Friday, 19 October 2018
The City Council’s advice to organisations to prepare for the potential cut comes less than a year after promising to hold funding steady until 2020.
Arts organisations in Birmingham are bracing for what may be the third major cut to their council funding in four years as the local authority prepares its budget for 2019/20.
The mooted cut – which would amount to just under £1m (30%) across the entire arts portfolio – would be on top of a combined £1.7m reduction in 2017 (34%), and a 25% cut the year before.
It comes less than a year after the... read more
Friday, 19 October 2018
6,000 students from across England shared why and how they engage in cultural activity, with a quarter saying that their school introduced them to the arts.
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A major new report on how school pupils engage with the arts has called for ring-fenced Government funding to ensure all children in primary and secondary schools have access to an “arts-rich” education.
The authors, who carried out research on an “unprecedented” scale, also recommend the... read more
Friday, 19 October 2018
A new survey finds that 43% of women with caring responsibilities would increase their working hours if “adequate” childcare was available.
Looking after children or other dependents while working in the arts leads to a £3k-per-year “career penalty”, new research claims.
Freelance workers are found to be particularly vulnerable, as their low earnings do not cover unexpected expenses, and a significantly higher proportion of women than... read more
Friday, 19 October 2018
Arts Council England has been instructed to fund arts and health projects and share best practice.
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The Government has set out its aim of a establishing a “universal national offer” of social prescribing from GPs within the next five years, in its new strategy on tackling loneliness.
Up to £1.8m has also been set aside to increase the number of community spaces available around the country, by... read more
Friday, 19 October 2018
A committee investigating the positive impact of culture and sport on mental and physical health heard that a lack of funding and the absence of a joined-up strategy prevent initiatives becoming more widely available.
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The Government should launch a campaign highlighting the arts’ impact on health that becomes as widely known as advice on taking exercise and eating fruit and vegetables, MPs have heard.
“We know about 'get your 30 minutes of exercise' and 'get your five-a-day fruit and veg', but at the moment... read more
Friday, 12 October 2018
England’s national funder would consider the local, national and strategic importance of organisations in “acute financial difficulty”.
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Arts Council England (ACE) has set out arrangements for how its crop of 841 regularly funded organisations could continue to receive financial support should they be dropped from the National Portfolio.
The national funder says that this may be necessary if an organisation were to struggle... read more
Friday, 12 October 2018
The decision comes as the region develops a new cultural strategy, aimed at improving access to the arts and recognising the positive impacts of culture on wellbeing.
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szeke on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-SA
Arts organisations in Bath have been left “furious and ashamed” by the announcement that their local authority will axe its arts development in 2019, just a year after cancelling a popular small arts grants programme.
Commentators warn that the decision by Bath and North East Somerset Council (B... read more
Friday, 12 October 2018
The Government representative did not provide any further clarity on the future of EU arts funding, progress on reciprocal agreements or timetables.
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Lords from across the political spectrum have gathered for a debate to discuss ongoing threats to the arts from restrictions to freedom of movement, fewer opportunities to access arts in schools and uncertainty surrounding the post-Brexit legal framework.
Labour peer Melvyn Bragg, who convened the... read more
Friday, 12 October 2018
Campaigners against the EBacc have welcomed the move, but say it will not be enough on its own to save arts subjects.
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Historyworks on Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Ofsted has announced a new inspection framework that will see it downgrade the importance of exam results in favour of assessing whether schools are offering a “broad, rich and deep” curriculum.
Under the plans, inspectors will no longer grade schools for the outcomes they achieve, and will instead... read more
Friday, 12 October 2018
The economic model for those performing in or running small music venues is unviable, the DCMS Committee was told.
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The ongoing closure of grassroots music venues is handing influence over the UK’s cultural tastes to robots and streaming service algorithms, MPs have been warned.
A DCMS Committee inquiry into live music also heard that an economic model based around small music venues is essentially unviable for... read more
Friday, 12 October 2018
Tax reliefs for film, high-end TV and animation powered a 62% increase in employment, a 67% increase in tax revenues, and a 63% growth in production spend between 2013 and 2016.
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Government tax reliefs have powered a boom in the production of film, animation, high-end television, video games and children’s TV, according to new research.
A report commissioned by the BFI finds that payouts across the screen sector were £632m in 2016, supporting a direct spend on productions... read more
Friday, 05 October 2018
A report calls for flatter and more diverse leadership in arts organisations, and encourages the nurturing of individual leadership at all levels.
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Low pay, a lack of work-life balance, limited opportunities for career development and the ongoing pressure to do more with less is creating an “increasingly high” risk of burnout among arts leaders, a new report concludes.
“The demands on the cultural workforce – and on its leadership in... read more
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