Arts sector and local government experts discuss the funding gap in culture provision around the UK.
The country-wide economic squeeze has hit the arts and culture sector hard. Local governments - under pressure to save money - are making cuts to their support for local arts organisations, sometimes removing funding completely.
Why are we in this situation and what can be done to make positive progress?
Host Tom Dawson is joined by three expert guests to understand the context and try to come up with some answers:
Stephanie Sirr - CEO of Nottingham Playhouse and Co-President of UK Theatre
Zak Mensah - Co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust and a Trustee of Cultural Enterprises
Cllr Liz Green - Chair of the Local Government Association's Culture, Tourism and Sport board and Councillor, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Tom Dawson: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Arts and Culture podcast from the Association for Cultural Enterprises. I'm Tom Dawson, Director of Digital, and today I wanted to talk about the current crisis in local government funding for the arts. Councils across the country are under enormous financial pressure, leading to several announcing huge cuts to arts funding.
Tom Dawson: Birmingham has been in the news recently with a 21 percent council tax increase while cutting many cultural organisations funding in the city by 50 percent this year and 100 percent next year. They are by no means alone across the country. The Campaign for the Arts found English local authority spending on arts and culture has declined by 43 percent since 2009 10, 33 percent in Scotland, 36 percent in Wales in real terms.
Tom Dawson: They found the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, for example, had suffered a 63 percent decline in government funding between 2010 and 2020 alone. With Lord Melvin [00:01:00] Bragg making an impassioned speech in the House of Lords recently, stating “The arts are not the cherry on the cake, they are the cake”, while others question whether arts funding is appropriate at all when food banks and social care need cash.
Where are we? How did we get here? And what can we do about it? My guests are three people in the thick of the action. Councillor Liz Green is the chair of the Local Government Association's Culture, Tourism and Sport Board and has been a councillor in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames since 2002, where she has held numerous positions, including leader of the council for the Liberal Democrats.
Zach Mensah is co CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust and a trustee of Cultural Enterprises. We'll be hearing from Liz and Zach in a bit, but my first guest is Stephanie Sir, CEO of Nottingham Playhouse and co president of UK Theatre. Thank you very much for speaking to me, Stephanie. As someone who was born and bred in Nottingham, Nottingham Playhouse has a, certainly a special place in my heart.
I think like a lot of [00:02:00] British children, I think pantomime was probably our first introduction to theatre, and pantomimes at the Playhouse were certainly mine, and I know there were two in Nottingham, but dare I say the Playhouses were. We're always the best. But tell us what's been happening with the Playhouse and funding, local authority funding in Nottingham City for the last few years.
I mean, you know, I've seen you talk about funding going from what, over 400, 000 to pretty much zero in the last few years, is that right?
Stephanie Sirr: So what's happened over the last 13 years in particular is funding has gradually been eroded from both, we used to have funding from Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council.
Stephanie Sirr: If those two funds had kept faith and kept pace with inflation we'd be getting well over a million pounds now from those two local authorities combined. What we're actually proposed to be getting from March the 4th is Zero. So, uh, Nottingham City particularly, it's gone down, it should be about 400, 000 at this point, but it's been gradually eroded over the years.
Stephanie Sirr: So it was 60 going into the financial year we're in and they're proposing zero for next.
Tom Dawson: I mean, that is a [00:03:00] huge amount of money, isn't it?
Stephanie Sirr: I mean, yes, it is. I think it's the money, but it's also the, what does it mean? What does it mean about cultural strategy for the city of Nottingham? What does it mean for how the city sees the role of culture?Iin place making, employment, all the things that culture does. So we contrast with Birmingham, obviously Birmingham's just been announced they're going to get a 50 percent cut followed by 100%. They've had much higher levels of funding in Birmingham historically. So we're kind of, it's a bit of a glass half full thing because we have less to cut, we'll probably feel it less keenly because we've had years to adapt to being underfunded by a local authority, but it's a pretty pyrrhic is something we can't afford to lose.
Tom Dawson: Absolutely. So what's the impact been on The Playhouse and what you've been able to do?
Stephanie Sirr: Obviously if you have less money you can do fewer things that cost money to do. So we already earn about 80 percent of our income. That's only going to increase. The challenge is not so much around solvency or insolvency.
Stephanie Sirr: It's not an existential sum of money, 60 grand. But culture delivers so much for the City of Nottingham [00:04:00] that the City of Nottingham needs, and by City of Nottingham I mean the people, I don't mean the local authority. And over the years, over pandemic in particular, but over the years, our role in providing those services to people of the city, particularly those in the most challenging circumstances, has only ever increased.
Stephanie Sirr: And plus now we're more sort of mindful of how we drive footfall to the city. So over two million tickets a year are sold. to the top eight attractions and by that I mean cultural attractions. I don't, I don't mean things like Wollaston Hall or people coming shopping. I mean it's people where people buy tickets or participate in cultural activities that are ticketed.
