Editorial and comment about the arts and entertainment in Leicester and Leicestershire

7th May 2011

A policy for the arts

Now that the elections are over and we know the composition of Leicester's new political masters, we look at what issues the Labour politicians face as they get to grips with an increasingly difficult economic climate and begin to think about the city's future.

Some people think that this thing called 'The Arts' is just for the well-off, (" ... cultural comforts of the middle classes", Jones). Here at Artsin we take a different view. We define 'The Arts' very broadly. Yes, we do write about plays at CURVE but also about the work of small community groups where artists are working to enrich the lives of people who need help in, for example, recovery from mental illness. We also group 'The Arts' with entertainment, culture and the creative industries.

This broadens out the vision of what the arts and artists contribute to the well-being of Leicester as a whole. In terms of public policy, this makes the goal posts a lot wider.

Art puts money into Leicester

This broadly defined arts sector is particularly important in Leicester. With our wide angle lens on the arts, we see a lot of money coming into Leicester's big venues. People who travel to Leicester to see shows, visit festivals and exhibitions and buy tickets for events, contribute a lot to our local economy. Leicester's vibrant, multi-cultural and very active arts scene contributes much more to the economy of the city than most people realise.

Our city gains financially each year from people coming here to enjoy its wide diversity of cultural activities. Summer Sundae Festival is one example of an arts event that contributes significantly to the local economy and the Comedy Festival is another. The Caribbean Carnival costs a lot to put on but it also brings a large commercial benefit into the city.

In our view, Leicester City Council should support the Carnival but should reduce the charges it imposes on the festival. If direct funding is difficult, then at least the Council should help to cut the festival's costs. There are several other public events, The Mela being one of them, which bring huge numbers of people into the city, each year.

Last year, the Academy Music Group invested over £16 million in Leicester's new O2 Academy. This is now bringing large numbers of people into the city who could not have come here before, because our music venues were too small and out of date. The same holds true for SUB91, The Auditorium and Lock42, our other new music venues. Having large enough venues is a key part of being to attract acts of national importance. Attracting investment should be a vital role for a newly elected Mayor.

Arts in the community needs support

The work of small community groups in supporting and helping people who are recovering from mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness and offending, frequently uses music, drama, writing, spoken word activities and other art forms.

These projects have a strongly preventive impact and their success saves the state huge amounts of money. For every £1 spent on community arts projects, in this sense, there is a long-term saving of between £2 and £10 to the public purse.

These projects make good use of volunteers (many of whom are artists), people who give their time freely to help people overcome their problems. Artists figure prominently in this picture of amplifying well being. Take for example Soft Touch, the social enterprise that works with disadvantaged and disaffected young people. Many lives have been changed for the better through their music and rap programmes. Our feature on the work of community artists in the field of mental health shows what can be done and is being done here in Leicester.

Faced with having to make cuts to public expenditure, what should the Council be spending their money on? At Artsin we say that if there is any money available for the "arts", it should go to the non-profit groups that are most in need - those that would find it extremely difficult to get funding from any other source.

Groups working with people in need cannot sell anything and their 'customers' cannot pay for the services provided to them by the projects. Public or charity funding is really the only way in which their work can be financed. The local authority can amplify the work of these projects by providing resources, such as premises and discounts on the charges it makes to them. If it cannot give substantial funding, it should at least be adding value to the enormously beneficial work that the projects are doing with some of Leicester's most disadvantaged and vulnerable people.

Art benefits a lot of people

The arts, broadly defined, contributes a lot to the social and economic well-being of Leicester but large numbers of people do not see this. When you talk about 'The Arts', a lot of people start thinking about museums and art galleries and 'posh folks going to see high-brow things.' The majority of people who 'consume' the arts in Leicester are not such folks. Art for the people might seem old-hat but it is an idea that has a long track record and is no less valid in twenty-first century Leicester.

Many people benefit from and enjoy the arts in Leicester who are ordinary working folks; the arts in Leicester are not just for the well-heeled. If cuts have to be made, make them where the money can be replaced from other sources. It would be a false economy to cut small venues and projects that would simply disappear because they could not replace that funding.

