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Theatre Subsidy - It's Peanuts!Dateline: 16th May, 2004Last week we reported that the arts are worth £2.6bn to the economy: this week we learn that government expenditure on the arts comprises less than one half of one percent of total government expenditure. This figure includes all art forms, including film, and spending on museums and galleries, but does not include money from the National Lottery nor spending on education or the built heritage. It does, however, include arts spending by local government. According to the Treasury, the Government final consumption expenditure for 2001/2 was £306,391m, so the actual spending on the arts across all four nations was 0.37% (£15,382m). These figures deal with spending on all the arts, whereas the £2.6bn comes only from theatre. Here are a few facts from the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport):
Manufacturing industry, says the DTI (Department for Trade and Industry):
Obviously the creative industries do not match manufacturing in their importance to the economy - although they provide more than half the number of jobs provided by manufacturing - but they are not by any means insignificant. It is surely time to get rid of, once and for all, the gross calumny that the arts are just the playground of a monied minority with no signifance outside of a small group of the population. Those of us who work in theatre and those who form its audience know the benefits to the individual and to society that a healthy theatre brings. All too often others dismiss these claims as being "airy-fairy" and incapable of measurement: now we have hard economic facts, so we can stop being defensive and argue the case for theatre subsidy in what detractors are pleased to call "the real world". Articles Indices:
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