmes increasing [Ref: The Independent] this could be reduced in the future. Currently, 52 per cent of arts institutions funding is earned from tickets [Ref: Arts Council UK], so perhaps this could be increased. Yet the idea of charging more for tickets is also unpopular [Ref: The Guardian].

What counts as unethical funding?
Critics of corporate funding question whether corporate funding can be ethical. Some argue that by accepting funding from oil companies such as BP, arts institutions are endorsing their activities or providing a cultural alibi. A campaign group, BP or not BP?, says: 'It is only by shunning and delegitimising BP ... that we will ever reduce their influence... Until the British Museum accepts that, it will remain complicit in the unfolding climate disaster.' (Ref: Art News) Some critics claim that sponsorship is nothing more than an attempt to gain positive publicity. Actor Mark Rylance, who recently left the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), claimed that the RSC was 'allowing itself to be used by BP to obscure the destructive reality of its activities' (Ref:Guardian).

Moreover, many argue that cultural institutions already make these ethical distinctions about who they can receive funding from. A formal complaint in June 2019 called for the National Portrait Gallery to end its sponsorship deal with BP as it 'breaches its own ethical standards' [Ref: ArtNet News]. Mel Evans, author and environmental activist, notes that the arts have a history of distancing themselves from certain brands and industries. For example, the Tate has refused to accept money from arms or tobacco companies since 1986 [Ref: New Statesman], and the Museums Association's code of ethics states that museums should 'seek support from organisations whose ethical values are consistent with those of the museum'. [Ref: Museums Association].

Who decides what is acceptable and what's not?
Critics of an ethical approach to funding ask what these supposed 'ethical criteria' really are. Mark Lawson, a writer and broadcaster, questions the authority of those critiquing sponsorship, saying 'the new puritans do not rely on financial audit or legal due diligence, but on a subjective sniff test'. Who, Lawson asks, would be deemed acceptable to sponsor the arts? [Ref: Spot Times] As Ruth Mackenzie states, there are 'ethical issues about money pretty much wherever it comes from' [Ref: The Guardian]. Indeed, some question whether there is anything inherently more virtuous about government funding. As one writer puts it, those 'seeking state funding [must] meet a range of targets that have nothing to do with creating and presenting high-quality art and everything to do with fulfilling various political agendas' [Ref: Huffington Post].

More pragmatically, some argue that it makes more sense to boycott BP products and services, for example, than to object to them sponsoring art and making it more accessible to the public: 'Isn't it better that it [corporate money] helps to subsidise theatre tickets and enable museum loans rather than disappearing into the pockets of shareholders?' [Ref: The Guardian]

Many argue that the state should fund the arts as it is a good investment that creates jobs, learning opportunities and creates a cultural legacy [Ref: Cultural Policies]. But some see things differently, with one radical suggestion being that the state stops funding the arts altogether: '[I]f the funding tap was turned off tomorrow, we would not run short of artists ... No artist or impresario was ever put off their vocation by the lack of a guaranteed wage.' [Ref: Telegraph] At the very least, if corporate sponsorship were increased, this could free up state resources to be spent elsewhere.

What is the relationship between funding and art?
What does this all mean for individual artists? Some suggest that individual artists with no other source of income now risk being seen as 'tainted' by accepting corporate sponsorship [Ref: Arts Professional]. This has led some to suggest that it seems that often those artists who can afford to turn their noses up at corporate sponsorship are simply the ones who don't need it. [Ref: Sky News]

Underlying some of this debate is the idea of artistic freedom and its relation to good art. Historically, such as during the Renaissance, artists were highly dependent on wealthy patrons such as the church, who demanded certain religious and political themes [Ref: Reference]. Despite this, artists produced artworks that are still admired today, and explored themes that resonate beyond the original religious intention [Ref: Columbia University]. Today, artists are freer, with a wider variety of sources of income. Yet, are they still dependent on conforming to their sponsor's interests or the whims of artistic taste? Even if they are, some argue that the value of the work is independent of the sponsor, or even the artist's, intentions [Ref: ABC News].