Many of these small projects and venues provide a valuable service to local communities and have long-term benefits for the people involved in them. Those benefit feed back into the cost to the authority of disadvantage and support required for people in social need.

Big venues don't need support

Bigger venues have bigger capacities to be self-sufficient. There is no valid reason why the De Montfort Hall, for example, should receive any public core funding. The big flag ship venues of Leicester are capable of funding their activities from ticket sales and their own business plans. If they are putting on the kind of shows for which there is a demand, enough revenue will come in to sustain them.

There are plenty of similar venues in this country which are self-sufficient. When money is short there needs to be clear priorities. Public funding should go to projects that need to be sustained, for their community benefit but cannot raise funds from selling their services.

Libraries and Museums are social capital

Libraries, museums and possibly art galleries however are in a different ball park. They fall into the same box as education: everybody wants it but not everyone can afford to pay for it. Art, culture, history and reading enrich people's lives and throughout history have been provided either free or at less than cost because the value of education and culture has been understood.

Cutting libraries and museums is a false economy. Taking away the benefits of these services will cost the state more in the future. Public libraries are gateways for people; they open up opportunities for the future. I would not be here now writing this editorial had it not been for the free public library that was just round the corner from my home, when I was a teenager.

Rebuilding the future after the recession. The Mayoral candidates (at the BBC debate on 15th April) had a lot to say about partnerships between the local authority and business as a way of fostering economic growth. Not one of them (at the BBC hustings) referred to the creative industries as being in the forefront of Leicester's economy. The candidates did however catch up on this issue at the Culture Debate at the Y Theatre (21st April).

A vision for Leicester beyond the recession

If Leicester is to recover from the recession, it is the creative sector that will lead the way. The key partnerships needed for this recovery will be between the flagship, world-class creative businesses that are already based here and the public agencies that support inward investment for new businesses who want to work with them.

We need jobs to re-generate our local economy and it is the new creative businesses that are most likely to create them.

What Leicester will need most of all, to fuel the growth in its economic revival, is reputation; it will need to be known all over Europe as a city of creative enterprise, where the arts and the digital economies are strongly celebrated. Now that is something that I can see a Mayor doing.

We don't need a Mayor to empty the wheelie bins; what we do need is someone whose vision can be seen across Europe. In the 21st century (and some mayoral candidates appear not to have got here yet), Leicester's economy will sink or swim on the strength of its creative sector. Just now the prospects are good with many creative companies frequently achieving national and sometimes world class success.

A strong vision of Leicester's future

The future of Leicester's economy will rely on the powerhouse of our local creative industries, which are already proving that they can become players on either the national or on the world stage. Any elected Mayor would need to have a firm grasp of this vision of Leicester's future economy.

Now that Derry in Northern Ireland has won the UK City of Culture Award for 2013, people are asking why Leicester's name is not on the short-list. According to Charlotte Higgins, writing in the Guardian, when Liverpool was the European Capital of culture in 2008, "£800m was generated for the local economy and 27 per cent more visitors were attracted than in previous years" [New Statesman article].

Leicester is not on that list up to 2014. An elected Mayor might make it his or her priority to secure the recognition that Leicester deserves. Leicester deserves national recognition for its artists, its creative industries and its culture. If we are not given this by the UK Government or by Europe, we should be looking to our new elected Mayor to achieve it for us. Above all we need to elect someone with a strong sense of purpose who is driven by a clear vision.

We now have a Mayor and a Council with a strong Labour Majority. Artsin welcomes this, provided that they have a clear and convincing vision of what our city can and should achieve. We would wish to see "The Arts", broadly defined, as being part of what vision.

We endorse what Peter Soulsby said during his acceptance speech, that Leicester is sometimes " ... lacking in self confidence". We recognise this but we know that Peter Soulsby is not lacking in self confidence when it comes to speaking out for his city and promoting its rich talents to the rest of the world.

Other pages you might like

Our feature on Creative Industries

Leicester's Cultural Quarter

Business for the arts