I’m afraid Rick Holland (Answer Back, AP172) is tilting at the wrong target, and makes several unwarranted assumptions about my views. I am with him all the way in supporting “a culture of asking”. In my time at WNO, the very creative development department has almost doubled contributed income, while a small think-tank I am involved with in Cardiff has survived and grown over the last 21 years due to the regular generosity of its 1,200 members, local organisations and UK trusts. Rest assured, I have never believed that “philanthropy just happens”. I know about asking. My simple point is that were any government to want to switch the balance of arts funding in a fundamental way from public to private sources, public spending can be switched off rather quicker than the volume of private funding can be raised and that any future Government should be sensitive to that fact.