Does corporate sponsorship detract from the artwork?
There is also a question about whether the debates over sponsorship are getting in the way of enjoying the arts [Ref: Art Professional]. Should ethics have any role in art? JJ Charlesworth writes that outrage toward corporate companies shows the 'growing hypersensitivity toward complicity-by-association that now attends every discussion of private patronage of the art' [Ref: The Spectator], and ask that we refocus on the art itself. Even if corporates want to make themselves look better by sponsoring art, can't viewers just see through this motivation and enjoy the work they sponsor? Is there a concern that, by making the focus of art criticism the question of who funds what, less attention gets paid to the art itself?

So, given these competing arguments, is corporate funding in the arts a good thing? Or are there too many ethical and artistic problems associated with such arrangements?
ESSENTIAL READING It is crucial for debaters to have read the articles in this section, which provide essential information and arguments for and against the debate motion. Students will be expected to have additional evidence and examples derived from independent research, but they can expect to be criticised if they lack a basic familiarity with the issues raised in the essential reading.
What museums sacrifice when they take corporate cash
Kate Collins, Wired, 1 June 2015
FOR
Can the arts afford to be too fussy about how sponsors make their money?,
Vanessa Thorpe, The Guardian, 3 February 2019
AGAINST
LISTEN

Sackler Sponsorship: should art be on the side of the angels?
Behind the scenes at the museum podcast 25 April 2019
IN DEPTH KEY TERMS Definitions of key concepts that are crucial for understanding the topic. Students should be familiar with these terms and the different ways in which they are used and interpreted and should be prepared to explain their significance. BACKGROUNDERS Useful websites and materials that provide a good starting point for research.
British Museum challenged over sponsorship deal with BP
James Pickford, Financial Times, 31 July 2019

British Museum staff support trustee who resigned over BP, Culture Unstained, 19 July 2019

In an Age of Political Division and Dirty Money, Can Museum Boards Ever Be Immaculate? Some Think They Have Found a Solution, Julia Halperin, ArtNet News, 17 July 2019

Mark Rylance resigns from RSC over BP sponsorship, 21 June 2019

T ate partners with Hyundai to promote non-Western artMartin Bailey, Art Newspaper, 24 January 2019,

Private Investment in Culture Survey,
Arts Council UK, 2019

Arts + corporate sponsorship = a match made in Hong KongBong Miquiabas, Forbes, 20 March 2016

Museums Association code of ethics,
Museums Association, 2016
ORGANISATIONS
Culture unstained

Arts Council England

BP: Connecting through arts and culture
Museums Association

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"Corporate sponsorship is good for the arts."

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INTRODUCTION In February 2019, the American photographer Nan Goldin threatened to boycott the UK's National Portrait Gallery if it accepted a £1million donation from the Sackler fund, which was deemed controversial given the Sackler family's connection to the opioid epidemic in the US [Ref: The G

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The Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester, the Design Museum and Fabric nightclub in London are among the cultural institutions to receive at least £1m in the latest round of grants from the government's £1.57bn cultural recovery fund.

In total, £75m will be given to 35 organisations, including theatres, museums, music venues and dance companies, among them Rambert (£1.28m), Sadler's Wells (£2.9m) and the English National Ballet (£3m).

The culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, said the grants would help to save "British cultural icons". The grants are the largest to be offered so far.

Dowden added that the successful venues, such as Shakespeare's Globe (£2.9m) in London and the Sheffield Crucible (£2.2m) theatre ,are "irreplaceable parts of our heritage" that help make Britain a "cultural superpower".

Around 70% of funding was awarded to organisations outside the capital, with big winners including the Mayflower theatre in Southampton, Birmingham Hippodrome theatre, Newcastle's Theatre Royal and Norwich Theatre, which were awarded £3m each.

Venues in Leeds received a combined total of just under £4m, with Leeds Theatre Trust Ltd, which runs the Leeds Playhouse, receiving £2.3m, and the Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House being awarded £1.5m. The Royal Exchange theatre was given £2.8m.

The Design Museum will receive £2.9m. The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, where scenes for Peaky Blinders and Stan & Ollie have been filmed, will be given £2.6m.

Fabric was awarded £1.5m and was one of only five music venues that received funding in this round, along with Bournemouth's BH Live (£2.4m), North Music Trust (£1.8m), which runs Sage Gateshead, Performances Birmingham Ltd (£2.5m), and the ACC Liverpool Group (£2.9m).

Sir Nicholas Serota, chair of Arts Council England, which was responsible for awarding the grants, said the money was a "lifeline" that would allow the organisations to play "an integral role in their communities and produce new artistic work that will entertain and inspire us all".

