Three weeks ago iconic British playwright Mark Ravenhill publicly declared what many in the arts have been thinking in private. In a piece published in the Guardian newspaper’s arts section, Ravenhill said the battle over Lottery funding in the run up to the 2012 Olympics “reflects a much wider split in our culture.”
A self-confessed hater of sports, Ravenhill argues that we are now witnessing a showdown between sport and culture that has been brewing since the Romantic Movement “introduced the idea of the artist as wan, contemplative and lost among some daffodils.”
The thrust of his argument is that while Lottery funding meant for the arts has been siphoned off to help pay for the Olympics, funding intended for athletes remains unaffected.
So far the Lottery is all set to make a total contribution to funding the 2012 Olympics of around £2.2 billion. That includes money accrued through the Olympic Lottery but the bulk is drawn from money that ordinarily would have been distributed through the national Arts Councils. Arts and culture, and sport receive Lottery funding because when the lottery was set up the arts was identified as one of the five original good causes worthy of extra funding.
Unfortunately, with the 2012 Olympics on the horizon arts and culture don’t appear to be worthy enough. In a speech given at the House of Commons in March, the Secretary of State for Arts, Culture and Sport, Tessa Jowell, said:
“In addition to the £410 million already confirmed, which will be shared according to the normal lottery shares, I propose to transfer after 2009 £425 million from the Big Lottery Fund and £250 million from the other good causes. No transfer will be made from UK Sport, which is responsible for preparing our sportsmen and women for the Beijing Olympics and the London Olympics in 2012.”
Ravenhill points to the fact that the bulk of the Lottery money was originally earmarked as funding for distribution to the arts. But while his passionate objection to the Government’s use of arts funding to pay for the 2012 Olympics (“Because I hate sport. And sport, I like to think to its great loss, has always hated me.”) Ravenhill’s argument grossly oversimplifies the issue. As much as we’d like to believe the “raid” is a showdown between the arch enemies of sport and culture, the facts tell us it isn’t.
Tessa Jowell is the first to point out that it isn’t just the arts that will be losing out – sports and heritage have been hit hard too. Hence the recent call by arts, heritage, and sport bigwigs for the Government to debate the cuts across the floor in the House of Commons. An idea rejected by Jowell who has indicated that arts and cultural organizations need to get over themselves and start preparing to make the most of the unprecedented benefits the 2012 Olympics represents.
Former TV presenter and chair of the British Film Institute Joan Bakewell, who has been an outspoken of the Government in recent weeks told Arts Hub, “There is reason to be positive about the cultural legacy but this is why it’s important to have the right levels of funding now. If we don’t have a strong and sustainable sector now, that is poised and able to play its part in the cultural Olympiad, there won’t be one coming out the other side.”
Asked whether the Chancellor is a heartless Philistine who couldn’t care less about the arts, Bakewell says, “I do believe he is personally and privately very interested in the arts and sees their value,” she continues, “This is why we continue to press him for adequate and sustained levels of funding, especially in the comprehensive spending review.”
The Comprehensive Spending Review is the event that has the arts world holding its breath. But when it comes to working out who will be winners and losers it’s pretty obvious it will be the weakest, i.e. smaller companies, that are most likely to succumb first.
Guardian arts blogger Lyn Gardner pointed out back in March that while some of the big guns have been given assurances that they will be “sitting pretty whatever the level of government funding” it is the small theatre companies and touring outfits that could be “unfunded” out of existence. Gardner writes: “History tells us that when times get tough, it is easier to cut those in receipt of the smallest amounts of money: during the last spending review a number of small arts organisations receiving less than £20,000 were summarily cut.”
And maybe this historical lesson is where the debate begins and ends. The arts, heritage, culture, and sport will always been the sectors that suffer cuts to funding before essential areas like health, housing, education, and the military. The “raid” is less a battle between sport and the arts as it is about politicians making a funding decision based on which sectors they think the public care about, or certainly make a fuss about the least.