Stephanie Sirr: There's about two million minimum of those, about 75 to 80 percent are visitors. So not only are we providing this really brilliant and much needed service to the people of Nottingham, I don't just mean the Playhouse here, I mean the whole cultural offer, but also we're attracting. multiple millions of day visitors who are then spending money on food, drink, other attractions, bit of shopping, as you do parking, transport.[00:05:00]
Stephanie Sirr: So it's increasingly obvious that culture is a key component of the success of Nottingham as a city. And I think you'll agree this when you, you, you grew up here, you know, it's got an amazing offer. Brilliant place to live, work, grow up, whatever, because you've got so much to do. It's a tiny little city, really, but it massively punches above its weight.
Stephanie Sirr: And it's a, it's a cultural gem of these Midlands easily in terms of things today. So I think our view is you've got this amazing thing. With galleries and fantastic music scene, fantastic theatre scene, loads of independent artists making things, filming things, recording things, writing things. Celebrate it, that's your USP.
Stephanie Sirr: So build on it, celebrate it, invest in it, work strategically in partnership with it. Don't kind of assume, I'm sure that'll be fine, it'll carry on regardless. Because that seems like a very dangerous strategy. And also what that does is it means those really interesting hidden gems that do actually desperately need investment to [00:06:00] exist, they kind of get lost, you know, they don't form part of that ecology and then you're left with a much poorer scene, really, collectively.
Tom Dawson: That's a really eloquent and compelling argument for funding the arts at local and national level. So what's gone wrong, do you think? Is it? all about austerity? Why, why is that case, which is so strong? And as you say, there are economic benefits to it, as well as all the other arguments we can make.
Tom Dawson: Why do you think that's not cut through to some people?
Stephanie Sirr: I think it's probably timing. I think that timing plays a part in it. I mean, we're not unsympathetic to the position that the city council is in, because if you give a city council with significant demands on its core services, on its statutory services, less and less money, while the need for those statutory services goes up, It doesn't take a genius to work out how that doesn't work.
Stephanie Sirr: Something's gonna give. I think the argument on culture is a bit different, actually. I think what we're saying is this doesn't really save you money. If you cut culture, and if you risk things, quite boring things like car [00:07:00] parking, those, a lot of those go straight into the city council's coffers. So, say we could do fewer performances at the Playhouse, or say one of the other recipients of funding could do less work because you gave them less funding.
Stephanie Sirr: Then you have fewer people coming to the city. Car parking is very expensive in Nottingham. We know that the car parking meter's just around the Playhouse, where you're, you're either going to the Playhouse or you're going to the Cathedral, because you don't need to park there to go to places like Browns or whatever.
Stephanie Sirr: Generate 200, 000 a year to the City Council. Say we did do fewer performances. You know, say we cut our performances by 20 percent because we just couldn't afford to do it. We've got a cost of living crisis, we've got wages going up, we've got the price of plywood and all sorts of exciting things that impact what we do.
Stephanie Sirr: If we did just 10 percent less, then that's 20, 000 lost to the local authority. So I just don't think it's being thought of. As a whole offer, as a whole thing. The parking associated with something like the arena. I know the arena is not directly funded in this way. You know, it's running to millions, millions of pounds a year.
Stephanie Sirr: So [00:08:00] I think you have to celebrate it as a whole thing and value it as a whole thing. and understand that this is actually where a lot of the prosperity you do have is being generated from. And it's also, it's thousands of jobs, you know, there's thousands of jobs in, in Nottingham City, generated by the cultural offer.
Stephanie Sirr: So get behind it, get with it, understand it as a whole thing, and then consider whether cutting it at the, at the grassroots level is actually going to really save you money that you can then spend on statutory services, because our argument is it probably doesn't.
Tom Dawson: So you talked about 80 percent self generated income, which areas have you looked at to respond to decreasing local authority funding?
Stephanie Sirr: We run a mixed economy model, I think most cultural organisations do, if they're of any scale. And so our money comes from primarily ticket sales. I mean, we have Arts Council funding, and that's a significant element of what we do. But that's, that's in the other 20%, if you like. So, of the 80 percent we earn, the majority is ticket sales, by far.
Stephanie Sirr: We also have something called Theatre Tax [00:09:00] Relief, which has been an absolute godsend to the theatre sector in particular. So if you're making work, Theatre Tax Relief is It's been really significant help to us and we really hope it continues at the higher level because it's a game changer. They have an equivalent thing in film.
Stephanie Sirr: They've had it for years and this is like the equivalent for theatre production and it's been transformative really. Fundraising and sponsorship do not raise as much as they used because the problem with the cost of living crisis is all the different pots of income that you had, you know, selling ice creams, raising sponsorships, selling programmes, selling gin and tonics, they're all affected.
Stephanie Sirr: That is not the opportunity it might appear to be. Certainly we make less money from those areas than we used. And the other thing we do at the Playhouse, obviously we originate a lot of work. It might go to the West End. It might transfer to another theatre. At the moment we've got the Kite Runner on tour in America and that's generating a royalty back to us.
Stephanie Sirr: We've got another production of the Kite Runner that's also ours going out on tour in the UK. That generates some money. We've got Christmas Carol transferring to Birmingham Rep at Christmas. You sort of make those kind of We have our fingers in various different [00:10:00] pies. The aim has always been to spread the risk in terms of what's coming back to the Playhouse.
