Survival of the fittest

The right dialogue is vital if we are to protect local authority arts investment at a time of constraint on public sector funding. At the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) we’ve been looking at the range of initiatives affecting local government and the arts sector. We have raised the topic with a variety of representatives to find out who’s talking to whom, and where conversations are heading. 

Unsurprisingly, connecting the value of the arts to government policy is becoming increasingly complex. Against a backdrop of organisational change and a plethora of government initiatives, it is reassuring to note that joined-up thinking is high on the agenda. The collaboration between the DCMS, Arts Council England (ACE), the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and the Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA), ensures that culture is recognised by Local Area Agreements (LAAs) and in the work of Local Strategic Partnerships. There are toolkits, case studies and published research that look at the place of culture within LAAs, so that cultural organisations understand the part that they can play and the opportunities that are open to them. Improvement targets, which form part of LAAs, will require a robust method of establishing baselines and monitoring progress. The NCA wants to see how these baseline figures for arts engagement serve the local authorities, how progress will be monitored, and how support for areas prioritising the arts indicator in their LAAs will be delivered by ACE and the IDeA. The MLA has come up with two frameworks for measuring engagement, to demonstrate the value of museums’ activities – the Generic Learning Outcomes and Generic Social Outcomes, with the latter linking to LAAs and the Every Child Matters agenda. These frameworks will work across the arts to provide evidence of the benefits to local communities, audience groups, funders and the organisations themselves, adding to the arts advocacy toolkit.

It is increasingly important for the arts to demonstrate not only their intrinsic value, but also their impact on strategic priorities – such as the Government’s Sustainable Communities plans. At local government level, the aim should be to support creative practice and instrumental outcomes simultaneously. In politics, the arts are often an optional extra, still out of reach. For local authorities, projects with a high economic, social and environmental impact are high on the agenda. With competition from across the voluntary and statutory sectors, budgets are tight. The arts sector needs to identify how to act and influence at local level. What would the loss of your organisation or service mean to your local community? How can you demonstrate this to the people with the budgets on their laps?

In driving forward a stronger case for the arts, it is important to consider how well equipped we are, and whether we are talking to the right people in the right language. Many artists and organisations are using their entrepreneurial skills to adapt. By determining the relative influence of their stakeholders over decision-making, they have sought ways to demonstrate the benefits of investing in their work. Constant changes make for an inevitably complex campaigning environment, so the clearer our message is, the more willing people will be to listen.