James Haddrell speaks on Arts Council England’s new National Portfolio

A topic the past fortnight has been major for the arts sector.

Delayed briefly to allow ownership of the announcement by the new government, last Friday saw the unveiling of Arts Council England’s new National Portfolio [ACE] – the list of organisations in receipt of multi-year funding (as opposed to smaller grants for individual projects) – coming into force in April next year.

This is always a difficult moment, with many good companies and venues dropped from the portfolio while a host of new companies are added, but this year’s list was compiled with a very specific agenda – dubbed “Levelling Up” by government.

Basically, a long-held awareness that funding had been overly London-centric for years was to be corrected with a far greater percentage of funding being allocated to organisations either based or operating outside the capital.

That meant a series of casualties in London.

Some of the most widely reported changes included the removal of the Donmar Warehouse, Hampstead Theatre and the National Centre for Circus Arts from the portfolio, with other London casualties including the Camberwell based Blue Elephant Theatre and Notting Hill’s Gate Theatre.

I cannot argue with ACE’s fundamental ambition to reach more people, to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to engage in culture, and to ensure aspirational routes into the industry exist in communities across the country.

I also have to say I support the cuts made to our flagship organisations – the National Theatre, the Southbank Centre and the Royal Opera House have all had what are, in relative terms, small but manageable cuts.

These are world-class arts organisations, but arts organisations on every scale are learning new ways of working, developing new income streams, revisiting pricing strategies, re-evaluating their reliance on subsidy.

There is no reason why our world-leading organisations won’t have the capacity and the infrastructure to become world-leaders in financial sustainability as well.
However, with all that said, the rhetoric of geography and finance does need interrogating.

The ongoing suggestion that London has been routinely over-funded in terms of the arts is not as unproblematic as it may seem.

First, the national organisations mentioned above should not be factored into comparison of local communities – they are our internationally-facing organisations and they operate well beyond their local areas.

Suggesting that Camden receives one of the largest levels of government arts subsidy in the country because the Royal Opera House sits on the borough boundary is clearly missing the point.

Second, London is too large to be considered as a single entity – the majority of people do not cross the river, or go far beyond their neighbouring boroughs, for cultural activity.

Greenwich alone (as an example) has a greater population that Southend-On-Sea, which is a so-called levelling up area. It would be far more useful to consider London by borough, or to rezone the map of the capital into areas of 3-4 boroughs.

Third, it must not be forgotten that organisations and venues based in the capital offer opportunities for those based outside of London to bring their work to the attention of press, potential collaborators, and much larger audiences than they might command on their home turf.

Much of this will surely have been considered in the latest round of NPO decisions, but the rhetoric remains an issue and the value of relationships between companies based in London and those working around the country must not be underestimated.

Finally, there is a risk that the notion of Levelling Up brings about a reduction in ambition.

Art should reach as many people as possible, and should be as accessible as possible, but it should also be as good as possible.

If there is a particular geographic area where some of our highest quality cultural organisations have clustered, that is no different from the emergence of an area of high-level industrial output, sporting excellence, natural beauty, agriculture or tourism – so those organisations should still be supported to maintain work of the highest quality regardless of which other organisations they share a postcode with.

ACE may be seeking to level accessibility to culture, but decision-makers need to be careful to ensure that this ‘levelling up’ doesn’t come at the expense or aspiration or excellence.

 

Picture: Royal Opera House Picture: PA