This Week’s blog: ‘It’s not arts funding, it’s public funding and the public need a voice’ by David Brownlee
‘BBC Radio 4’s Iconoclasts programme is designed to try and elicit a strong emotional response and stimulate a debate. I’m not sure if thinking was progressed by Wednesday night’s discussion. The question (‘should the state subsidise art?) seemed to be the wrong one. Anyone who has looked seriously at the figures for ‘Return on Investment’ for cultural funding as a whole wouldn’t question that the sector does deliver huge economic benefits for the economy. The DCMS ‘CASE’ programme brings together a substantial amount of robust evidence of the social and cultural impact of investment. It seems the only people who could argue against any funding of the arts are driven by ideology rather than evidence. For me there are far more interesting questions, such as in a mixed arts economy, what should public funding be used for?’
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