Arts Council England – rolling the self preservation PR/advocacy dice

The Arts Council England is hard at work trying to demonstrate they provide good value for the tax payers money. First off was Darren Henley sending a copy of his book the Arts Dividend to 784 eligible peers  and 650 MPs. What a waste of tax payers money.

The second roll of the PR- ACE/advocacy self-preservation dice was the publication of “Spillover impacts in the publicly funded arts and culture sector” by the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

First of all, the Arts Dividend

On the 13th March the Stage published an article by Darren Henley, “Making our case to Government must be about more than facts and figures”. The article was a plug for the reissue of his book The Arts Dividend: How Investment in Culture Creates Happier Lives. In fairness to Darren Henley all author royalties are going to Manchester Metropolitan University’s First Generation scholarship scheme.

However, this is clearly an attempt to raise the profile of the Arts Council in the face of the DCMS review of Arts Council England. Darren Henley says he sent a copy to every MP and Peer in the House of Commons and the Lords – they are busy people – will they have time or the will to read it? Some may even ask in these straitened times how much this exercise cost? Well, here it is: 784 eligible peers  + 650 MPs = 1434 parliamentarians x retail price of book £11:04 + postage at £2.99 = £20,133. I have no idea what it would cost a few people to pack the books ready to send.

I know bands and musicians who could do a 20 date tour on that sum of money and still have change.

The “Arts Dividend” is inspired by J.B.Priestly’s the “English Journey”. Priestley’s observations focused on the social problems he witnessed,  something that Darren Henley has completely ignored in his travels; the austerity years, arts cuts, cuts to local authorities, the English National Opera debacle, all of which have had a devasting impact on the arts. J.B. Priestly’s  “Postscripts” a series of popular BBC radio broadcasts during World War II, in his broadcast of the 4th August 1940 said:

“Let’s have the great symphony orchestras peeling out the noblest music, night after night, not for a fortunate and privileged few, but for all the people who long for such music. Let’s have comedians in the canteens, but at the same time let’s have productions of great plays in our theatres, so that the people who work may also laugh, and weep, and wonder”.

It is a pity that Darren Henley didn’t start with the “Postscripts”, first when he arrived at the Arts Council in 2015.

The book talks up investment and such things as a happiness and enterprise dividends but fails to provide qualitative or quantitative information on the return on investment. One would have thought that a visit to the New Economics Foundation would have enabled the use of various impact measurement methods, including Local Multiplier 3 (LM3) for local economic impact, and Social Return on Investment (SROI) for broader social, environmental, and economic outcomes. The sort of information which is crucial to informing the government on their growth agenda

The ”Arts Dividend” is littered with disingenuity and contradictions. A few examples will suffice. In his introduction (page 2) he talks of Lisa Mandy and her book, “All In: How We Build A Country”, published in 2022, and how she highlights the arts and he quotes “that people no longer saw themselves or their communities reflected in the national story”.(page 118)  He then goes onto say “and issuing a challenge to funding bodies such as the Arts Council to do more to ensure that decision making happens closer to where people live”. The bit that was missed out from Lisa Nandy’s book on the next page 119 was: “When funding was provided, decisions were made by funding bodies in London with limited understanding about what worked or what mattered to the local area”. and organisations who do not have NPO status.

Darren Henley also reminds us that his first speech as CEO of the Arts Council in 2015 “nobody should be prevented from achieving their creative potential because of barriers of ethnicity, belief, disability, age, gender, sexuality or social class. And he was determined to do something about it. In “Culture is Bad for you” by Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien and Mark Taylor drew attention to the fact that Disabled people (39%), Black people (41%) and Asian people (36%), as well as those in routine and semi-routine working-class occupations (38%), were all more likely to say they had not attended any of the arts activities listed in the Participation Survey.

It is also worth noting that the index “The Arts Dividend” contains no mention of jazz or jazz National Portfolio Organisations or grass roots venues – all the usual suspects are there,  which says it all.

