The arts and cultural sector is facing a multitude of challenges. With COVID and cost of living crisis following hot on the heels of a decade of funding cuts, many organisations have had to strip back their programmes. Some have closed altogether.
In the face of this stark reality, the Conservative party’s 2024 manifesto feels short on solutions. Over 80 pages, “arts” and “culture” are each mentioned only once. This is compared to “heritage”, which is addressed six times.
The Conservatives state that culture and sport lie “at the core of our national and local identities” and pledge to “support our world-leading creative industries”. Yet, arts and culture are squeezed into one short page, alongside sport, media and the nighttime economy.
There are some welcome promises to continue creative sector tax incentives, to support creative IP in the face of artificial intelligence, and to offer apprenticeships in film, TV, gaming and music. But there’s little detail on how these might operate and next to nothing regarding the flailing arts and cultural sector itself.
Analysis of the 2023 Labour Force Survey by the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre reveals stark inequalities. For example, 90% of the cultural workforce is white (compared to 85% across the population) and working-class people are underrepresented in every area of arts and culture. There’s nothing in the manifesto acknowledging the urgent need to diversify cultural workers and audiences.
Although the Conservatives point out that the £1.57 billion support package during the pandemic saved the cultural sector from annihilation, our research at the Centre for Cultural Value shows that it did very little to foster diversity or support the freelancers that the sector relies on. That said, creative freelancers could benefit from the proposed plan to abolish the main rate of National Insurance for self-employed workers.
But, in short, there’s no bold ambition outlined to safeguard, never mind transform, the “world-leading” cultural sector that the Conservatives state is so crucial to our identity and place in the world.
Source: The Conversation