Stephanie Sirr: So that, that has helped over the years. And we also have a very thriving presented work programme that we present a lot of comedy. You may have seen it at the Playhouse. It's a nice venue for comedy. It's a nice venue for dance and for music. And so those things all generate a return and a surplus. But even with those, you know, you can't put up tickets by the cost of living crisis inflation rate because people haven't got that money.
Stephanie Sirr: So you're playing catch up in all those areas. You diversify your income streams and then Hmm, actually 90 percent of our diversified income streams are also dependent on people being able to afford to spend money.
Tom Dawson: Absolutely. As a producing theatre, interesting hearing you talk about that. And it kind of has that talking culture of the halo effect of, you know, your success carries on to the success of other people in the sector, not directly working for you.
Tom Dawson: And, you know, sometimes that isn't always appreciated. I mean, I mean, as your role as co president of UK Theatre, have you found particular ways in which the sector has come together [00:11:00] to kind of share solutions to this. I'm just thinking what, what are the ways we can do to support each other?
Stephanie Sirr: Yeah, absolutely.
Stephanie Sirr: I mean, it is an ecology and we are all dependent on each other to a greater or lesser extent, you know, whether that's, I mean, obviously the public doesn't view county or city boundaries at all. They just go and see and participate in the things that interest them. But collectively, I think it's really important to have a shared voice.
Stephanie Sirr: There are issues, particularly issues around Brexit, actually, which don't. particularly affect Nottingham Playhouse so much because we don't, we've always tended to export our work to English speaking nations for obvious reasons, so Brexit wasn't really a big thing for us. But it's certainly affected people, the number of people we could employ, and it's affected music and dance because they're not dependent on language.
Stephanie Sirr: So, you know, I know companies that can no longer tour in Europe because it's just too much hard work, you know, to make it all happen it doesn't make it viable. So yeah, we have to have a collective voice. Certainly we've We lobby collectively on things like TTR to make sure that the government understands and, and the new incoming government understand just how important that is to the theatre sector.
Stephanie Sirr: And, you know, things around, you know, VAT [00:12:00] exemptions and rates, business rates, that sort of thing. They're quite dull things, but you want them all collectively to join together to help make things happen. Because when you're a larger arts organization as we are, You want to be able to say yes to smaller organisations who come to you and say can you help us with x, y, z, even if it's giving us space or access to your props team or whatever it is, you always want to be able to say yes, but you can only say yes if you can afford to.
Stephanie Sirr: So I think the larger organisations being cut to the bone, it actually has a greater negative impact on smaller organisations than you might think.
Tom Dawson: Just thinking also speaking from a cultural enterprises. perspective in particular. I mean, Nottingham iconic building. You've got a kind of a lovely square, which I know you enjoyed a drink outside in the past.
Tom Dawson: And it was interesting, you said earlier that cost of living has certainly not meant maybe you've been able to generate as much income from. Commercial areas like that.
Stephanie Sirr: Well, hospitality in general is really on its knees. So obviously, hospitality in theatres has a massive advantage, [00:13:00] because you've got 700 people a night, maybe 800 people a night, captive, who are going to buy something.
Stephanie Sirr: But audience behaviour has really changed. Whereas in the past, if you think about a summer evening sitting outside the playhouse looking at Anish Kapoor's Sky Mirror enjoying a pint or whatever, people don't do that as much as they did. That's just not a kind of standard part of life. Partly people work from home a lot, so if they're going to come to the theatre they'll come in just before they need to, if you like.
Stephanie Sirr: Things like the cost of parking, you know, you're thinking, I don't really want to go to the playhouse early because I'll be paid to park for longer. People might get the bus in and they might arrive. Closer to curtain time, they have less money to spend, you know, and I think also people might have a drink before they come out.
Stephanie Sirr: And then they'll come to us and then, you know, people value experiences more than stuff these days, don't they? Which I think is a really healthy way to go. And of course I'm biased because we're selling experiences and we're not really selling stuff as much. But I think people are more conscious of what they buy, what they spend.
Stephanie Sirr: They don't necessarily buy a program. They think, oh, I'll get the information from the website. [00:14:00] They don't want mementos in the way that they did. They don't buy merchandise in the way that they did. They're being less wasteful actually. It's something we should be celebrating and applauding. But it doesn't help.
Stephanie Sirr: It doesn't help the bottom line. You know, and obviously we've got our own environmental policy, which is to massively reduce waste. So we can't really argue when people say, I'm not going to buy a bottle of water. Actually, I'm gonna, I filled up my own bottle before I got here. But it does change the whole mixed economy changes.
Stephanie Sirr: And that thing of, you know, even if you go back 10, 15 years, uh, when we used to run a restaurant and the restaurant wasn't sustainable for this reason, but people used to come in and have. Friday lunchtime, the restaurant was always full, and they weren't with people coming to the playhouse, it was business people.
