Arts Council England CEO offers arguments to sustain public arts funding that resonate in Ontario as well

As Ontario’s cultural sector girds itself to demonstrate the public benefit of sustained government investment in arts, heritage and the cultural industries in the face of expenditure program reviews at all levels of government, we might look to the arguments being put forward on the other side of the pond by Alan Davey, CEO of Arts Council England.

Last week, Mr. Davey put forward a powerful and cogent set of arguments to sustain public arts funding under any government, Conservative or Labour. Speaking to a Conservative arts conference, Culture is Right, he steered clear of any suggestion of entitlement to argue that the ‘complex mixed economy model’ of public and private investment in the arts sector in England is indeed the ‘model of the future, not of the past’.

I want to straight away get away from any idea of the Arts as a monolithic public service ripe to be cut, and instead assert the truth: that the arts live in a complex mixed economy which could provide a model for how public investment could work elsewhere. The model is a model of the future, not one of the past, it’s one that works with public money levering private money, with the arms’ length method of making decisions putting it outside the vagaries of short term political whim….So my message is this: strengthen and celebrate the model, don’t weaken it.

The notion that public investment in the arts levers private investment is not new. Rarely though, has such a clear and powerfully-demonstrated argument been put forward in a such a positive, compelling manner. Moving away from the ‘woe is me’ argument, Mr. Davey holds up the complex ecology of arts funding, one similar to the system in Canada and Ontario, as a model to be emulated in other sectors. “The mixed economy means money works hard, and hardworking money is especially missed.” He goes on, “We’ll need to help you encourage the Treasury to be an intelligent funder and to convince them that not all public spending is bad, that ours works hard, and because of this, there is a disproportionate effect when it is cut.”

With pre-budget hearings underway federally and now in Ontario, and as cultural organizations muster arguments at the municipal level, Alan Davey’s speech may resonate well beyond the borders of England.

For more information go to: http://press.artscouncil.org.uk/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=872&NewsAreaID=2