‘The business is no longer sustainable’: the inside story of how Tory cuts devastated the arts

The October 2023 statement from Leeds music and clubbing venue Sheaf St did not mince its words. “Sadly, the world is not on our side right now,” it said, before shutting its doors for the last time. “Our industry is facing a real crisis, post-pandemic, with low attendance, rising costs, increasing fees, significantly reduced spend, and skyrocketing utilities and stock costs. The business is no longer sustainable and cannot recover.” Sheaf St had established itself at the heart of a creative community. It combined high-profile dance acts (Nicky Siano, DJ Yoda, Crazy P and many more) with a generous approach to engagement that included open-deck sessions and yoga classes. Sadly, this wasn’t enough.

Across the country, similar stories abound. These tales of decline, struggle and eventual defeat encompass every artistic discipline, at every level. They include nightclubs and classical orchestras, comedy venues and theatres, independent cinemas and grassroots music venues. There are threats to public service broadcasting and a sense of almost complete abandonment of arts provision in state schools. The arts pyramid is in danger of collapse. This crisis represents a tangible threat to a huge national income generator (£108bn in 2021) and a primary source of UK soft power. But of course, it’s much more than that.

“Everyone recognises that grassroots music venues are essential to the talent pipeline,” says the Music Venues Trust’s founder Mark Davyd. He refers to his own specialist area, but he could be speaking for the arts sector as a whole. “These aren’t just talent generators which are vital to the future success of our music industry. They are permission slips for people to be part of a cultural experience that might be life-changing. A lot of the emails we receive about the closure of a local venue aren’t about whether we might be losing the next Adele. They are about people’s grief that the place they met their life partner isn’t there any more.”

The last Labour government may, somewhat toe-curlingly, be intertwined with memories of “cool Britannia” and the banal decadence of the millennium Dome. But New Labour did also manage the restoration of free access to museums, a £25m rescue of regional theatre and a significant real-terms increase in arts funding between 1997 and the start of the global financial crisis in 2007. Since the Conservatives came to power in 2010 (initially in coalition with the Liberal Democrats), there have been 13 secretaries of state for culture, media and sport. For context, the premiership of Tony Blair only had two (Chris Smith and Tessa Jowell). This turnover implies that the climate of declining care for the arts sector is a side-effect of wider political turbulence. But there is something more: a stealth privatisation that began during the austerity years of George Osborne.

In 2010, Arts Council England’s funding was cut by 30% – a tiny percentage of savings earmarked by the coalition government’s austerity spending review, but cataclysmic for many organisations at the sharp end. Two years later, Maria Miller became culture secretary. “We are going to have to look at how we can unlock the potential in philanthropy,” she said. “The finances of the country dictate that, but I also believe that is the right way to go.” This is a significant statement in terms of explaining the values of the era. It implies not just necessity but ideological intent.

Meanwhile, despite high-profile flourishes such as Danny Boyle’s 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, which flaunted Britain’s enviable arts heritage as one of the nation’s greatest assets, the mood music surrounding grassroots arts organisations became more and more challenging. The nation’s appetite for the arts was not diminishing – between 2010 and 2019, Britain’s creative industries grew more than one and a half times faster than the wider economy – but the ecosystem in which the arts operated was becoming increasingly unmanageable.

With galloping urban property prices (and the unfettered destructiveness of developers) already exerting pressure on venues, the triple-whammy of Brexit, Covid and the cost of living crisis simply served as an accelerant to a skip fire that had been smouldering for years. “The biggest increases in prices simply outstripped any additional attendance or any income by extraordinary levels,” says Davyd. “A 37.5% average increase to rent, 240% average increase to energy prices, increases of 20% or more on services, supplies and wages. Venues have been plunged into an economic crisis by a model that simply cannot work.”

This economic impossibility is inevitably passed on to the artists playing these venues – and by definition, the costs hurt more the lower down the pyramid you travel. Matt Cargill of noise experimentalists Sly and the Family Drone explains: “Touring bands are struggling to make ends meet as they could even five years ago. We’ve had to turn down one-off gigs as it simply isn’t possible to break even. Bands’ fees have been the only thing to not rise with inflation.” Furthermore, the harsh economic situation threatens acts at an even more existential level. “Up until three years ago, we as a band were able to live in a warehouse space cheaply and practise and record in that large space,” says Cargill. “But inevitably, that entire road has been socially cleansed for huge rent hikes, which have priced us out.”