Stephanie Sirr: That doesn't really happen in that way anymore. The business lunch is quite a rarity. And again, maybe that's a good thing, but when it's been part of your model, you have to find other ways to get the income in.
Tom Dawson: It's really interesting. I mean, one of the other ways I'm wondering, I was interested in your business club that you do with local businesses.
Tom Dawson: I wonder if you could sort of tell us a bit about programs like that.
Stephanie Sirr: Yeah, well, what we do with business club is we're not like another [00:15:00] business club. There's plenty of business clubs and they're really good. And they're all about networking and it's very business oriented and ours is a little bit more creative So our business club you will find out about creative solutions to business problems problem business problems like Like sustainability and how to use data correctly and mosaic profiling and etc, etc But you also probably end up making a bag or you know Painting something or being together because I think one thing that we all really recognize is the pressure on the executives The pressure on people who are senior managers is enormous, really, really high post pandemic because they're expected to have the answers to everything.
Stephanie Sirr: And so what we give people is a sort of a, you know, a tangible, useful. Morning, but also the chance to do something creative or learn about something creative to just sort of tap into that side of that brain, which we just think is really important. And people do appreciate it. They appreciate that. It's justifiable business time spent because it's networking and it's learning, but it's also a little bit of a creative outlet for people, which we think is really healthy.
Tom Dawson: Okay so what would you, [00:16:00] as a chief exec and president of UK Theatres, what would you like to see happen next in terms of local government funding? Is there any good news on the horizon, Stephanie, or is it all bleak?
Stephanie Sirr: I hope so. I think the key thing is for the UK as a whole, not just Nottingham, to wake up, recognise the enormous role of culture right the way across the country.
Stephanie Sirr: the country where it exists in this form in driving everything from tackling mental health to supporting homeless people to increasing literacy to increasing direct revenue and indirect economic impact to local authorities. Oh, and by the way, also to being something that we're world class at doing in this country and really celebrate it, place it at the centre of growth, the centre of regeneration, the centre of health and participation and social cohesion, which is where it deserves to be.
Stephanie Sirr: And in order to do that, I think three things need to happen. We need to continue to invest in TTR because that really helps the theatre sector. And the theatre sector, I think, is the thing, probably, that we do the best in the world. I think our ranking is probably the highest in theatre. They need to [00:17:00] ensure that every single local authority has a proper, joined up, consultative cultural policy and strategy for their future, and understands properly how it's impacting on what they already have.
Stephanie Sirr: And I think we need to get the arts back into schools really, really strongly. Because we are creating a generation that are not having what earlier generations had, you know, we're going backwards. All the private schools and public schools invest massively in culture for their students because they understand how valuable it is in driving everything from literacy to confidence.
Stephanie Sirr: But in the state sector Cultural subjects are taking a real back seat, and it's such a backward step. So I think those are the three things I'd like to see happen from an incoming government, and soon.
Tom Dawson: Well, let's hope so. That's a strong message for the future. Thank you very much for speaking to me, Stephanie.
Stephanie Sirr: You're welcome. Nice to speak.
Tom Dawson: After talking to Stephanie in Nottingham, I sat down with Councillor Liz Green, representing the Local Government Association, and Zak Mensah from Birmingham Museums Trust. Liz, Zach, thank you very much for [00:18:00] joining me. We are in a very interesting week for local government arts funding.
Tom Dawson: We've already heard from, from Stephanie at Nottingham Playhouse. I'm going to come straight to you, Zach, as another venue hitting the headlines at the moment. What's happening with local authority funding in Birmingham over recent years?
Zak Mensah: So for a bit of context, Birmingham Museums Trust is an organization, charity, that I lead with Sara Wajid, my co chief executive, and about 10 years ago Birmingham City Council spun it out into a trust for the reason that many people do, for tax purposes.
Zak Mensah: So it was spun out and over the last 10 years the council has given pretty much a flat line settlement as part of the agreement. Which in effect is a cut. So as you can imagine, not receiving any inflationary increases over the last decade is a year on year cut. And I think it's only the pandemic that's really brought everyone's attention to what, how inflation actually impacts [00:19:00] organisations.
Zak Mensah: Coupled with that are the funding from our other major public funder, which is Arts Council. It's been great though, it's about a million pounds a year for us. But again, similarly, that hasn't been increased. So we're taking all the rising costs across the local, you know, the public sector without actually having to be able to build in the ways to buffer ourselves from that.
Zak Mensah: So it's been a very difficult time. We're fortunate compared to many others that having a 25 year agreement with the council means that we've got like binding contracts. So you, you were hearing the press about the short term challenges that some of our colleagues in, in the sector, particularly in Birmingham, we're facing right now.
Zak Mensah: And because of our, our rolling agreement with the council, you won't see a public announcement about museums receiving a, a cut. But what I would say is that it has also hampered our ability to generate the money we need to, on the capital side. So the Museum of the Art Gallery is currently shut, and we're trying to work with the council to find ways of getting money to reopen one of our [00:20:00] flagship museums.
Zak Mensah: But because of the council's predicament they don't have any money. So we're sort of stuck in this problem where, you know, the council sees the value of culture but has to quite rightly balance its budgets. So we're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Tom Dawson: Interesting, yeah, and we've heard news that, you know, council taxes have to go up by over 20 percent and cuts to various budgets.
