Britain’s cash-strapped culture dept reveals brutal spending cuts
Britain’s arts industries were today given a chilling foretoken to the tumultuous years ahead as the UK culture department (DCMS) announced plans for extraordinary cuts.
In a package of measures that will send shockwaves across the entertainment sectors, the DCMS announced it would merge, reduce and eliminate many of its 55 public bodies.
The UK Film Council is to be abolished under the plans, with the coalition government now relying on its link with the British Film Institute. The DCMS has told Develop, however, that film tax breaks will remain in place.
The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council will also be scrapped, as will the Advisory Council on Libraries, the
Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites, and the Advisory Committee on National Historic Ships.
The Theatres Trust will be declassified, and the DCMS is considering the roles numerous other groups in the fields of architecture, church conservation, tourism and gambling.
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Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said “many of these bodies were set up a considerable length of time ago, and times and demands have changed.”
The enormity of the cuts taking place could be seen as a bleak wake-up call for Britain’s games industry, which is calling for enhanced state support, and could soon lose the support it gets from the under-fire regional development agencies (RDAs).
Steve Iles, the founder of film and game production group Spirit Entertainment, said the severe cuts were “further proof of how much trouble we are in as a nation”.
“There just isn’t money for a new tax break scheme,” he said.
“It’s a complete waste of time trying to get money from a pot that has no money in it. We need to educate investment businesses and angel investors about the risks of this business,” he added.
“We need to explain how we can de-risk it, and improve relations with the investment community. There’s relatively little interest from Britain’s private sector to invest in videogames”.
The government insists that key functions of the affected groups will be carried over to other public bodies. It adds, however, that it continues to look across its arm’s length bodies and “explore further opportunities to improve accountability and efficiency”.
Tax breaks are not about handing out money but quite the opposite. Indeed, they would have helped de-risk it and would have helped to attract interest from investors.
Spot on Alex, that is a good point. Our government is now beginning to realise that the UK faces a STEM brain drain to Canada and other territories who are strategically investing (and have been for years) in technology. Computer games are a mix of creative and technology, design as well as build. If these 'councils/bodies' add no value, then I am personally all for them being demobbed. I must stress however that I have no idea if they do or they don't, that is not my skills and experience, so I am all for hearing what the film industry have to say, my gut feel is that they do serve an invaluable purpose.
I do know that within the computer games industry we do not have any such councils/bodies/quangos that I can think of. So we are pretty much at Year Zero in that respect. Many parts of the world are after our talent, and they are winning it. The game is being played out in front of our eyes and whether this works for others and we lose, will be down to a mix of affordability, vision and the basic understanding that games can make a significant contribution to GDP. Indeed, once tradition territory based retail's revenues have fallen off significantly as the income becomes more and more online, unless the UK is hosting or serving content, all that lovely VAT soon to be increased to 20% will fall away and HMRC will actually see revenues fall dramatically from the sector, along with film, TV and of course music. Maybe then, when the citadel burns, the sound of silence will be heard all over the UK.
If we are interested in the UK being a creative centre of excellence, not just in computer games, we should all ensure we do everything we can to educate those that govern us to understand that we are in the business of creation which is all abouit building value. Unlike financial services which can somtimes concentrate on destroying businesse for commercial gain (hedging for example), we actually do make things and some of those things are what people actually want.