Sly and the Family Drone have, over their decade-long history, carved themselves a niche, partly thanks to their brilliantly visceral live shows. Even if their music is unlikely to cross over into the mainstream, it is a crucial part of a wider ecosystem and has, until recently, been financially sustainable. Could they begin from the same point in 2024? “Unlikely,” says Cargill. “For working-class people there is less of a safety net, or any net at all. Without a financial buffer, many people are unable to sustain losses and take the hit to continue.” This, as he points out, has a discriminatory effect “against BAME people who are disproportionately likely to come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. So the industry ends up even less diverse racially, too.”

This isn’t just an anecdotal impression: Cargill’s suspicion about the narrowing demographic reach of the arts is supported by analysis of 2022 Office for National Statistics data, which shows that while more than 16% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 came from a working-class background, that number had fallen to 8% for those born four decades later. A recent Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre report concurred that just 8% of workers in TV and radio are from a working-class background.

Britain’s marginalisation and devaluing of arts begins early in life and fuels the sense of creeping privatisation. While Rishi Sunak’s alma mater, Winchester college, boasts a 240-seat theatre, in the state education sector engagement with arts courses is dropping dramatically, and seemingly as a direct result of government policy. The number of students taking arts GCSEs has fallen by 40% since 2010. The number of drama teachers in English secondary schools has fallen by 22% since 2011. Michael Gove’s English Baccalaureate excludes all arts subjects from compulsory study and in the 2010-2024 era, pupils have been systematically driven in the direction of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) subjects. The 2019 Tory manifesto promised an Arts Premium for state schools that would have amounted to £270m in funding. But the promise was never kept and was eventually ditched by Rishi Sunak in late 2021.

It would be easier to accept the rationale for these cuts in spending and changes in priority if Conservative attacks on both the arts and the kind of people seen to engage with them didn’t seem so nakedly politically driven. For example, there was the ill-judged government-backed retraining campaign in 2020 that depicted a young ballerina lacing up her slippers alongside the caption “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber. She just doesn’t know it yet”. There was Dominic Raab’s attack on Angela Rayner whom he described as “a champagne socialist” for having the temerity, as a working-class person, to attend a performance of The Marriage of Figaro at the 2022 Glyndebourne festival. Institutions ranging from the BBC to the National Trust have been on the receiving end of divisive attacks from ministers. Meanwhile, the decision to move the English National Opera to Manchester (in the name of levelling up) as a precondition of it receiving continued funding has left some in the sector feeling like a political football.

In certain areas, most notably classical music, it has become apparent that non-government organisations have been forced to pick up the slack. One such ensemble is the Britten Sinfonia, a Cambridge-based chamber orchestra that combines performance with a degree of commitment to community outreach work in arts-deprived areas that should win the heart of any sincere proponent of levelling up. This, surely, is a living, working example of the difference that exposure to the arts can make to people’s lives. In addition to regular performances at Snape Maltings and the Norfolk and Norwich festival, the Britten Sinfonia takes music into schools, prisons and care homes, bringing its work to people who might otherwise be entirely excluded.

In the Arts Council’s 2023 round, the Britten Sinfonia lost the entirety of its funding. “The moment our cut was announced,” recalls CEO and artistic director Meurig Bowen, “my phone went hot with disbelief. Because the 100% cut ran completely counter to that levelling up story.” Subsequently, the Britten Sinfonia has been able to draw on the massive goodwill surrounding it to maintain and even expand its activities. There have been new partnerships with schools, music hubs and hospitals across the east of England. Bowen asks that the word “beleaguered” isn’t used in connection with his ensemble; he clearly feels luckier than many.

But in the context of arts provision and outreach in the area in which the Britten Sinfonia operates, the cut still seems incredibly cavalier. The experience of the Sinfonia dovetails with the wider fate of arts education. What has become clear to Bowen is how essential their operations have become. “The schools element of what we do should be the icing on the cake and complementary to really solid music provision,” he says. “But it’s increasingly becoming a replacement and a lot of us are feeling the pressure of having to fulfil something that should be baked into the curriculum in the first place.”