Tom Dawson: I mean, Liz, is that a picture that's being seen across local authorities?
Cllr Liz Green: Yeah basically our funding has reduced. We raised most of our money from council tax as opposed to government grant, which is not how it used to be for many councils. Every council is different, but the LGA, the Local Government Association, is predicting a 4 billion shortfall in local government funding just to stand still between this year and next year.
Cllr Liz Green: That's just to stay where we are without reinvesting in certain services. Obviously, we've had a spate of section 114 notices issued, effective [00:21:00] bankruptcy for a council, which sends them into a sort of special measures agreement with government. But even those councils that aren't in that position, their funding is reducing, their costs are increasing.
Cllr Liz Green: So adult social care, children's social care, temporary homeless budgets, they are all going up astronomically, as well as having inflation. And all of the other aspects, energy costs, supporting costs of living for people, all of those has just put massive pressure on our discretionary spend. And the arts and cultural services are a discretionary spend, not a statutory spend for councils.
Tom Dawson: So what can we do as a sector to make the case for those discretionary spends for culture in particular that, you know, it's vital to the lives of our local communities, but also the wider economy?
Cllr Liz Green: I mean, I think one of the things that the LGA is asking is, can the sectors that are struggling, because we are not able to offer that long term investment of funding, [00:22:00] help us in lobbying government?
Cllr Liz Green: You know, because the more collectively we've lobby government for a decent settlement and a long term settlement. We've been living on one year settlements. Our final budget came out in February. We have to set our budget legally by early March to get our council tax bills out by the 1st of April. So we're in a very short turnaround from the final settlement.
Cllr Liz Green: Even the provisional settlement doesn't come out till December. It's usually in the week before Christmas, which is great for those in councils. What we need is to lobby together and say, actually, what's suffering here, apart from, you know, people that need our services, is some of that discretionary spend.
Cllr Liz Green: That is what we're not able to do. But we also need the sector, and this is where, actually, you're brilliant at it, when you're at your best, is to work with us creatively in our councils. What can we do to They keep the sector going, keep that well being of our residents that we know the [00:23:00] arts and cultural sector gives to our residents.
Cllr Liz Green: What can we do to keep that going and do it differently? So we're spending less, but we're doing all of the good work. And as creative people within the sector, you're best placed to help us to do that in your own area and in your local authority. There are a couple of other things that I think the sector needs to be able to do, which is to demonstrate very clearly the long term wellbeing and health benefits that come with cultural and arts activities.
Cllr Liz Green: They need to demonstrate that it helps struggling families. that it provides the employment opportunities for many young people and those that are out of work. I know the sector does this really well, but it needs to demonstrate it more clearly how inclusive it is. So services for those with disabilities, different types of people bringing together different cultures and I know the sector does it, but I'm not sure it demonstrates it in a [00:24:00] way that.
Cllr Liz Green: government like to be able to prove these things. So I think those are just some of the things that the section do, which helps us, which helps you.
Tom Dawson: Zach, what do you think about that in terms of communicating the benefits of what you do to government?
Zak Mensah: I think as, as Liz says, it's really important that we work collectively.
Zak Mensah: One, I think perhaps one of our challenges right now is you hear about various towns and councils independently talking about their pressures, but actually it affects the whole country and the whole of the UK. So, you know, rather than us sometimes saying whatever millions of pounds of value culture has, say, in Birmingham, it's actually, across the UK, it's worth this amount of millions of pounds, for example, because the number is actually really, really high in terms of the benefits, both direct and indirect, that culture provides.
Zak Mensah: But you very rarely hear us talking about those numbers, and so I imagine that at government level You know, talking about a billion pounds, for example, at Birmingham is a lot of money, but across the country it's not a huge number. So I think there's a way that we [00:25:00] have to not just think about government as one whole thing, it's about thinking about what does Treasury want to hear?
Zak Mensah: What does DWP want to hear? You know, what does DCMS want to hear? Because again, I think we sometimes naively have a view that government's one big amorphous thing, and actually Many, many bits of it. And I think you've talked to Treasury for example. I'm sure they, they are really only interested in the direct economic benefit.
Zak Mensah: And so that's a completely separate conversation that you might have to talk about how museums can help change lives. And I think there's a real urgent and need for us to try and bring those figures together. And I do know that some of the partners such as Art Council, you know, who are a major funder.
Zak Mensah: are doing some of that work, but I feel that there's a whole load about the stuff around how we can use data to tell stories that perhaps we're not doing right now.
Cllr Liz Green: Actually, you're absolutely right, Zach. The government departments are all individual, and I think speaking to the Department for Health and the DfE, the Department for Education, become really key.
Cllr Liz Green: Because what we're looking at is things [00:26:00] like keeping people independent for longer, because that keeps them out of social services costs. We know people living in their own homes for longer costs less to the system, but is actually much, much better for them. Older people don't want to go into care homes.
