News

A proposal to close most of Aberdeen's libraries has been scrapped but arts funding is likely to be cut out of the city's budget.

Councillors will be asked to plug a £37.9m funding gap when the 2020/21 budget is presented to them on Tuesday. Major changes have been mooted including closing public toilets, ending school breakfasts, dimming streetlights and increasing council tax by at least 3%.

READ MORE:

• Culture 'falling off the list': Aberdeen's arts funding in crisis
• Scottish culture inquiry: put artists at the heart of new system

Last year the council considered closing all libraries except Aberdeen Central. Officers now recommend closing four community libraries, relocating libraries to occupy other community buildings and a £100,000 cut to overall library funding.

Aberdeen Performing Arts could have its funding cut by £98,000. Councillors will also consider whether to end music tuition in city schools.

Eight performers who had been working on a cruise ship struck by the virus are now in quarantine in the UK. The workers were evacuated last week from the Diamond Princess, which was in lockdown off the Japanese coast for two weeks after some passengers tested positive. 600 of those on board have now contracted the virus and two have died.

Ofsted's Chief Inspector has warned that schools are "responding to funding pressure by reducing curriculum breadth".

In a blog post, Amanda Speilman said Ofsted "placed curriculum and quality of education at the heart of our education inspection framework, because all pupils should be entitled to a broad and rich curriculum".

“This makes it particularly concerning that schools are responding to funding pressure by reducing curriculum breadth, with languages, computing, design and technology and music most affected. Extra-curricular provision has also been cut in a number of schools. This may reduce pupils’ opportunities to enrich their experiences and grow cultural capital.”

The post was removed soon after, apparently because it had been published "erroneously", Schools Week reports.

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, is opening ballet studios named after her in Southwark next week.

Seven studios and a studio theatre will form part of the Central School of Ballet at Paris Gardens. The school relocated there from Clerkenwell in 2017 following a £9m fundraising campaign.

The Countess has been patron of the Central School of Ballet since 2003.

National Theatre Director Rufus Norris has rejected an actor's claim the organisation only permits left wing voices.

Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey and a Conservative peer, said the theatre and other arts institutions are part of a "left-of-centre metropolitan elite" that considers "their opinions as if they were facts, and everyone else’s opinions as if they were nonsense".

READ MORE:

• 'Socially closed' arts sector may be contributing to UK's divisions
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Norris said the theatre was broadening its repertoire and the artists and locations it works in: "I totally dispute the idea that we’re speaking in any particular bubble."

The team behind a plan to establish a new theatre and arts centre in Dorchester are giving up after eight years trying to raise the funds needed.

The board of The Maltings Arts says the £12.5m project is no longer achievable: "We came to this conclusion with a heavy heart, as we and many other organisations and individuals have put a huge amount of effort into the planning, promotion and fundraising efforts," Chair Louise Sheaves said.

"Projects of this scale always require a large number of funders to come together at the right time, but in this case budgetary pressures on all sides have resulted in the funds not coalescing in time."

Mark Tattersall, Artistic Director of Dorchester Arts, said he was "bitterly disappointed but this is the right decision under the circumstances".

The Royal Opera House did not tell the Royal Ballet School about sexual misconduct allegations against a resident choreographer for six months.

The allegations against Liam Scarlett were reported to the Charity Commission in October. The school was only told late in January that the claims might relate to some of its students.

The Royal Opera House has defended the delay, saying "we followed our safeguarding obligations throughout and notified the Royal Ballet School when it was appropriate to do so".

Scarlett was suspended in August.

Warrington Borough Council will not resurrect plans for a new theatre, the council's leader has confirmed.

Plans for a 400-seat theatre in a former drill hall were scuppered in July last year before new plans for a reconfiguration of the Pyramid Arts Centre arose in October.

But Councillor Russ Bowden says there are no plans for a new culture facility, saying the council's culture strategy is focussed on "theatre more as a performance, rather than a building".

Councillor Tony Williams said: "I think, as we go on and repopulate the town centre, there will be more pressure on us to provide a theatre and encourage the arts in the town."