Ahead of the Budget, the advocacy organization National Campaign for the Arts has its bi-annual report out, on the health of UK arts funding. The 2017 Arts Index has been updated with statistics from 2014/15 and 2015/16. Note that they’ve translated all their figures into “per person”, which means the ever-rising UK population will appear […]
Archive for the ‘Arts cuts’ Category
The 2017 Arts Index – a broadly positive picture for the UK
21 Nov 2017 at 06:22
David Haden
Arts cuts, Creative industries, Teaching, Zeitgeist
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Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Jobs
03 Jun 2017 at 10:38
David Haden
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Vacancies for Casual Gallery Assistants at The New Art Gallery Walsall. REF: EE02017. Deadline: 18th June 2017. Obviously not closed yet, then.
New Art Gallery, old leftist tactics
14 Nov 2016 at 22:26
David Haden
Artist(s), Arts cuts, Birmingham
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I see that the bedraggled remnants of the political left are scaremongering widely in the media around a possible “closure” of Walsall’s New Art Gallery. Aided by Walsall’s Labour-led council, which used the word “closure” as part of a pitch aimed at justifying and driving through a rise in Council Tax. One has to dig […]
Glass making lives on in South Staffordshire – new £5.5m glass museum, studios, maker network website
20 Jul 2016 at 21:00
David Haden
Arts cuts, Birmingham, Creative industries, Regeneration
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I’m pleased to see there’s a new £5.5m glass museum in South Staffordshire (*) which is having open days and which is only a few months away from fully opening in 2017. To be more precise the new museum is in Wordsley, which is my ancestral village and also where my ancestors engraved glass in […]
Arts funding and local government – new report
13 Apr 2016 at 11:49
David Haden
Arts cuts, Birmingham, Creative industries, Regeneration
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Just released, a new PDF report from the Arts Council and the New Local Government Network. It covers topics such as: the dip in funding that comes via local councils (a 19% cut in the West Midlands, since 2010); the ongoing pressure on small museums; the move toward trusts, home-brewed fundraising and commercial ventures; and […]
Light switch
Sad to hear that the long-standing high profile photography exhibition space at The Light House in Wolverhampton has been denied £90k of continuation funding by the Arts Council. The report suggest the Light House gallery space will now be switched over to other art forms.
Birmingham City Council and the arts
13 May 2012 at 14:02
David Haden
Arts cuts, Birmingham, Creative industries
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Interesting lengthy blog post by Councillor Martin Mullaney (Lib Dem), on the arts and culture in Birmingham following the recent local elections in the city… “The new Labour [Party] administration [at] Birmingham City Council [has made] the decision to get rid of the position of Cabinet for Leisure, Sport and Culture and leave 95% of […]
Keep the shred flag flying, comrade
23 Feb 2012 at 09:23
David Haden
Arts cuts, Birmingham, Teaching
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The total number of full-time undergraduate arts and humanities degree courses in the UK fell by 14% between 2006 and 2012. Or such is the headline arising from a dubious new report, Choice Cuts from a trades-union, released today. Ever skeptical of socialist flim-flam, I took a closer look at the report’s figures. I saw […]
Birmingham’s arts orgs “in crisis” says Council report
15 Dec 2011 at 17:52
David Haden
Artist(s), Arts cuts, Birmingham, Creative industries
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Birmingham’s official arts and culture orgs and venues “in crisis”… “according to a council report seen by the Birmingham Post […] The mac [Birmingham’s Midlands Arts Centre] is one of many arts organisations facing a severe financial crisis as city council and Government spending cuts begin to bite. [and] the crown jewels in Birmingham’s cultural […]
Cabinet of curiosities
20 Jul 2011 at 18:57
David Haden
Arts cuts, Creative industries, Stoke-on-Trent
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The Museums Association has a new survey report on the cuts being made by local councils, as they affect museums. Stoke-on-Trent has introduced a voluntary donations drive, and at the last count has £7,500 in the kitty from that — but the figure needed to stave off entrance charges is reportedly about £75,000 a year.
Council arts spending survey is out
Arts Development UK’s eighth annual local authority arts spending survey is out. Mailed to all arts or cultural officers in all authorities in England and Wales, it seems that only 29.9% even bothered to reply. But, among those, the general picture is the one that’s pertained for the last decade or more — ever declining […]
The place of digital in Arts Council funding
04 May 2011 at 10:14
David Haden
Artist(s), Arts cuts, Creative industries
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500 organisations join forces to chide Arts Council England about its lack of concern for the regular funding of digital culture… “We the undersigned believe that clear national policies need to be developed to ensure that the UK can remain at the forefront of digital culture, globally, and that these must take account of the […]
Union city blues
Why do the Council taxpayers of Stoke-on-Trent pay for the salaries of 7 full-time trades union activists, at an annual cost of £286,860 a year? This is at a time when arts groups in the city have seen their Council funding cut by a combined total of £33,445 a year since 2008/9, and when entrance […]
More substantial posts on the Arts Council funding settlement
01 Apr 2011 at 05:59
David Haden
Artist(s), Arts cuts, Birmingham
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More substantial Arts Council funding reactions and round-ups:— Orchestra expert Norman Lebrecht sums up orchestras. Cuts to orchestras appear to amount to a blanket 11% fall. Animate Projects rightly asks why animation is not considered an art form by the Arts Council. Deemed too likely to morph into ‘video art’-by-another-name, would be my guess. East […]
Some cuts links
A few of the weightier links on today’s arts cuts… A round-up on photography cuts/rises from the British Journal of Photography… “Photography galleries and organisations that will receive increased funding from ACE: Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool): +15.4%; The Photographer’s Gallery (London): +10.4%; Redeye Photography Network (Manchester): +55.7%; Photoworks: +2.5%; Impressions Gallery (Bradford): +5.1%; Focal Point […]
Arts Council RFO funding for the West Midlands, 2012-2015
The Arts Council has just released its list of 695 organisations which are set to replace the Council’s previous “regularly funded organisations” portfolio of 849. 110 of these are new. 206 previously “regularly funded organisations” have had all funding cut. The arts in the UK will have around £2 billion of public money spent on […]
New report on arts and heritage funding in the UK
28 Mar 2011 at 22:50
David Haden
Artist(s), Arts cuts, Birmingham
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Ahead of the arts cuts announcement on Wednesday, a weighty new report on arts and heritage funding (PDF link) from the Parliamentary Culture Media and Sport Select Committee. The Public gallery in West Bromwich gets a page to itself… “The Arts Council played a major role in a gross waste of public money during its […]
Sewelled
Brian Sewell in The Evening Standard… “Scrap the Arts Council. Fund the bottom, not the top. De-accession [i.e.: sell] the superfluous, irrelevant and weak [works from museum collections]. Impose, for [five years], either [museum] entry charges or a culture tax on foreign visitors. And suggest to the millionaire artists whose reputations have been established at […]
Purchase Grant Fund cut by 33%
Bad news for galleries in the English regions. The Purchase Grant Fund (PGF) is to be cut by a third. This is the public fund that makes regional purchases of outstanding works, for regional collections at museums and galleries. After the cut it’ll be worth £600,000. That’s nationally, not per museum. “Local financial commitment is […]
Ikon Eastside set to close
Ikon Eastside, the Ikon Gallery’s ‘on again, off again, closed during the winters’ Digbeth outpost, is set to close. Birmingham City Council gives the gallery £200,000-a-year. This was announced, before Christmas, as likely to be pulled completely from April 2011. Now Created in Birmingham has confirmed the closure date.