Cllr Liz Green: Understandably, and I think that the sector can really help with that, with tackling things like loneliness and in the social prescribing field. But it's the Department for Health that will be considering those elements. They're looking at public health and those outcomes and the prevention outcomes or helping families who are struggling to get their children involved in some of these activities, which then has a knock on effect of a young person that's heading down a path.
Cllr Liz Green: maybe we don't want, that then has an effect on the Department for Justice and the local police force. And actually, if we can incorporate them and give them something to do along the cultural and arts field, that keeps them out of those. So I think [00:27:00] speaking to all of the different departments is really important.
Cllr Liz Green: So I think that's come up with a really, really good point there.
Tom Dawson: So what I'm hearing is, and this sort of chimes with other conversations we have with Stephanie, is there's, there's very much a holistic approach that needs to be taken to culture, that it has benefits much wider to maybe the, the primary engagement with a museum or, or theatre.
Tom Dawson: We also talked about the ecosystem that venues create. And I'm wondering, Zach, thinking about Birmingham Museums Trust, I mean, you've got a lot of venues, you're in a big city, the people you employ, the spend of the visitors that are drawn to Birmingham because of BMT. I mean, does that create an ecosystem in and of itself?
Zak Mensah: Absolutely. So we currently employ about 150 people spend somewhere in the region of four and a half to five million pounds a year on salaries. So if you imagine that directly is then being spent across in the local communities. We also spend several million pounds a year on supplies and services, many of which that supply [00:28:00] chain is either directly or indirectly a part of it as well.
Zak Mensah: So we looked at most recent figures, 20 million pound plus just for our service alone in terms of economic value. And then you think of all the other people who are coming to the cities like Birmingham for a day out and they'll use the public transport, they'll use car parking and perhaps they'll, you know, and, and, and.
Zak Mensah: And I think there's a whole lot of the value chain that people just don't necessarily see. Again, people tend to think, when I have conversations with people at Westminster, etc, they tend to think about museums purely as tourist attractions because, again, many of them, the London focus, is they tend to think of The things like the V& A, the Tate, things that are, you know, massive tourist attractions, but outside, particularly in the regions, museums are often a lifeline for people in that community.
Zak Mensah: And so, you know, whether it be for health reasons, whether it be for social prescribing, whether it's just, you know, like for many of us, 15 minutes out. You know, in public spaces, it's proven to be good for your health. So, you know, how can we make [00:29:00] sure that our civic duty is seen that way, rather than, I think at the moment, unfortunately, many councils are having to make difficult decisions and tend to look at things like museums as being a cost rather than a value.
Zak Mensah: And so there's some urgent work for us to, to work together for that. And I'd also want to defend people who work in culture. within councils often do know about. They're really good advocates for us. But when it goes up the chain into a spreadsheet somewhere, it becomes unfortunately just a numbers game.
Cllr Liz Green: It does, sometimes, but I also think you need to get it out to the public. So, Woking, that's issued a 114 notice, recently went to a public consultation. And things that The public said you need to keep our parks, play spaces, green spaces, making it a safe space, cleaning streets, things like that. And pools and leisure came up quite highly.
Cllr Liz Green: But when they said we're considering closing these elements to save money, actually the most [00:30:00] ticked box of yes, you can close it if you've got to close something was actually arts and theatre. And I think that's a real shame. So that was 27 percent of people said, that's what you should be considering closing.
Cllr Liz Green: Only 5 percent said leisure or community halls. And I think that's the point that, that you're making Zach, that people don't recognise the benefit of those places. And I think the, the sector needs to show people. Exactly what that benefit is. What are the wellbeing benefits of attending the theatre, attending museums, attending art galleries, whatever it is, so that people can recognize it isn't just about a nice to have, it's actually essential to who we are as people to have an element of whatever your particular part of the culture is.
Cllr Liz Green: I mean, it might be music or theatre or arts, whatever. It's actually benefiting you as a person, [00:31:00] um, and that means that you are less likely to suffer with mental health illnesses. It means that physically you're probably able to be more active and all of those things. And I'm not sure we do that collectively together between councils and the sector as well as we can.
Tom Dawson: Okay let's, I just want to get a bit more specific, if we can. So thinking about the impact that shrinking funding has had on BMT, what have you turned to, to fill some of those holes?
Zak Mensah: In income generation, Birmingham is not too dissimilar to many of the organizations that come across the UK in the, the last decade, we have managed to increase our earned income, which is the income meaning we generated.
Zak Mensah: That comes from things like cafes, events, filming rights, et cetera, and increased it by about 30%, which is pretty phenomenal. You know, when you think about a whole third of your business is now generated from the work that you do, that's the most recent thing that everyone's done. However. [00:32:00] That hasn't been able to now keep up with the current rates of inflation Plus the double whammy of then the public sector cuts So in effect, you know, like if you said oh over two to five years, we need to reduce your funding people can respond to that But what we're seeing is that most local authorities work on an annual budget cycle.
