Embargo: not for publication or broadcast before 09.30 am on Tuesday 24 July
New research has revealed, for the first time, the extent to which Britain's higher education institutions are subsidising the arts in the UK.
The survey, which features in the new report, The UK Cultural Sector: Profile and Policy Issues, published today (24 July) by the Policy Studies Institute, shows that HE institutions spend in excess of £35 million a year on their cultural facilities.
This sum is in addition to - and far exceeds - the £24 million support that the institutions receive from HE funding boards and the Arts and Humanities Research Board's funding to university museums, galleries, collections and libraries. It brings total funding for the HE sector's cultural provision close to £60 million a year: over £30 per student. Moreover, the £35 million does not include all indirect costs, staff time or overheads, which the HE institutions responding to the survey found it difficult to extrapolate from their general costs.
The greatest spend by HE institutions was £14 million on visual arts and collections. Next highest was spending on general arts and cultural promotion, at £12 million. Performing arts received £3.2 million, built heritage £2.2 million, and arts centres just over 1.7 million. £23,000 was spent by HE institutions on sponsorship of arts-related events and facilities.
Only nine institutions gave details of income generated through admissions and catering fees, and these attracted £414,296 against an outlay of £2,315,622 - a return of only 18 per cent. It can be assumed that, in the main, only negligible amounts of income are attracted.
In most cases, HE institutions' cultural facilities exist to support their core educational mission, and to enhance the quality of life for the wider community as well as for staff and students. But calculating the costs of public access to institutions' cultural facilities was extremely difficult. Seventy-three university museums and galleries surveyed registered with the Museums & Galleries Commission were open to the public, yet the Commission had no reliable financial information on them. And, although LISU (the Libraries and Information Statistics Unit at the University of Loughborough) has identified UK universities' annual spend on libraries as £365 million, it does not calculate the cost of extending the use of those libraries beyond the universities' immediate populations.
Sara Selwood, the author of the report, said:
"what really impressed me when I undertook the survey was the sheer range and scale of cultural provisions offered - from museums like the Fitzwilliam at the University of Cambridge and Ashmoleon at the University of Oxford, to the Bridge Gallery at the University of Glamorgan. It's frustrating that we don't have more accurate data about these facilities: particularly on their contribution to the 'public' cultural realm. Many important collections are staffed by academics or volunteers, which cushions some of the direct costs, and most cases indirect costs and overheads are subsumed within their wider institutional expenditure. I would guess that the total contribution to the arts from the HE sector is much higher than even this survey indicates."
Contact: Jo O'Driscoll, Policy Studies Institute, on 020 7468 2269
Notes to Editors:
1. 'Funding from Institutions of Higher Education' by Sara Selwood appears in the report The UK Cultural Sector: Profile and Policy Issues, ISBN 0 85374 789 X, published on 24 July by the Policy Studies Institute. Press copies of the chapter are available from the PSI Press Office on 020 7468 0468.
2. Findings are based on a postal survey to lists of HE institutes provided by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the UK, the Higher Education Funding Councils of England and Wales; and a list of university museums on the Museums & Galleries Commission's DOMUS database. 167 institutions were surveyed, with 127 returns (a 76 per cent return rate). Figures quoted relate to 1998/99 (the last year for which data was available).
3. Sara Selwood, the author of the chapter and the editor of The UK Cultural Sector: Profile and Policy Issues, is Quintin Hogg Research Fellow at the Centre for Communication and Information Studies, University of Westminster. She is editor of PSI's quarterly journal, Cultural Trends, and was an author of Culture as Commodity? The Economics of the arts and built heritage in the UK (PSI, 1996).
4. The research for the chapter was funded by the Monument Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts.
5. PSI is a registered educational charity (no 313819) and has no association with any political party, pressure group or commercial interest. The Institute is an independent subsidiary of the University of Westminster.