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‘Bonfire of red tape’ as Jeremy Hunt orders cuts for arts budgets
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent19 May 2010
Arts organisations were told to prepare a bonfire of the red tape today as new Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt demanded cuts in administration costs.
In his first keynote speech, he was set to profess his personal commitment to culture and promise that the arts would "not be singled out as a soft target" for future cuts.
But he repeated his pre-election demand for bodies such as the Arts Council to spend no more than five per cent of their budgets on administration. Arts Council England currently spends six per cent and other funding bodies are higher.
Mr Hunt acknowledged it would be a "tough" spending settlement. In the run-up to the election, Treasury officials told departments not singled out for protection to produce worst-case scenario economic plans modelled on having their budgets halved.
But the new Culture Secretary was expected to promise they would be "open, fair and as rapid as possible" in letting people know their allocations. And he hoped to "turn the current funding crisis into an opportunity" to reform arts funding so culture was never again vulnerable to booms and busts in public funding.
His first step was to cancel ministerial cars, saving £250,000 a year, and to ask every member of staff at the Department for Culture for suggestions on savings. Today he also wrote to the top 200 cultural philanthropists to ask for their advice on how to encourage more people to give.
Reader views (4)
Suggestion 1: Every member of staff at the Department for Culture (the whole of the Civil Service for that matter) could cut their ties by 50%, better still stop wearing them and donate the savings to the Arts.
- Digital Shrines, Berlin, Germany, 20/05/2010 16:57
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The other problem is that money is passed from one arts organisation to another. Most of the money goes on premises and administrators and only a trickle is left for artists/filmmakers etc.
- Bob P, London, 19/05/2010 16:36
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If Jeremy Hunt wants to cut costs and stimulate the private sector he must first reform the nanny-state Licensing Act.
It is time for Jeremy Hunt to look long and hard at the recommendations of two of his shadow DCMS predecessors - John Whittingdale and Theresa May - and remove all cultural activities from the scope of the Licensing Act.
Scotland have shown the way, and existing UK-wide legislation has been proved sufficient to cope with safety or public nuisance issues which are sometimes attributed to cultural activities.
- John King, Welwyn Garden City, UK, 19/05/2010 15:06
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Good start!!!
The last government was populated by bureaucrats, whose aim was to employ and supervise other bureaucrats and was funded (at party level) mainly by trade unions representing bureaucrats. This resulted in an economy where around 52% of the working population is employed by the Public Sector- ummhh that will help us rebuild the economy.
Is it any wonder that the UK as a whole (and not just the arts) is drowning under a sea of pointless red tape.
- Jeremy E, Home Counties, 19/05/2010 14:31
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