Adrian Lester, actor and trustee of the Birmingham Repertory theatre, which was awarded £1.3m, said the institution inspired him to take up acting and had an impact beyond the economic contribution it makes. "It is an essential and vital pathway for aspiring talent and for creating truly world-class productions, and for welcoming back that talent when it has flowered," he said.

Andrew Scott, actor and the Old Vic ambassador, said the announcement of its £3m award was a positive step forward in helping the theatre "survive and thrive" as it adapts to the impact of Covid-19.

This is the fourth round of funding announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). In previous rounds, independent cinemas, heritage institutions and cultural organisations were awarded grants of up to £1m.

The DCMS said £500m of support has now been awarded to British cultural institutions. The grants are designed to help them survive until April 2021.

The Arts Council has been criticised for some of the grants it has awarded so far. Critics have pointed to the £350,000 given to two organisations ultimately owned by multibillion-pound co-living company The Collective, as first reported by Vice News.

Peckham Levels and POP Brixton will both receive money via the last round of the government's culture recovery fund, despite being part of a company with a combined property portfolio of £2.7bn.

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Royal Exchange theatre, Design Museum and Fabric to get at least £1m

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The £75m that will be given to 35 organisations has been described as a 'lifeline'

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lease God, no. Over 60 years after the foundation of the Arts Council, 50 years after the creation of the RSC, with publicly funded British plays the toast of Broadway, visits to newly free museums doubling in a decade and British concert life the envy of the world, surely we don't have to justify giving public money to the arts? Again?

Well, yes, we do. Despite the culture minister Ed Vaizey's insistence that the 30% cut in the Arts Council's budget is a temporary expedient, many of his Conservative colleagues consider any public funding of the arts a form of grand larceny. Ivan Lewis, Labour's former culture spokesman, acknowledges that the case for the arts is yet to be won even within his party; and the new arts spokesman, Dan Jarvis, sees quantifying the value of the arts as one of his most urgent priorities. In the zero-sum economy of austerity Britain, the arts are increasingly required to couch their case in terms appropriate to those basic services - social care, education, policing - with which they're in competition for dwindling public funds.

It wasn't always like this. When it was founded in 1946, the Arts Council could justify its activities in its own terms: it was there to widen access to the arts throughout the country, as well as to maintain and develop national arts institutions in the capital. Behind the latter policy lay a theory of artistic value that you could call patrician: art's purpose as ennobling, its realm the nation, its organisational form the institution, its repertoire the established canon and works aspiring to join it. In this the council was seeking to reverse a rising tide of populism (art's role as entertainment, its realm the marketplace, its form the business, its audience mass), a goal summed up in the founding chairman John Maynard Keynes's ringing declaration: "Death to Hollywood."

Over the following 30 years, this view of the value of the arts came under attack, not from the market place but from artists who were artistically and often politically oppositional. In the theatre in the late 1950s, on the BBC in the early to mid 1960s, and pretty much everywhere from 1968, patrician arts institutions were challenged and in many cases transformed by those who believed the arts weren't there to elevate or divert, but to provoke.

Margaret Thatcher sought to shift power from the producer to the consumer. Photograph: Malcolm Gilson/Rex Features

What both the patrician and the provocative shared was a primary concern for the people making the art. During the 80s, in the arts as in so many other spheres of life, Margaret Thatcher sought to shift power from the producer to the consumer, using the market to disempower the provocative (from political theatre groups to the high avant garde) in favour of the populist. This was seen most clearly in the cluster of forms that defined the cultural 80s. Popular in form and patrician in content, the heritage industry was cultural Thatcherism, promoting (as the then secretary of state for national heritage, Virginia Bottomley, put it in May 1996) "our country, our cultural heritage and our tourist trade".

In this context, the major justification for government arts funding became its contribution both to that trade and to trade in general, a case based on the mounting evidence of the economic value of the arts to the so-called leisure industries, and thereby to the regeneration of Britain's post-industrial cities. This argument was clearly attractive to the (largely) Labour councillors running such cities in the 1980s. The equally appealing idea of the arts as part of the "creative industries" was taken up by New Labour's first culture secretary, Chris Smith, who set two further objectives for arts policy: that access to the arts should be widened, and that they should contribute to the government's social objectives, particularly urban regeneration and combating social exclusion.

