John Holden analyses the attitudes of local authorities to culture.
In a Demos pamphlet called Local authorities: A Change in the Cultural Climate, published last month, I likened the situation facing local authorities to that described by Sebastian Junger in his book The Perfect Storm.1 A perfect storm happens when unrelated events combine to produce a cataclysmic force; and that is what is happening to culture in some local authorities. I worried that the metaphor might be over-dramatising the situation, but as more and more bad news comes in from an ever-lengthening list of locations around the country (Bury, Wandsworth, Northampton and Berwick...), it looks like I wasnt.
One thing should be made clear at the start: the picture isnt uniformly bad. There are plenty of local authorities where the elected members get it, where culture has a seat at all the right tables, and where there are striking success stories. But there are others where culture faces life-threatening problems. The averages mask enormous variation across the country. Taken overall, local authority spending on culture has kept pace with inflation over the last five years, which might suggest that all is well; however, 25 councils have reportedly cut their arts services entirely.
Fulfilling agendas
The weather systems that have collided here are philosophical, operational and financial. Although culture is fundamental to most things that local politics is trying to achieve, it doesnt feature centrally in the rhetoric or thinking of local authorities. The recent Local Government White Paper all but ignores culture, and the key documents from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Arts Council England, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Audit Commision about culture and local government without exception express their priorities in terms of what culture can do for other agendas.
This is why culture gets shifted around in some councils from leisure to education, to tourism, to economic development. Culture doesnt feature as something that should be there in its own right, but nor is it treated everywhere as central to the pursuit of those other agendas. In many places culture is not embedded in Local Area Agreements, and it does not feature to any great degree in the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) regime either (councils can neglect culture and still do well in the CPA).
Culture thus falls between two stools not valued in its own right, and not valued for how it can help fulfil all the other goals that local authorities pursue. Thats the philosophical problem, and it leads directly to the second problem: councils dont have to fund culture. Except for providing public libraries and looking after listed buildings, councils have no statutory duty to give their citizens the makings of a cultural life.
That leads to problem number three: the services that councils are obliged to spend money on are expanding and are being overspent on ; Council Tax is capped; so areas of discretionary spending, like culture, get squeezed. This squeeze has been tightened by the Gershon Review, that requires councils to achieve overall savings year-on-year. To achieve an average saving, cuts are likely to fall most acutely on those areas where money does not have to be spent.
Compounding these problems, local authorties are overloaded with new initiatives. A small selection that relate to culture includes Beacon Council Schemes; Public Library Impact Measures; Best Value; Regional Cultural Consortia; Tomorrows Tourism Today; Sustainable Community Strategies; Every Child Matters; Regional Economic Strategies; Local Strategic Partnerships; the list goes on.
Data analysis
Getting to grips with what is happening at a local level and what the future holds is a difficult task. There is no complete and consistent data set about local authority spending on culture. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) provides the best data, but its totals are reached by extrapolating from samples, and the sample changes each year. This lack of information is itself part of the problem, and reflects the fact that there is no local authority cultural system as such. Local provision varies wildly because of history (whats been inherited in the way of museums and theatres, etc.); economics (the level of spending on culture that a local authority can afford and the ability of local businesses and individuals to chip in); and differing attitudes on the part of elected members.
This isnt a party political issue councillors willingness to support culture cuts right across party lines, though their ultimate positions on the issues are arrived at from different starting points. (For example, both die-hard Thatcherites and Old Labour stalwarts can oppose spending on culture, but for entirely different reasons.)
In rough terms (again because the data are inadequate), central government and the Lottery distributors spend £1.8bn, local authorities £1.4bn and the private sector £0.5bn on culture. These figures include public libraries but exclude sport. In fact, nearly £1bn of the local authority total is spent on public libraries, with about £400m spent on museums, galleries, theatres, public entertainment, arts development and support, and heritage.
Each of these funders plays a different role. Local authorities have traditionally paid for infrastructure and running costs via revenue funding, and been the first port of call for people setting up small-scale new ventures. It is therefore very worrying to read the annual nalgao (the National Association of Local Government Arts Officers) surveys in ArtsProfessional that show a consistent trend of cuts. In its latest survey (which, as with all the other data, relies on only a partial sample) respondents say that 75% of authorities have cut their arts spending in real terms in the past three years, and that over the last five years, 25 authorties have cut their arts services completely.
Cultural legitimacy
We should not expect other funders to fill the gap left by departing local authorities. The national Arts Councils do not have the resources, or indeed the mission, to support fledgling ventures, and private sector funders like to sponsor opening nights, not cleaners and light bulbs.
The sad thing about all this is that culture is central to most of the things that local politics wants to achieve. If elected members want to build legitimacy, engage local people, and make their towns and villages distinctive and enjoyable places to live and work, they need to start by building the focal points of community life. This means cultural and sporting facilities as much as anything else.
Local authorities neglect culture at their peril because cutting culture will undermine many of the things that they are trying to do. Take away the public library and what does that do for old peoples well-being, exercise regime, self-reliance, self-help and the rest? Despite this, the systemic dynamics of local authority funding are causing some councils to make decisions that in many cases they dont want to make, because cutting culture or selling their cultural assets is their only option. When it comes to culture, some local authorities are battening down the hatches.
John Holden is Head of Culture at Demos and a visiting Professor at City University.
Local Authorities: A Change in the Cultural Climate by John Holden is available for free download from http://www.demos.co.uk/publications
1 The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Man Against the Sea, Sebastian Junger (HarperPerennial 2006)