As night follows day, any Arts Council England (ACE) funding announcement will be met by a backlash. So it has proved with the recent announcement of which organisation will receive funding as National Portfolio Organisations for the next three years.
The furore this time seems to have largely focused on the decision to cut funding from English National Opera (although the decision to cut funding from the Donmar Warehouse has also been criticized), and the consequent suggestion that ENO should ‘move to Manchester’ as a way of regaining funding in the future.
There are several problems with this decision, but for me, the main one is this: nobody has asked the people of Manchester if they actually want another opera company, let alone if they want this specific opera company. Writing in The Guardian, Stuart Murphy the Chief Exec of ENO confirms “no audience analysis had been conducted.” (It’s worth noting that Manchester already has regular performances from Opera North, and that a lot of local press coverage of the ACE announcement has focussed on Oldham Coliseum’s loss of funding.)
For me, this highlights what’s missing in how arts funding is allocated in this country: any consideration for what audiences might want. I know dividing up a decreasing pot of money, and trying to satisfy a government which seems to have little genuine love or care for the arts, is a difficult if not impossible task, and somebody was always going to be unhappy, but I’ve long felt that ACE needs to re-think what the point of its funding actually is. Is it merely to ensure that the arts happen, or is to ensure access to the arts? Because those are two different things.
Of course, if we’re going to talk about access, that immediately brings us to the question of money. If people can’t afford it, they won’t come. Even in normal times, cost is the major barrier to people accessing the arts, and in our current cost of living crisis, things are even worse. How much of NPO money goes towards subsidising ticket prices? Maybe lots, but theatre tickets are still out of the range of many.
For example, a middle-of-the-range seat at the National Theatre (for new musical Hex) costs £40 (so £80 for a couple, £160 for a family of four). A mid-range seat for the RSC on tour at my local theatre is £30 (£60 for a couple, £120 for a family of four). The latter doesn’t even offer last minute cheap ‘rush’ tickets, which are at least a start, albeit they’re not practical for everyone (and they’re also fairly commonly offered in commercial West End theatre).
So, is there a better way of funding the arts? Well, this is my suggestion: put audiences at the heart of it. Instead of relying on a centralised agency, give people cultural budgets, in the form of vouchers or credits, than could be spent on theatre, art exhibitions, or concerts, or even donated to a favoured institution. Alongside this, run a much slimmed down NPO programme, concentrating on a small number of strategically important institutions and those providing free services (museums and galleries with no entry charges and libraries, for example).
I’m sure this approach has flaws, not least that to make it work, it would probably require the government to spend more on the arts, which seems unlikely. But, part of the reason governments see arts as easy to cut is that they don’t feel like an integral part of many peoples’ lives. My idea would give everybody access. It would allow people who are currently priced out to see things like theatre or opera. It would allow people to try new art forms without the worry that they’re just wasting money. And if we can’t afford to apply this to everybody, why not at least divert some money to specific groups – those on benefits, or the young, for example? Germany has just announced that it will give a €200 ‘KulturPass’ to all those turning 18 from next year. Imagine what effect something similar could have over here.
Kate's Culture 