A real alternative to heritage and populism, New Labour's arts policy had dramatic outcomes in making entrance to museums free, increasing subsidy to regional theatre and widening access. But there were growing grumbles about the social instrumentalism that went with it. Virtually the first thing Nicholas Hytner wrote as the new director of the National Theatre was a peroration against "a relentless and exclusive focus on the nature of our audience". At the same time as Ofsted's Peter Muschamp praised theatre groups for "enabling pupils to discuss and explore complex social issues such as bullying", members of those groups were being driven crazy by local authorities' demands that plays about bullying (or racism or Aids awareness) had happy endings. Critics from the right - such as Munira Mirza of the thinktank Policy Exchange - challenged the statistical evidence for the social benefits of the arts and inquired whether arts organisations that didn't meet government-imposed social targets would lose their grants.

By 2004, such critics had gained an unexpected ally, when Chris Smith's successor as culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, wrote a paper arguing that instrumentalism devalued the arts' primary purpose, which is to communicate perceptions about the human condition that can't be communicated in any other way. In 2007, Jowell's successor, James Purnell, proudly announced the end of "targetology", and commissioned a report from the former Edinburgh festival director Sir Brian McMaster, which sought to wrest power back from the arts consumer, under the banner of "excellence". At last, the artist and the art were to be back in command.

Sadly, McMaster failed to reckon with the recession, the deficit and a consequent pressure to justify arts spending in terms comparable to those used to defend threatened social and educational services. A vast array of studies and reports have been produced over the last five years - some by government bodies, many by independent think tanks - arguing that the arts can't hide behind grandiose rhetoric but must demonstrate the quantifiable value they provide to the public which pays for them.

What good are the arts?

Some of the arguments have been around before. London's commercial theatre earns over half a billion pounds a year; the Young Vic's artistic director, David Lan, found that 75% of the directors, designers and writers working in the West End came from the publically funded theatre, demonstrating its contribution to one of the capital's most obvious tourist attractions. In addition, there is mounting proof of the social value of the arts: even Mirza acknowledges that there is "compelling evidence" for the benefits of arts participation in the treatment of mental health patients. And John Carey - whose 2004 book What Good Are the Arts? is a 300-page philippic against the arts having any educative role whatsoever - finds himself impressed by the success of arts activities in building self-confidence and self-esteem among young prisoners. A recent Europe-wide study of 5,000 13- to 16-year-olds found that drama in schools significantly increases teenagers' capacity to communicate and to learn, to relate to each other and to tolerate minorities, as well as making them more likely to vote (by contrast, those who didn't do drama were likelier to watch television and play computer games).

Increasingly, such benefits are presented not as happy byproducts of artistic activity (and therefore able to be provided by other agencies more cost-effectively) but as part of its very essence. Five years ago, the Arts Council set out to produce a threefold definition of art's purpose: to increase people's capacity for life (helping them to "understand, interpret and adapt to the world around them"), to enrich their experience (bringing "colour, beauty, passion and intensity to lives") and to provide a safe site in which they could build their skills, confidence and self-esteem. Other forms of endeavour do some of these things. Only art does all three.

This is a persuasive argument. But, in the current climate, the arts are required to show that they're doing this for people not conveniently assembled in schools, hospitals and prisons, in a manner that accords with the Treasury's methods of assessing how other government activities achieve their objectives. Hence a desperate scrabble around value measurement methodologies (some drawn from healthcare, others from the property market) to try to find mechanisms appropriate to calculating the value of visiting art galleries or the opera. So a technique called contingent valuation finds out (through an opinion poll) what people would be prepared to pay for a particular good or service if it weren't provided free, "valuing" diverse cultural institutions, from Irish public broadcasting via Durham Cathedral to the British Library (whose services provided £363m of notional value for a funding outlay of £83m). Such hypothetical exercises are - to put it mildly - vulnerable to the suggestion that respondents might exaggerate what they'd pay for services that are clearly a good thing and currently free.

There's another problem. Almost all the documented social benefits of the arts have been achieved not by people attending plays and concerts but by those who participate in them. And while many publicly funded arts organisations have participatory programmes, most public money still goes to subsidise people sitting or standing silently looking at other people do things (or, in the case of books and pictures, things they've done). Unless the current balance of arts funding between - say - the London Symphony Orchestra and Burnley Youth Theatre is to be reversed, most public funding will continue to go to activities whose value is hardest to measure.

