Culture Politick

Here is this week’s news:

Budget Special

Despite their disingenuous hints that the arts budget might be ring-fenced, the Budget has revealed Labour’s plans to cut the culture budget substantially.  Ben Bradshaw has announced £60 million of cuts – sorry, efficiency savings – across the DCMS. The overall budget is frozen for a year – so effectively cut again – and the capital budget has been reduced by £300 million. More HERE

The Budget also announced a number of other measures:

A tax credit for the video games industry. We have long argued for some form of fiscal support for the industry, so we welcome the announcement. We note, in a completely unchurlish way of course, that Labour ruled this out in December, and this announcement will not be passed before the general election.  TIGA, the trade body for the industry, has welcomed Labour’s move but surprisingly not acknowledged our long campaign to get Labour to take the video games industry seriously HERE

A tax rise for every family in the country that still uses a landline. The phone tax has been confirmed and will cost the British public an extra £175 million per annum – including a £70 million levy on British business – and could drive 200,000 people off the internet. We have promised to scrap the phone tax, deregulate the market in order to stimulate investment and have ruled out adding extra charges to consumers to pay for superfast broadband rollout. Jeremy has pointed out that Gordon Brown’s phone tax will push 200,000 homes off the internet, more HERE

In contrast, we propose to fund rural broadband from the digital switchover element in the licence fee.

A Gift Aid forum has been set up and will recommend possible reforms in the autumn. We have already said we will reform Gift Aid, so that’s another idea nicked from us.

Streamlining DCMS bodies. Labour have said they will reduce advisory bodies by half; merge the Film Council and the British Film Institute; and merge the National Lottery Commission with the Gambling Commission.

Jeremy has blogged on the budget HERE

Creative Industries

Regional News

The Government is pressing on with IFNCs, today announcing preferred bidders in the three areas, HERE in an attempt to force them through whatever happens in the election, which is ridiculous as Jeremy points out HERE. Unfortunate, too, that the chair of the selection panel responsible for choosing the bidders has encouraged the bidders to plan for life without public funds on the day of their selection, more HERE

Film and television

The Government have responded to the House of Lords Select Committee report on the British Film and Television industries, full response HERE . Recommendations in the response include increasing the net rate of film tax relief for productions under £5m to 30 percent, and to make salaries of personnel employed on a production eligible for tax relief whether they are working in the UK or on location abroad, so long as the personnel are paid and taxed in the UK.

Film London an Screen South are merging, more HERE

Skillset

Skillset has published a report which suggests there is an “oversupply” in many general creative media roles, but serious skills shortages in areas like digital technology and multiplatform capability, broadcast engineering, business and commercial know-how, visual effects and craft-orientated jobs, more HERE.

Skillset has also announced a new Advanced Apprenticeship in Creative and Digital Media, funded by the London Development Agency to help London’s diverse communities enter the industry, with a view to supporting the range of media activities needed for the London 2012 games. We think this is a great idea, more HERE

And, in a very busy week for Skillset, they have also published guidelines for creative industry employers offering work placement schemes, more HERE

Television

Congratulations to Freesat who have reached the 1 million sales mark well ahead of target more HERE

Architecture

Jean Nouvel will design the 2010 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. As a Pritzker Prize winner and recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal, Jean Nouvel has won worldwide acclaim with magnificent structures including the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the extension of the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, more HERE

Advertising

The Government is now the biggest advertiser in the UK, after spending £208m in 2009, according a league table published by Marketing, HERE. The COI increased its spending by 13% year on year, to outspend Procter & Gamble by nearly £53m. The figures also show that advertising spend by the top 100 advertisers fell by £854m, a 10% reduction on year on year. Hard-pressed sectors like financial services and car making recorded the biggest falls in ad spend.

Product Placement

The Government placed legislation on product placement before Parliament last week. The legislation will enact the changes that Ben Bradshaw announced on 9^th February. Read the legislation HERE , explanatory memorandum HERE and Ben Bradshaw’s statement HERE.

The regulations include a requirement for broadcasters to flag up product placement to viewers in any programme which is made or commissioned by the broadcaster, while product placement will be signaled at the beginning and end of the programme and after any ad breaks it may contain.

Ofcom will now amend the Broadcasting Code to bring the changes into effect, but before they can do that, they are required to hold a public consultation. Ofcom anticipates that its consultation will be issued in June and will conclude at the end of the summer, with the revised Broadcasting Code being published in the autumn.

Design

The first national survey of the UK design industry since 2005, released today by the Design Council, shows UK design industry has grown since 2005, despite the recession. There are 232,000 designers, 29% more than in 2005 and earnings have increased by £3.4bn. The combined budget of in-house teams and fee income of freelances and consultancies is £15bn. Collectively in-house design team budgets are down 34% since 2005, but the number of in-house design teams in the UK has increased by 10% to 6,500 suggesting that employers are holding on to creative employees despite downward pressure on budgets.  More HERE.

