Shadow Culture Secretary paints a picture of arts funding under a future Conservative government.
A mixed economy with a greater proportion of private giving, a reduction in bureaucracy and administrative costs, and a bill to give the Lottery independence from the DCMS are among the aims of Conservative arts policy, expounded by Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt last week at a meeting hosted by the New Culture Forum. This first glimpse of the Tories’ new policies was revealed to an invited audience including Arts Council England, the National Campaign for the Arts, A&B and London-based arts organisations.
Hunt said that, were the Tories to win the next election, particular emphasis would be given to develop private giving according to the American model. US citizens give 1.7% of GDP to charity, while the figure in the UK is only 0.7%. The Tories aim to raise that to 1%. Plans would include streamlining Gift Aid to reduce the administrative burden of collecting it; increasing the amount of tax-free benefit a donor may receive from a recipient organisation; and encouraging lifetime and legacy giving through tax benefits. There would also be a move to encourage the building up of endowments. The Tories would also use the honours system to reward those who give money and time to the arts. [[members of the National Lottery distributor boards should be ratified by Parliament rather than appointed by DCMS]]
Hunt gave credit to Labour for its commitment to regeneration and education, for increasing funding from the Exchequer and for free museums, and vowed that the Tories would continue the free museum policy. However, he criticised the reduction in Lottery funding to arts and heritage, which he said “had more than halved” from £906m in 1997 to £444m today. He also asserted that “the money actually given out by… Arts Council [England] to arts organisations… has fallen by 25% since 1997. That equates to £167m per annum.” A Lottery Independence Act would “make it accountable to Parliament and not to the DCMS. Our proposal is that members of the National Lottery distributor boards should be ratified by Parliament rather than appointed by DCMS.” Labour’s interest in the ‘instrumentalist’ agenda also came in for criticism. “With Chris Smith heavily under the influence of people like François Matarasso there was enormous emphasis on the social impact of art. It was a new insight, but it also led to a crippling targets and performance culture which completely ignored the basic truth that great art simply cannot be measured.”
While praising Creative Partnerships, Hunt said that arts education was suffering from “a blizzard of initiatives” but that “we are not getting the basics right… Proper teacher training… urgently needs to be looked at.” When questioned by AP about the issue of access, which was not mentioned in the speech, Hunt asserted that “the principle of access for all is absolutely fundamental”, and pointed to the ‘mixed economy’ as the mechanism for ensuring it: “If you believe that we want to nurture the best artistic talent, then we need to look everywhere for that talent, and not just in the narrow pool of people who, for example, go to independent schools, which are much better at nurturing artistic talent because they have the resources to do it, though there are obviously some very good examples in the state sector as well,” he explained. He questioned whether “having simple targets in terms of… certain minority groups or disadvantaged groups” was the best way to achieve it.