Birmingham Opera Company integrates professional singers and musicians with community performers. Photograph: Lisa Carpenter

Hence a move within the arts to try to make spectatorship as involving and transforming as participation. Already, much thought has been devoted to democratising the processes by which professional art is produced. This is not just a matter of audiences responding to what they see through surveys, blogs and the like, though this can and should have a real effect on how work is curated. The Young Vic and the Almeida are examples of theatre companies whose outreach programmes are designed to involve young people both as participants and audience members. Graham Vick's Birmingham Opera Company integrates professional singers and musicians with community performers who reflect the city's diversity and who bring an equally diverse audience with them. There is increasing public involvement in the commissioning of public art. Research into the National Theatre's NT Live found that audiences who saw the simultaneous cinema broadcasts of its performances of and All's Well that Ends Well found the shows more emotionally engaging than the theatre audiences, and said it would make them more rather than less likely to visit the National Theatre itself as a result. Empowering the audience would address the tension between the interests of producers and consumers that has bedevilled arts policy for almost 70 years.

Such empowerment doesn't have to be conservative. If it's true that arts participation makes young people more likely to vote later on, then it should also make them more critical. One frequent argument for funding the arts is their role in promoting continuity with the past, community cohesion and a sense of national pride. In fact, of course, British theatre in particular has been subverting such notions ever since the emergence of John Osborne, Arnold Wesker and Joan Littlewood nearly 60 years ago. It is this provocative mission that sets the arts apart from the other creative industries with which they are too easily lumped (by government and opposition alike). It is not the role of advertisers, architects, antique sellers, computer game manufacturers or fashion designers to challenge the way society is run. But the arts do it all the time. As David Lan puts it, dissent is necessary to democracy, and democratic governments should have an interest in preserving sites in which that dissent can be expressed.

When the cuts start to bite ...

For me, however, the most compelling argument for funding the arts is not factual but counterfactual. The cuts which start biting in April will have major and still unpredictable effects on arts provision in England. Unless the National Theatre, Walsall's New Art Gallery, Battersea Arts Centre, Sadler's Wells and Cardboard Citizens are all profligately run, or the prospects for private patronage have been scandalously underestimated, then a failure to win the argument for continued public funding - even at reduced levels - would lead to the closure of the great majority of currently funded arts organisations, especially outside London. Even if some London flagships survive, they would be unable to continue the very participatory projects that are being urged on them and to which they are increasingly committed. Would any government really want to be the one that closed the Ikon Gallery, DanceXchange, Manchester's Royal Exchange, Graeae or Opera North?

David Edgar's play Written on the Heart is currently running at the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford.

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David Edgar: why should we fund the arts?

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Publicly funded arts institutions are under more pressure than ever to quantify the social benefits they bring, as would be done for schools and hospitals. But, David Edgar argues, isn't the crucial role of art to challenge the way society is run?

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Key messages

Councils play a crucial role in the culture, tourism and sport sectors. They spend over £1.1 billion on culture and over £1 billion a year on sport, leisure and green spaces, parks and playgrounds. The sector also makes a significant contribution to council budgets through earned income, business rates, fees and charges. These sectors can have a key role in helping councils to deliver the recovery at a local level and need investment now.

The Government made £3.2 billion worth of emergency funding available to councils to address the immediate pressures of the COVID-19 crisis. However, this funding was predominantly targeted towards direct frontline issues such homelessness and supporting the vulnerable. The culture, tourism and support sector still face's significant funding challenges, despite the Government's £1.57 billion support package for the cultural sector.

The promise to match 75 per cent of lost income is not applicable to the almost 80 per cent of the leisure services contracted out to charitable trusts or "for profit" providers, leaving these services requiring an immediate investment of at least £700 million from Government if communities are to retain their leisure centres.

In addition, research prior to the pandemic showed nearly two thirds of leisure facilities are more than 10 years old and require refurbishment and nearly a quarter of all sports halls and swimming pools have not been refurbished in more than 20 years, with many older properties at risk of immediate closure. A £500 million funding pot is needed now to redesign, upgrade and renovate facilities, and avoid having to completely replace facilities, which could cost in the region of £1.5 billion further down the line.

Councils were not involved in targeting the distribution of the £1.57 billion support package to help protect the futures of UK theatres, galleries, museums and other cultural venues, even though councils are well placed to deliver some of the funding to those organisations requiring support.

