A black day for the arts in England as government austerity measures mean 200 organisations lose their funding
It is a black day for the arts in England and, for all the government's comforting rhetoric, it will have to take responsibility for a crude, unthinking vandalism to the English cultural landscape.
Arts Council England – the body with the thankless job of passing down the government's withered investment in the arts to individual organisations – has played pretty fair. More than 600 applicants may be disappointed, and there will be justifiable outcry, upset and sadness. Inevitably, there will have been mistakes. But ACE has also received praise for its honourable dealing and openness.
Its recent modus operandi has been a far cry from the careless arrogance that unleashed a tide of condemnation over the last funding round of 2008, culminating in its receiving a vote of no confidence from the actors' union Equity. It is true that some might arch an eyebrow at its claim not to have "salami-sliced" when all symphony orchestras received an identical 11% cut and nearly all the giants of the funding portfolio – such as the Royal Opera House, Opera North and the National Theatre – received a standard 15% cut.
But the fact remains that it took some brave, unpopular decisions in shedding 200 organisations and taking on 100 new ones. Most of the fresh organisations, and those familiar ones that have been given significant uplifts, point the way forward for English arts: innovative theatre, bold ways of looking at classical music, adventurous new regional galleries.
But ACE's behaviour is only a sideshow. The real story here is the gradually corrosive effect of a government that, while paying lip-service to the importance of the arts, seems intent on sleepwalking the nation towards cultural impoverishment. The cuts to ACE cannot be seen in isolation from the removal of public funding for humanities tuition in higher education; the absence of arts subjects from the English baccalaureate; the unstable situation among local authorities, some of which are bravely protecting cultural provision while all too many are cutting it off; the starvation of libraries. Music tuition risks transforming into a privilege for the well-off few, rather than the many, as music services lose funds.
To adumbrate the claims of the arts is not, of course, to deny those of schools, hospitals, police services. But in the arts, the sums involved are tiny. ACE was making a cash cut of only £118m, small change by the standards of big government departments. The point is that with these tiny amounts the arts can reap a vast reward and garner a vast return: in education, in health, in communities, in the economy. And in the human soul.
Whether the government's behaviour is blunderingly careless rather than deliberately destructive to the arts is a moot point. There is no official policy that cries "cast down the arts!". Some good intentions are signalled by the support in the budget for cultural philanthropy. But the whole picture is one of a vicious assault, on every front.