It is evidently a crucial investment in the future, too; an investment of the kind that the government seems unwilling to make. Levelling up now feels like an empty slogan. Three of the most deprived council areas in the UK (Middlesbrough, Hastings and Rochdale) received no money from the first three rounds of the levelling up fund. Town deals disproportionately favoured Tory constituencies. Meanwhile, stricken local authorities such as Birmingham and Nottingham have been forced to cut their arts support to the bone. “The big worry,” says Bowen, “is that if people aren’t having a balanced cultural diet while they’re growing up then it’s going to be even harder to get them to become the audiences of the future.” Once again, the issue of sustainability is being left in the hands of people and organisations who really should be supplementary to the process.

The idea of an arts organisation as a community outreach vessel is echoed widely. In atomised and precarious times, many such organisations act as agents of social cohesion in addition to their cultural role. Rosie Greatorex, the cinema and programme director at the independent Lexi Cinema in north-west London highlights a similar function. “The Lexi partners with a local group of GPs to run a pioneering scheme, ‘prescribing’ free weekly cinema trips to local people at risk of social isolation. We run a women-only film club for refugee women living locally. We regularly put on free screenings for families accessing our local food banks.”

But still, the Lexi faces a familiar set of problems – one that has affected small cinemas across the country. According to a 2023 survey by the Independent Cinema Office, around 45% of the UK’s independent cinemas are now operating at a loss. “The cost of living is rising so fast,” says Greatorex, “and our staff bills are rising in line with that. The London Living Wage has increased by 19% over the last two years – so any business which has committed to paying a living wage is effectively footing the bill for huge increases in utilities and rents.”

Representatives of every sector are in agreement about one thing. They do not expect a free ride. Everyone recognises that independent financial sustainability is a prerequisite. It’s just that as a result of cultural, economic and political developments beyond their control, the rules have changed – business models that were once sustainable simply no longer are. The Theatres at Risk Register tracks threatened drama venues across the UK, with dozens of theatres, from Plymouth to Blackpool, now in the red zone. There has been a recent flurry of art gallery closures including Fold in London and the CCA in Brighton. Councils including Bury, Bolton and Tower Hamlets have been forced to sell artworks by the likes of LS Lowry and Henry Moore in order to balance the books.

The story of the Britten Sinfonia offers hope. And there are many other tales of resilience, ranging from the campaign to save London’s Gate theatre (notable alumni include Sophie Okonedo and Kathy Burke) to Aberdeen’s beloved Belmont Cinema which, after closure, is planning to reopen as a community enterprise. Organisations such as Arts Emergency (a mentoring charity for underrepresented young people) and the Music Venues Trust are at the heart of the resistance.

The Labour party’s shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport is Thangam Debonnaire who, before moving into politics, performed professionally for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as a cellist, which prompts hope that the mood music around the arts may improve should Labour win this week’s general election. It is clear that any incoming Labour government will face restrictions in public spending that makes instant splashes of cash unlikely. But external ideas for revitalising the arts sector are plentiful and many of them don’t involve large financial outlays.

Related: ‘A kick in the teeth’: Leeds artists fear loss of spaces is killing cultural scene

Cargill, for example, talks about the destructive logistical impacts of Brexit on both UK bands visiting the EU and bands from abroad touring the UK. Greatorex, meanwhile, calls for tax breaks for independent cultural enterprises. On 11 June, the Music Venues Trust launched a full manifesto for grassroots music which coincides with those launched by the major political parties. Among other measures, it calls for a fan-led review to examine long-term challenges to the music ecosystem and, more directly, a £1 levy on every ticket sold by arena and stadium venues to support grassroots venues and promoters. Other suggestions include the elimination of VAT on grassroots cultural ticketing and the removal of business rates charges from grassroots music venues.

Debonnaire, along with former flautist with the Croydon Youth Philharmonic Orchestra Keir Starmer, has spoken warmly about the role of the arts in Britain’s national life. Given the crisis facing the sector, more than warm words will be required. But the arts will always be about more than simply the bottom line. A reassessment of priorities and values is required, too. Speaking about her cinema but also, making a case for the value of the arts in general, Greatorex speaks of “a place for us to escape into an imaginary space, where people can come together, to enjoy culture, to be lifted out of the day-to-day, or to recognise our own specific experiences as something universal, and to see them given dignity. That is so precious.” Maybe soon, they’ll be recognised as such.