New report shows UK Arts in a ‘fragile’ state after years of funding cuts

Image: Production at ArtsEd, which trains students for careers in Musical theatre and drama

Dramatic falls in Arts funding since 2010

A hard hitting report on the state of the arts in this country has found there have been dramatic falls in arts funding since 2010. The report, The State of the Arts, by the Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick, concludes:

‘Core public funding for the UK’s Arts Councils and the BBC has fallen, and investment by local councils has plummeted.

‘Despite high public engagement with the arts, especially post-pandemic, cultural provision has contracted and remains fragile.’

Image: Chiswick School production of Animal Farm – the exception, where the arts are prioritised and thriving

‘Marginalisation of the arts in English state schools has driven catastrophic declines in participation’

Their findings show that Arts education faces critical challenges, from unequal opportunities in early years to course closures in universities nationwide.

‘Reduced funding and a marginalisation of the arts in English state schools has driven catastrophic declines in participation and enrolment.

‘Employment in the Cultural Sector has been growing, but significant wage disparities and job precarity threaten thelong-term sustainability of the sector and the countless benefits it brings.’

Theatre director Michael Attenborough has written a guest blog for The Chiswick Calendar, giving his thoughts on the state of the arts in this country, in reaction to the report. He says:

“The depth of talent in our UK artistic community is self-evident and celebrated around the world. Yet it has been systematically ignored, patronised and starved.”

Michael is a director with a huge reputation. Many of the top names in British theatre were given their first opportunity by him. He has lived in Chiswick for more than 30 years and our local cinema and theatre now benefit from his experience.

Image: Michael Attenborough CBE, D Litt

“The depth of talent in our UK artistic community is self-evident and celebrated around the world. Yet it has been systematically ignored, patronised and starved”

Guest blog by Michael Attenborough

The quality of our civilisation can be measured in our creative output and its influence on our social lives. It is the tangible evidence of our humanity, our sense of ourselves, our capacity for empathy.

By this measure, we are failing miserably. The depth of talent in our UK artistic community is self-evident and celebrated around the world. Yet it has been systematically ignored, patronised and starved.

Politicians like to boast about UK culture, yet do nothing to feed or nurture it. In pure economic terms, the amount needed for our culture to thrive is infinitesimal in relation to our overall national expenditure. Yet it is consistently ignored.

Worse, the last government actively deterred young people from studying arts subjects. As a direct result, the number of students of the arts has dropped by over 20%. Arts and humanities departments in universities have been diminished or closed. And the argument for all this philistine destruction? That there are no jobs in the arts.

That is quite simply a lie. There is an abundance of jobs in the arts world. More significantly, there is ample evidence that involvement in the arts, hugely amplifies the skills brought to any job; communication skills, development of the imagination, teamwork, inspiration, vision, perception, empathy, self-confidence, a sense of identity, the ability to think for yourself, to express yourself and thus to create.

What kind of world do we want to live in? Surely one where society has the right and ability to examine and understand itself. Perhaps the most vital ingredient of a working democracy. It is no coincidence that when authoritarian dictators take over, the first areas they seek to control are the media and the arts.

Perhaps the most pernicious symptom of social decay evidenced in the report is the almost total disappearance of the arts in our state schools, robbing whole generations of the many benefits of the arts. And yet we are ridiculously puzzled by the anger and frustration of masses of kids leaving school, utterly lacking in any sense of identity, self- expression or self-confidence. More crucially; lacking in human empathy, perception and understanding.

This is entirely down to a matter of resources, and to the will and the ability to provide those resources. A parent choosing a private school for their child would not contemplate one that denied them artistic creativity and self-expression; yet that denial is pretty much standard fare at our cash strapped state schools. Amounting to a form of cultural apartheid.

The artist seeks to tell the truth as they see it. But as Oscar Wilde pointed out; ‘the truth is rarely pure and never simple’. It is to the challenge to understand humanity’s complexity – emotionally, psychologically, socially and politically – that the artist rises to every day. To nurture and care for that part of us that is invisible, our mental wellbeing, our inner health.

In a world that is increasingly divided and divisive, we have never needed the healing powers of the arts more urgently.

Michael Attenborough CBE.   D Litt.

Michael Attenborough was the Deputy Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 12 years, from 1990 – 2002 and he has been the artistic director or the associate director of at least six other theatres, including the Almeida.

You can read the full report by the Campaign for the Arts and the University of Warwick here:

State of the Arts in the UK