Zak Mensah: They sort of technically say they work, you know five year medium term plans but many of them obviously think of their budgets on an annual basis and so what I'm trying to get people to understand is to try to think in two to three year cycles so for example if a council, this is a quite common number but it's not an exact figure, on average it seems to me that councils are cutting between 10 and 20 percent of the average museum budget this coming year but then expect them to generate the same or more money and I keep saying if you cut the budgets we have less budgets.
Zak Mensah: to then invest in things to generate that income. Now, no other business in the world would think about their operations over a one year cycle, and they certainly would think about over five, ten years, about how they can then [00:33:00] depreciate those, that investment, to have to spend money up front. And so again, what I'm really worried about is how do we find that investment now that actually won't pay dividends for two to three, four, four, five years, because that's ultimately going to save us.
Zak Mensah: Otherwise, all we're doing is we're actually increasing the risk of insolvency or equivalence of insolvency from the councils when they get over, which is a very difficult time right now. But I like to think eventually, you know, having optimism that councils in two to three years must have some kind of deal, because if they don't, they're not going to be here.
Zak Mensah: And so, when you have that information, you can start to say, well actually, here are some things I can invest in. So in my case right now, one of the biggest things I want to invest in is hardware for things like cafes. I need to find, you know, anywhere up to 100, 000 now to refit a kitchen, to get it reopened, to generate me some money.
Zak Mensah: But most people are saying well, I haven't got a hundred thousand pound to give you right? And so how do you get people to understand that you need to invest now, even though this is a difficult time Because if you don't [00:34:00] do that, you're going to be in more of a pickle down that road We're also looking at new income streams.
Zak Mensah: So, you know, like everyone we're trying to find ways of making more money But again, what I would say is like any other business if you want to do that, you have to invest in r& d No, and then that takes time. Most people I know have been told, you know, in the last two months they've got to make these savings in the next three to six months.
Zak Mensah: So it's already too late for that. So what I would get again was encourage us to be, to be, and councils to be brave and actually try their best to keep the wolf from the door, as it were, now in order for us all to accept the fact that we understand there'll be less public funding, but we can be part of that solution and work with the public.
Zak Mensah: To try and do that whilst also where possible maintaining free at the point of use Services for many people who actually desperately need that at a time If it said earliest conversation where council tax is going up, you know People are going to be looking for more free things to do at a time where we're all being actionist Should you charge [00:35:00] for your museums?
Zak Mensah: Should you do this? Should you do that? And it's great that some people can pay But how do you make the people who don't mind paying or could afford to pay pay to help? Funds people who can't afford to do that because that's so critical because there's some people don't mind giving 10 pounds for an entrance to an exhibition whereas for other people that's absolutely not an option So, how can you make that work?
Zak Mensah: Because we do know and I don't know I promise I'll shut up that just having donation boxes For example, very rarely do people actually put into them because if everyone put a pound in we wouldn't be in this position right now but they don't the reality is for whatever reason people don't give in the same way they do for other things and so We can also put our heads in the sand and hope that things that we know don't work will certainly work.
Tom Dawson: So long term thinking, Liz, I mean, sounds key. I mean, would you agree?
Cllr Liz Green: Absolutely. And we've been asking the government to give us three year settlements. So we used to get a three year settlement deal. We've been on annual settlement deals for, I'm going to say at least a decade, I can't remember how long it's been now.[00:36:00]
Cllr Liz Green: We do have to produce what we call the medium term financial plan, but it's got great big holes in it. So, you know, we're going through budget setting at the moment, all councils are doing it now, and there will be a document in there that lists this year's budget and their future year's budget. But because we don't know what will come from government, it'll just say, you know, 5 million savings or extra income, and we don't know where that's coming from.
Cllr Liz Green: That's for a small council. For the bigger councils and the massive councils like Birmingham, it might say 50 million shortfall predicted next year. And I think this is one of the things that's most frustrating us, because we're asked to apply for grants for things, which are short term grants quite often from government.
Cllr Liz Green: We have to turn them around really quickly, which means we can't come to you and say, actually, how can we do this better? How can we work together on this? Because we've literally got to get the bid in. If we don't get the bid in, you won't get the money. And then it's a one off funding. So we then [00:37:00] can't pass on to you that solidity of three year plus funding so that you know.
Cllr Liz Green: You're secure for that time period of time so you can borrow the money to invest in refurbishing a cafe or whatever it is, and you can borrow that money, securing the knowledge that you will be able to repay it over the period of the agreement that you have from the council. And this is where it all stems really from national government if they can give us the settlement.
Cllr Liz Green: Three year settlement, we can pass that on to the organizations that we work with. So you take this year between the draft settlement and the final settlement from government. It went up by 600 million. Now, bear in mind, we've got a 4 billion shortfall, but 600 million. Very welcome, very pleased to get that extra money.
Cllr Liz Green: But we didn't know that that was coming until mid February. Exactly what was coming is announced in January, but came in the amount per. Council in mid February. Ours came in last [00:38:00] week, I think it was, and we set our budget next week. You know, we can't work under those timescales. We can't prepare for them.
Cllr Liz Green: And that means we, we pass on that uncertainty to you, but not because we want you to have uncertainty. We want you to know, and we want to invest in the long term. And we want to be able to say we can help you with capital borrowing, maybe, because we know that we'll be able to help you or change your grant system, whatever it is that we're giving, so that it will be repaid over the period of time.