The Chancellor's recent announcement that the 15 per cent VAT cut for the tourism and hospitality sectors will be extended to the end of March 2021 is a positive step. To ensure the sector can survive, the LGA is recommending as series of policy interventions, including:

Investing £30 million in libraries;

Introducing a £1 billion investment in the tourism sector

Rapidly rolling out of the next tranche of business and intellectual property centres;

Adopting a place-based approach to cultural recovery;

Expanding Tourism Zones to include innovative options for raising finance, including the option of a Tourism Levy

Extending the holiday season into autumn and winter; and investing in hospitality skills.

Further information

While councils' main funding department is the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), a range of our services fall directly under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) remit.

Arts and culture

Councils play a key role in maintaining the cultural fabric of the UK. They spend over £1.1 billion on running over 3,000 libraries, and more than 350 museums, public archives, numerous theatres and galleries, and are responsible for many monuments and historic buildings. These services can improve public health and educational outcomes and can contribute to community cohesion. They attract tourists and other visitors, boosting our economies; a cultural institution can be a key anchor for a regeneration programme, and a major draw for businesses. Arts and culture add more than £10.8 billion to the UK economy every year.

Cultural organisations adapted imaginatively, providing new and innovative services for their communities, but they have been unable to generate income during this time putting many at risk of closure. The Government's £1.57 billion support package to help protect the futures of UK theatres, galleries, museums and other cultural venues was therefore welcome. We were however disappointed that councils were not involved in targeting the distribution of the funding, given they are well placed to deliver some of the funding to those organisations most in need, and who are critical to the local cultural offer.

Parts of the creative industries have been hit harder by lockdown and the effects will last longer than for other sectors of the economy. Those businesses that rely on attracting audiences or visitors will be the last to return to normal operations with no clear picture of when that might be. As well as supporting the sector in its time of need, we must also consider the part creative enterprises and freelancers will have in helping us lead the nation's recovery. We must harness this creativity and innovation inherent in the sector to take on the challenges of a post-COVID world, generating jobs and investment in local economies.

To do this, we are calling for:

Adopting a place-based approach to recovery by ensuring councils are at the top table for discussions - including the new Cultural Renewal taskforce and the Tourism Industry Council.

Councils and Combined Authorities should be supported by ACE to develop more cultural compacts, as identified by the sector for the sector. with £400 000 revenue funding

Rapid rollout of the announced next tranche of business and intellectual property centres. These centres have proven their ability to reach and support a broader and more diverse range of entrepreneurs and will be critical to re-establishing a thriving ecosystem of small businesses and freelancers. Alongside this, a specific cultural and creative support offer should be developed, similar to Arts Council England's digital champions.

Invest £30 million capital funding in libraries to develop a network of makerspaces and public access computers to turbocharge our country's recovery, close the digital skills divide in many of our most deprived areas, and grow the entrepreneurs and innovators in every council area.

Provide councils with £500 million to invest in providers of social prescribing facilities, including leisure centres and libraries which support community activities.

Make £100 million capital funding available to convert disused retail units on the high streets into creative studios to enable creative industries to thrive and drive footfall to high streets by offering the chance to grow entrepreneurs and innovators for the future by delivering 3d printing, coding and display spaces for creative experimentation. This must be coupled with the planning powers needed to curate high streets, as was done by removing permitted development rights from theatres and performance venues, protecting them from inappropriate development and preserving them for the community.

Sport and physical activity

Councils are responsible for a third of swimming pools, 31 per cent of grass pitches; 13 per cent of sports halls; and almost a fifth of all health and fitness facilities. They spend over £1 billion per year on sport, leisure and green spaces, parks and playgrounds, providing communities with access to vital facilities to improve their physical and mental wellbeing.

While they were allowed to reopen back in July, we are concerned about the future viability of leisure centres. Many were ineligible for much of the emergency funding due to their charity status but continue to incur costs whilst closed. As a result, our leisure partners report that they do not expect a return to viability for at least 6-12 months, putting many of those working in the sector at risk of redundancy, as well as risking losing our national leisure and sporting infrastructure. We are calling on the Government to introduce £700 million emergency funding to stabilise providers. Losing these services will leave many people and families without access to affordable leisure provision and exercise opportunities. They play an important role in reducing the burden on the NHS, tackling health inequalities and are a key delivery vehicle for the social prescribing agenda.

