A new national advocacy campaign, DanceVote 2010, has been launched. The campaign challenges dance fans and professionals across the UK to contact their local candidates standing for election and ask them to pledge their support for dance.
The DCMS has pledged to deliver £60m of savings as its departmental contribution towards Government efficiency targets. It predicts £10m savings from rationalising and restructuring its arm’s length bodies, including the planned merger of the British Film Institute and the UK Film Council, and a further £15m through more collaborative purchasing across all its Non-Departmental Public Bodies. £35m will be released by meeting the department’s share of other government savings, including back office spending, reducing consultancy, and reducing marketing and communications spending.
Skillset, the industry body which supports skills and training for people and businesses, has published guidelines for employers offering work placement schemes in the creative industries. The guide aims to promote good practice and recommends: limiting placements to no more than 160 hours and reimbursing expenses; paying at least the national minimum wage for anyone on a graduate internship; and limiting the working week of trainees and interns to 40 hours.
Bristol Old Vic has been awarded £5.3 million in capital funding from Arts Council England, for refurbishment of its building. Details of how the money will be used will be announced at a public meeting at the theatre on 29 April.
Arts Council England (ACE) Chief Executive Alan Davey has issued a warning that ACE is not in a position to replace any local authority arts funding that falls victim to public spending cuts. Speaking at the Local Government Association’s annual culture, tourism and sport conference, he said, “While we will of course continue to work closely with local authorities across the country to support arts organisations, we’ve got to have grown-up conversations about our shared ambitions for the arts… We need to make sure that in 10 years, we still have an infrastructure that works.” Whilst acknowledging the financial pressures facing local authorities, he urged them to maintain their investment in the arts, citing impact studies that demonstrate the economic and social benefits they bring: “I really do not believe there is an area of public expenditure where such a small amount of money delivers greater benefits than the arts.”
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is to gift almost 1,200 works from its art collection to museums and galleries in Northern Ireland. Purchased between 1943 and 1999, the collection includes drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, ceramics, installations and mixed media from a range of established and rising artists.
Speaking at Ulster University, Northern Irish Culture Minister Nelson McCausland has said that the creative industries have a key role to play in a prosperous society. In Northern Ireland, over 36,000 people are employed in the creative industries or in creative occupations, which represents approximately 4.6% of workforce.
Geisha Arts, a new artist-led exhibition space, will open in Brighton at the end of April. The directors hope that by operating without the constrictions of a traditional gallery that they can pay artists an “ethical percentage” of the price their work fetches.
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