When cuts are announced in the NHS, such as bed, ward or A & E closures, the news reports don’t focus on the impact on the health trusts or particularly the doctors and nurses, but immediately on the recipients of the provision: the public. In all the coverage on the actual and threatened austerity cuts to the budgets for arts provision, I have not seen the impact on the public mentioned once yet, nor that on audiences, attenders or participants.
In many parts of the UK, arts provision hangs on a fragile thread, but lobbying from artists and arts organisations will sound self-serving in difficult times. Research by Alan Brown in the USA has demonstrated the huge impact of the arts on the public. So, can we think about them and call on public support to retain, what for most people remains, limited provision?