Parks and green spaces are also a key resource for physical activity and improving mental wellbeing. They are enjoyed by people of all ages across the country, and sit at the heart of local communities. The pandemic has further demonstrated how valuable they are. The money local government has to provide for parks and open spaces is running out fast and uncertainty remains about how councils will pay for services into the next decade and beyond. Coronavirus has further added significant funding pressures. For councils to be able to continue maintaining parks and reopen facilities, such as children's play areas which will be essential for communities over the coming months, the Government needs to provide councils with long-term, sustainable funding for these services.

Another long-term issue which must be tackled is the country's ageing sporting infrastructure. Sport England found that 63 per cent of mains sports halls and 60 per cent of swimming pools are past their expected lifespans or overdue refurbishment. Sport England has been providing effective support and investment in infrastructure, but their funds are oversubscribed with 1054 bids submitted to a grant fund that could only make 151 grants. Had Sport England been able to fund those bids, it would have unlocked match funding worth at least £540 million from councils and partners. We are therefore calling for a strategic investment of £500 million for councils to invest in leisure facilities, pitches, and parks to reduce obesity; ensure a healthier, more active nation in the future; reduce our carbon footprint; and prepare our communities for the inspiration provided by the Commonwealth Games.

Tourism and the visitor economy

Councils have a strong stake in the visitor economy. They are direct providers, running tourism attractions themselves, including castles and historic buildings, parks, piers, amusement parks, and destination management organisations. It is known that the visitor economy sector has taken one of the biggest financial hits due to COVID-19. Gaps in support packages alongside the absence of the seasonal boost the industry usually sees over the summer means the impact of the pandemic will be felt in the weeks and months to come, with many at risk of closure.

We welcome the Chancellor's announcement of extending the 15 per cent VAT cut for the tourism and hospitality sectors to the end of March 2021. However, we are additionally recommending the Government invest at least £1 billion into the sector, as well as introducing a funding programme that builds on the work of the Cultural Destination Programme, Great Places Scheme and Discover England Fund which enabled arts and culture organisations to increase their reach by working with the tourism sector.

Additionally, we are recommending that Tourism Zones, as announced as part of the Government's Tourism Sector Deal, should be expanded. This should include innovative options for raising finance, including the option of a Tourism Levy, which LGA analysis has found there is consensus among local government and residents that a levy should be tested and receipts from taxation should be ringfenced for investment in the area that raised the tax.

To avoid a cliff-edge, the Government should also work to maximise 2020 income through extending the season into autumn and winter. Devolution and coordination of VisitBritain/England marketing funding to local areas should take place to enable creative approaches to boosting domestic tourism.

Skills

A significant portion of employment in coastal towns is from the visitor economy and a high proportion within the hospitality sector. Although the lifting of restrictions has seen visitors flock to the coast, social distancing measures mean many coastal businesses are not commercially viable and have reduced staffing levels. There has been a significant skills gap created in many local coastal areas and little funding has been allocated to creating apprenticeships. This could create a long-term impact on hospitality skills, which therefore needs addressing through government support.

Councils also need to be given devolved powers and responsibility for skills funding. Our publication, Supplying skills for the local visitor economy revealed that the fragmented skills funding landscape prevents councils from effectively connecting up skills training with the skills needs of the local area, and that this is particularly pronounced in the visitor economy. By adopting the LGA's Work Local proposals, the Government could deliver on its devolution commitments and tourism sector deal promises, and also turbo-charge the visitor economy.

Contact

Laura Johnson, Public Affairs Support Officer laura.johnson@local.gov.uk

More briefings and responses in this topic

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Debate on spending of DCMS on support measures for the DCMS sectors during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, House of Commons, 8 October 2020

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The Government made £3.2 billion worth of emergency funding available to councils to address the immediate pressures of the COVID-19 crisis. However, this funding was predominantly targeted towards direct frontline issues such homelessness and supporting the vulnerable. The culture, tourism and support sector still face's significant funding challenges, despite the Government's £1.57 billion support package for the cultural sector.

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Example of campaigning group for arts funding

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Example of campaigning group for arts funding

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Save The Arts UK. 212 likes · 10 talking about this. Coronavirus is killing theatres. Act now. #SaveTheArts