Gloomy Funding Prognosis
So the DCMS has asked ACE to consider three possible scenarios for funding under the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, the best of which is an increase in line with inflation.
Now it’s possible that this is a bit of psychological warfare in advance of the CSR so that if ACE is offered, say, 1% above inflation, everyone will dance for joy and love the Treasury, but when the best of the alternatives on offer is an increase linked to the Retail Price Index, that begins to seem very unlikely - although I would be delighted if Gordon Brown were to prove me wrong.
However the government has to find a considerable amount of money to fund the vastly under-budgeted 2012 Olympics - we still don’t know how much they are going to cost, but you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s going to be more than any of the already massive figures which are currently being bandied about.
They’re going to take some of it from the Lottery, further reducing the amount of money available to the arts, and there is talk of a council tax levy on London residents, and that is certainly not going to prove popular - Labour MPs with London constituencies will be faced with a lot of flak there - but, given the figures that we hear, a lot is going to have to come from somewhere else.
And then there’s the problem of inferior military equipment and the commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan. More money required! And there’s the NHS, schools that are falling apart, an aging population and the not looming but actually already here pensions crisis…
Peter Hewitt points out that ACE costs the average household 39p a week. A 5% increase in funding would cost less than 2p. Even taking into account all the other financial problems which we face, is this too much to spend on an industry which is an nett income-earner?