“Redress the balance at our peril”: Simon Tait sums up the views of theatre union BECTU, which has weighed in on the regional distribution of arts funding debate.
The London-versus-the-rest controversy moves on. We’ve had academics, the artocrats, the politicians – oh, haven’t we had them – the funders, now we’re getting the workers. What goes round comes round.
First, the increasingly vexatious problem of the fair dolling out of diminishing arts subsidy has moved on, with the Culture Select Committee peering myopically into the issue, and I hope listening as well. The theatre union BECTU has warned the committee that, despite what committee members may have heard and read in the press, London is not actually wallowing in riches for its cultural life, and a new front opens up.
This whole thing was sprung on us by the report Rebalancing our Cultural Capital last year, which claimed that grants and sponsorship were overloaded in favour of the capital to the detriment of the arts in the regions. The relevant figures seem to change depending on who you spoke to last, but that has been the drift... Keep reading on The Stage
The London-versus-the-rest controversy moves on. We’ve had academics, the artocrats, the politicians – oh, haven’t we had them – the funders, now we’re getting the workers. What goes round comes round.
First, the increasingly vexatious problem of the fair dolling out of diminishing arts subsidy has moved on, with the Culture Select Committee peering myopically into the issue, and I hope listening as well. The theatre union BECTU has warned the committee that, despite what committee members may have heard and read in the press, London is not actually wallowing in riches for its cultural life, and a new front opens up.
This whole thing was sprung on us by the report Rebalancing our Cultural Capital last year, which claimed that grants and sponsorship were overloaded in favour of the capital to the detriment of the arts in the regions. The relevant figures seem to change depending on who you spoke to last, but that has been the drift... Keep reading on The Stage