Cllr Liz Green: And we can borrow from the Public Works and Loans Board, so therefore we've got that ability to borrow at good rates. But we just don't have that in hand. They just announce things. year on year. I mean, Birmingham didn't know what percentage they could put their council tax up by until very recently. How can they budget?
Cllr Liz Green: And then how can they pass that security on to you? The system [00:39:00] is wrong and that's what we need to try and change. Starting with government, going through councils, into the sector, so that you have the security and we know we're not promising something we frankly can't deliver. We don't want to make promises we can't deliver on.
Tom Dawson: And as Zach says, no, no ordinary business would operate under those conditions. Okay, let's look to the future if we can. Zach, what would you like to see happen next? Is there any cause for hope?
Zak Mensah: I mean, we have to all have hope, haven't we, right? Like, there's nothing in the future if we don't have hope, is the first thing I would say about that.
Zak Mensah: What I would say is that more than ever, people are looking at collaboration. So we talked at the beginning of the game, it's cool about the department for health, for example, education and things like that, as it's like actually understanding the museums and galleries, you know, and, and culture sector. is part of the wider ecosystem.
Zak Mensah: How do we champion that? You know, how do we support well being? How [00:40:00] do we help the public, not just through collections of stories, but for our physical spaces, to say, you know what, this is what healthy food looks like. We're going to turn our part of our kitchen into a, a food area that's going to teach people how to cook affordable meals, you know, in the local community, et cetera, et cetera.
Zak Mensah: So much more being of what the community wants, other than seen as just being a sort of, you know, a place to hang out for lots of great reasons, but actually saying do you know what? There's probably a thousand different reasons why people visit us Let's try and double down on finding partners who want to support us because you know, we've got those spaces And we've got we've got a a mass of people interested And we just need to find a sustainable way a long term sustainable way to get through this short term problem because you know, I'm a firm believer that Culture is part of what makes society great And I thought we wanted to protect that but it's not a there's no right for it to exist unless we fight for it So [00:41:00] now we need to be in that mode of being hopeful But also be really smart and fighting really, really hard at a place for that.
Zak Mensah: But then most importantly, not fighting with each other. It's not one bit of the public sector versus another part of the public sector. It's like, actually, how can I help tomorrow with the fact that the libraries, community centers are all being closed down? We're part of that community. What are we going to do about it?
Zak Mensah: And that's to say, it's more of a rallying cry for us to help support that and doing it in a financially sustainable way.
Tom Dawson: Yeah, that's a brilliant call to action, Zach. Liz, what about you? What would you like to see happen next?
Cllr Liz Green: I think the public as a whole, and certainly our partners in the public sector and in the volunteer sector and, you know, all of the different community groups we work with, however you run your cultural and arts.
Cllr Liz Green: Events or space or whatever it is, are starting to understand more about local government funding and why councils are having to cut things. And it's a shame some have had to go under and issue section 1 1 4 notices to get us [00:42:00] to that point, but I think there is a greater understanding. I also do think we are getting better at working together.
Cllr Liz Green: And as Zach says, recognizing that because you are a museum doesn't mean you are just displaying a lot of of wares. and articles, actually you're running workshops for children. You're looking at creativity in what you provide for the people of that area or the wider tourism to attract them. And I think we're working together better than we ever have done before and I think that will continue and get even better.
Cllr Liz Green: So I'm actually quite hopeful because if we can get the funding issue sorted, We will work wonderfully together because I don't think we'll lose that connection we've made over the last 10, 15 years, and particularly, you know, in a post COVID world, some of the connections during the pandemic. were really strengthened between local government and all of our partners.
Cllr Liz Green: I don't think we'll lose those and we can build on [00:43:00] those and we'll have a more thriving space for arts and culture than we currently do. I think previously we never looked, you know, we run thousands of libraries. I think it's 3, 000 libraries across the country that councils run and they were seen as.
Cllr Liz Green: Well, actually, they're way more than borrowing a book. They were already on that changed journey, but they are way, way more than that. And that's a really positive thing because having a building there just to borrow a book is a waste of that space. We need to be doing all of the other aspects, same with all the museums that we support.
Cllr Liz Green: And I think we're moving towards that. So I do think, as I said, we will come back closer. More able to support the communities and what the communities need, and Birmingham will be different to Kingston where I'm a councillor. Support those communities, support the wider tourism, and actually work together to provide the best services.
Tom Dawson: Amen to that. Councillor Liz Green, Zach Mensah, thank you very [00:44:00] much for talking to me.
Tom Dawson: So there you have it. We've heard from three voices affected by the current funding cuts. But what do you think? We'll be keeping a close eye on developments. Before we end, let's send a shout out to everyone working hard in local government and arts organisations, especially those with an uncertain future.
Tom Dawson: Keep going. What you do is important and it is valued. You've been listening to the Arts and Culture Podcast from the Association for Cultural Enterprises. Please subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Simplecast. Until next time, thanks for listening.