|
|
|
|
Articles
|
|
|
Articles |
Theatre Funding - the Dangers of the SystemDateline: 19th January, 2003I received an email this week from a student in Germany asking some questions about theatre funding in the UK for a PhD thesis - you'd be surprised at how many BA, MA and PhD essays or theses I've contributed to, not to mention GCSE and 'A' Level essays! - and that, together with the news of the impending cuts in support for Battersea Arts Centre, set me thinking. We have quite a complex system of subsidy for theatre and the arts in this country:
Most theatres and theatre companies rely upon a mix of these funding sources and some sources actually insist upon partnership funding: we'll provide you with £X if you can show that you get £Y from elsewhere. The fact that this complex mix works is a tribute to the patience and sheer hard work of administrators, much of whose time is swallowed up in filling in grant applications which rival a short novel in the number of pages. Applications for capital projects from the National Lottery can be particularly onerous - and expensive! - so that ACE, for example, has often had to give pretty substantial grants (running into six figures) for feasibility studies. But things can go badly wrong, as they have with BAC and Wandsworth Council. Local authorities are engaged in a constant struggle to fit the proverbial quart into the pint pot and some will seize any opportunity to unload burdens whenever they can. This is what has happened in Wandsworth: the awarding of £425,000 of Arts Council money to BAC has encouraged them to cut their support to the centre by £113,000. No doubt they thought that it wouldn't matter because BAC would still be £312,000 better off. However it doesn't work that way. Increasingly grants from ACE and other funders (such as, for example, SRB) are given for a specific purpose and cannot replace other funding. In fact, sometimes these additional grants are conditional on existing funding remaining in place and organisations like SRB will not release money until presented with invoices for agreed expenditure. It has to be said that most local authorities do not react as Wandsworth has. Most continue their support at the same level. Wandsworth should do the same. Perhaps they will: the fact that they have postponed the proposed cuts for a year is probably a good sign. But if they still intend to make the cuts next year, they should be honest about it. If they don't value the work BAC is doing in the borough they should say so and not hide behind the specious excuse that the centre's receiving an Arts Council grant proves that they are no longer just a local asset. The thing is, of course, that they cannot suggest that the BAC does not give value for money: no company or venue gains the national, even international, reputation that BAC has by producing sub-standard work. If they are cutting BAC to save costs, then they should come clean about it. Articles Indices:
|
|
|