Arts funding review sought

Press, 19 October 1982, Page 13

Arts funding review sought

PA Auckland Arts administrators seek a national cultural policy and a review of Arts Council activities to ensure the best use of scarce Government funds. The chairman of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, Miss Joan Kerr, has told a conference of northern arts groups: "The arts appear to be collapsing around our ears. We need a national cultural policy, with a machinery for review, to determine priorities and spending in the community and make sure the funds are effectively spent.” Miss Kerr said that arts spending was urgently in need of reform. “Early in the year I asked the Minister (for the Arts, Mr Highet) to undertake a review of existing funding so that arts activity could take precedence over building. “I was told that it was too late to change budget allocations. with the result that in one town (Palmerston North) thousands of dollars were spent on subsidised capital works while the professional, artists to make those" buildings work could not be kept going.” Miss Kerr said that arts groups were commonly urged to seek more business

sponsorship. There had been encouraging moves in that area, “but the tracks to business are already well trodden.” The most beneficial use of scarce funds was in “providing help for people to help themselves” and ensuring that money was not wasted through bad management. She said that the Arts Council itself had to do much more. “Our policies are being overhauled, not just to put a better face on more cuts and more deaths, but a real review to /test constantly the most effective use of our scarce money.” Mr Highet abandoned his prepared speech to answer questions from a grim and sometimes angry conference on Saturday. ArtsjCouncil staff said the conference was . deeply concerned about inadequate Government arts funding. The chairman •• of the Northern Regional Arts Council, Dr Andrew Sharp, said; after the conference: “Some people thought that the Government was deliberately starving the arts of fuhds in an attempt to create a ; nation of philistine red“I was delighted that he agreed to answer questions,”

said Dr Sharp, “but the Minister convinced no-one that the Government was not systematically underfunding the arts.” Mr Highet had said : "The

arts will never be funded as we would like them to be, but they are certainly not underfunded. Funding’ has more than kept pace with inflation.”