Perhaps instead of wasting money on sending his book to Parliamentarians he focussed on the crucial issues at hand and develops art form policies with a simple and transparent action programme.

The second roll of the PR- ACE Advocacy dice was the publication of  “Spillover impacts in the publicly funded arts and culture sector” by the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

Before getting too excited readers are advised to read Bruce Alan Seaman’s chapter “Arts Impact Studies – A Fashionable Excess” in the “Politics of Culture” pp 266-285.

Spillover impact studies invariably tend to show the cheerful side of things. The fact is that spillover studies can be negative. So has Arts Council England done a spillover/impact study on any or all of the following:

English National Opera, Donmar Warehouse, Hampstead Theatre, Oldham Coliseum, Theatre Alibi, Unlimited Theatre Company, Third Angel Theatre, Side Gallery, Theatre Bristol, Psappha, Creativity Works, Welsh National Opera,  Glyndebourne (East Sussex) English National Ballet.

At least 130 organisations that were previously NPOs did not receive funding in the 2023-26 round, and 610 applicants who were not previously in the portfolio were also unsuccessful.

A total of 10 organisations that failed in their NPO bids have announced closures, with at least six former NPOs closing or planning to close after losing investment.

Some organisations not previously in the portfolio, such as Greenwich Dance, Wildcard Theatre Company, and Curious Monkey, also closed after unsuccessful applications.

Has the Arts Council England undertaken a spill over study all the Lottery Project Grants application who did not succeed because lottery funding had gone to National Portfolio Organisation.

Perhaps the Arts Council could supply politicians with impact studies of their National Portfolio organisations? This would be really interesting as:

“With regard to our assessments of organisations and art forms, it is important to consider these separately. As I wrote in my last letter, we do not undertake specific written analysis of either individual NPOs or specific art forms”. Letter to Kelvin Hopkins MP from Darren Henley CEO Arts Council England dated January 2018

Last but not leaset, “Making our case to Government must be about more than facts and figures” – how true – perhaps Arts Council England can toddle off to the Houses of Parliaments and explain some of these facts and figures. Here are few facts and figures to look over:

A FOI to the Welsh Government revealed they were made aware of the funding reduction to Welsh National Opera when ACE made its announcement about the new National Portfolio Organisations on 4 November 2022. ACE received a letter from the Secretary of State for the DCMS, Nadine Dorries, on the 18th February 2022 saying more be spent in the regions. ACE had 8 months to arrive at a solution that wouldn’t wreck ENO and WNO.

ACE Council Members register of interests on July 2018 indicates the potential for conflict of interests.  Of 15 Council members 10 had registered interests relating to ACE funding.  The register of  December 2024 had 15 members, 13 had registered interests relating to ACE.

There has been a 49% increase in the numbers of NPOs since 2015. The subvention from the DCMS has been supplemented by lottery funds. On 31 March 2023, ACE announced funding for 2023/2026. There were 985 NPOs with 275  new applicants, they will receive in total £444.5m, made up of £370.6m of core funding and £73.9m of lottery funding.

The use of Lottery funding to shore up National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) started in  2012-2015, where £54m was used to prop up NPOs. This continued in  2015/2018, where £180m of Lottery funds were used. In the round – 2019/2023 – this figure rose to £326m.

ACE has raided lottery funds to buttress NPOs. This reduces funds available to applicants who do not have NPO status. NPOs are also eligible to apply for ACE National Lottery Project Grants – they can seek additional funding elsewhere. This is discriminatory. Many applicants  will  be turned down due to insufficient funds. The  concept of “additionality”  has been negated.

The Arts Council do not undertake written analyse of NPOs or artforms

“With regard to our assessments of organisations and art forms, it is important to consider these separately. As I wrote in my last letter, we do not undertake specific written analysis of either individual NPOs or specific art forms”. Letter to Kelvin Hopkins MP from Darren Henley CEO Arts Council England dated January 2018.