Multi tasking Help for Heroes/ legal music buying corner!

With the election approaching here’s your chance to obtain a unique souvenir of parliament, and to help a very good cause at the same time.  MP4′s first full album ‘Cross Party’,  issued by Revolver Records and produced by Robin Millar (producer of Sade’s platinum classic album Diamond Life) is now available to buy, with any profits going to Help for Heroes.  Here’s how you can obtain your copy and help in other ways, HEREl.

Arts and Heritage

Culture

The great and the good of the cultural world got together today to launch the Culture for Capital Manifesto today at the British Museum. More HERE and HERE, and the publication can be found here, HERE.

Philanthropy

Arts and Business have launched a ‘ Private Sector Policy for the Arts’ this week, which has some very interesting ideas. A&B Chief Executive Colin Tweedy said ‘artistic successes of the last decade have been driven by the deeply interdependent nature of the arts economy. The healthy levels of public funding secured quality for the sector, allowing arts organisations to attract increasing visitor numbers (and earned income), which in turn has encouraged further private investment (sponsorship and philanthropy) thus enabling further growth and consolidation.  This three-legged tripod mixed economy model is under threat.  This policy is designed to reboot and rewire it’ more HERE

Arts Council

ACE has announced its final round of Sustain funding, in another list that overwhelming favours large, well known arts organisations from the Young Vic to English National Ballet. More HERE

Heritage

A sudden flurry of government activity on the heritage front, with the publication of their vision statement HERE and a new Planning Policy Statement (PPS – now number 5, replacing 15 and 16 – keep up at the back!) HERE.

The general view from the sector is that it is a big improvement, see English Heritage’s response, HERE and Heritage Alliance’s response, HERE.

The aspiration for joined up thinking across government is a good one, although the document is a very thin on how this will actually be achieved. There is also very little mention of plans to bring back the much vaunted, long postponed Heritage protection bill – with one reference down there on page 20/21 (depending on which version you have). So once again an all mouth and no trousers policy announcement from the Government, while we, in contrast, have committed to a heritage and museums bill in the first Parliament after the election.

The Historic Houses Association has responded HERE, calling on the government to make firm commitments to action.

Heritage Crafts

The Heritage Crafts Association has launched this week, to support and promote heritage crafts as a fundamental part of our living heritage. More HERE and a good article in the Guardian, HERE

Staffordshire Hoard

The Hoard has been saved for the nation following the pledge of £1,285,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund this week. Congratulations all round, more, and you can still donate to the ongoing conservation and research work into the hoard HERE

Libraries

The Government’s much delayed, much criticised libraries review has finally been published .  Again, most of the ideas are nicked from us. More HERE

Quite a lot of people are rude about it HERE while the Unison response HERE called on the government to go further, and set out clear guidelines on exactly what service local authorities are obliged to provide, which is exactly what we have suggested in our own proposals for a libraries charter.

The Society of Chief Librarians has launched their libraries manifesto this week, more HERE

Skills

Funding has been confirmed for a £13 million skills academy within the Royal Opera House Production Park in Thurrock more HERE although this would seem to suggest that Gordon Brown announced it a few weeks ago, and DCLG have only just confirmed the money, which is either very disorganised, or a bit worrying.

Missions Models Money

Has published a paper on a collaborative project between Opera North and the University of Leeds to develop DARE, a business model that uses resources differently, ‘helping to equip Opera North with the capacity to continuously innovate and grow artistically in an environment of huge opportunity and a climate of economic uncertainty.’ More HERE

Olympics

While the big news on the Olympics front this week was the launch of the official ticketing website, more HERE the cultural Olympiad announced their Film Nation: Shorts project which will give young film-makers the chance to get their work showcased at the Games, more HERE

BoJo’s Cultural Jobs corner

His Borisness is recruiting for cultural strategy and music education strategy roles, more HERE and HERE.

New Culture Forum

Martin Amis will be in conversation with NCF director Peter Whittle at the Royal Society of Arts on 7^th April, discussing feminism and the sexual revolution, the themes raised in his latest book. More HERE

In Parliament

Parliamentary Questions

UK World Heritage Sites and grants from the HLF HERE

Promotion of the Government’s free theatre initiative HERE

14,000 have registered for the National Theatre entry pass HERE

No requirement for local authorities to provide performance data on museums and libraries to the MLA HERE

The Government deny there will be a cut to the NHMF budget this year HERE

Where we’ve been and who we’ve seen

Tom Bloxham, Radio Production in the North conference, Julian Lloyd Webber, Nominet, Beringea, South East Arts round table, Open House architecture debate, Anya Hindmarch’s pub, Bush Theatre.

Ed Vaizey

Shadow Arts Minister

Jeremy Hunt

Shadow Culture Secretary