Rupert Christiansen argues that if we pay for the countryside and the Queen, we should pay for the arts.
In a desperate bid to soften the hard hearts of number-crunching Treasury wonks in the run-up to the summer’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the Arts Council has commissioned and published a report which aims to show the “economic value of public investment in arts and culture”.
The figures look superficially impressive on paper. The arts contribute 0.4 per cent to GDP, in return for 0.1 per cent contribution from the taxpayer, and some index has been found which concludes that this represents a better return than that offered by the health, wholesale and retail sectors. Nearly £1 billion of the £12.8 billion annual arts turnover comes from tourists. Subsidised culture feeds the creative industries such as fashion, design and telly drama series which are major exports. And so forth.
In a desperate bid to soften the hard hearts of number-crunching Treasury wonks in the run-up to the summer’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the Arts Council has commissioned and published a report which aims to show the “economic value of public investment in arts and culture”.
The figures look superficially impressive on paper. The arts contribute 0.4 per cent to GDP, in return for 0.1 per cent contribution from the taxpayer, and some index has been found which concludes that this represents a better return than that offered by the health, wholesale and retail sectors. Nearly £1 billion of the £12.8 billion annual arts turnover comes from tourists. Subsidised culture feeds the creative industries such as fashion, design and telly drama series which are major exports. And so forth.