Memo to Tessa

So what actually happened to the funding settlement last week? The Arts Council asked for a small increase above inflation. The government announced that the arts budget would be frozen between 2005 and 2008. Treasury officials are not quick to return calls on this subject, but apparently Brown's men stipulated that the arts line in the DCMS budget had to be fixed on the grounds that 'they had had their turn'. This leaves a shortfall in arts funding of £30 million (roughly two helicopters, or a week's worth of troops in Iraq) over three years and sends the very clear message that the Treasury does not take the arts industry seriously. If an industrial board followed five years of successful investment with real terms cuts, the shareholders (that's us) would be baying for their resignation.
Jowell's DCMS has responded to this idiotic constraint with a mixture of frustration, wit and old-fashioned guff. No one accepts her claim that fur ther efficiencies could create a huge surplus to spend on artists. But one element within the frozen arts budget (the ring-fenced, focus-group-friendly Creative Partnerships fund) remains underspent and Jowell has told the Arts Council to use that money to dodge the cut as best they can. By jiggling funds, they might at least keep funding at present levels, albeit with no flexibility for further strategic investment, until 2008. More worrying is what might happen after that...
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Irish Art