Dame Liz Forgan, Chair of Arts Council England
Simon Jenkins suggests that public investment in the arts is of pretty marginal value and that the subsidised arts world ignores consumers and the marketplace. The implication is that the market alone could keep us buoyant and entertained.
But instead of patronising the people who really do know about what it takes to keep great art available to audiences around the country by suggesting they are whingeing subsidy junkies, he should be shouting from the rooftops about Britain's success in building a thriving and symbiotic relationship between the commercial and public sectors and how vital it is that government investment in the arts is maintained.
Fifteen years of sustained and intelligent investment — both public and private — have produced results the whole country should rejoice in. We are all cheering that the London theatre is having a bumper year, that British actors are prominent in the Oscar queue, that British conductors are of international class, that British artists, writers, dancers and film- makers are fêted across the world.
Multi-Oscar winner Danny Boyle started off in Birmingham's Joint Stock Theatre; Lucy Prebble's Enron was first staged at Chichester Festival Theatre before moving to Broadway via the West End; Monkey was commissioned for the Manchester International Festival before enjoying a run at O2.
All these successful careers and productions were developed in the subsidised sector. The list is endlessly impressive in every art form.
We don't leave it all to the generosity of rich patrons and commercial sponsors as the Americans do, producing a few jewels in tracts of desert. Nor do we run the whole thing from a central Culture Ministry like the French or from regional governments like the Germans, with dire consequences for the mixing of arts and politics.
Most arts venues in England operate on a 30:30:30 rule of thumb — box office, private fundraising and subsidy. For every £1 the Arts Council puts in, £2 is pulled in from elsewhere, totalling £3 in income to the theatre or dance house. It has taken years to build up this system, and artists, arts organisations and their boards have become skilled partners with private sponsors and industry.
We believe in a mixture of private, commercial and public funding for three vital reasons: first, the more plural the funding, the more diverse the art; second, it encourages risk and innovation which the market can't always support; and third, it avoids putting all eggs in one basket, making our organisations less vulnerable during a downturn.
It is nonsense to divide the world between “consumer-driven venues and those dependent on state welfare”. Each of the former depends on art or artists supported in some way by the state. The creative arts fuel the creative industries — the fastest-growing sector of the British economy.
Britain is in a serious economic plight. The arts cannot claim immunity. But we can point out that for 17p a week each, less than half the price of a pint of milk, we sustain a thriving, plural funding system that inspires, consoles and stimulates us all, enhances our international reputation, brings communities together, employs our citizens and supports some of the most creative artists and industries in the world.
