The Guardian has a very pretty diagram that shows the cuts announced by the Arts Council for England (ACE) on Wednesday, driven by IBM’s Many Eyes data visualisation work. It really is very lovely, with lots of coloured dots of different sizes, like an Ishihara test. What does it tell me? Mostly that I’m not colour-blind: it’s simply showing what 0.5% of current funding is. As it happens, that’s 0.5% across the board on top of the previously-announced 6.9% cut, which is what the current Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) will get for next year (2011/12).
Thing is, the 2011/12 cuts are directly proportional to current funding, so the diagram doesn’t tell us anything other than reflect how much each RFO currently receives. That doesn’t really illuminate anything, or give meaning to the cuts announced. And any art devoid of meaning is merely styling: while this government might applaud the distracting eye-candy of bread and circuses, we really should demand more from our data.
In fairness to The Guardian, this diagram (or more probably the source data) seems to have improved somewhat since I started drafting this yesterday. Nonetheless, I still take issue with some points:
Firstly, as already mentioned, looking at 2011/12 figures does little more than reflect how much each organisation currently receives. Certainly an extra 0.5% cut is going to mean each one of those companies doing a rapid reappraising of budgets for next year. But it illuminates little strategically.
Secondly, by 2014/15 (the other year’s figures used), ACE will be redistributing money that is currently being sidetracked to fund the Olympics, so the longer-term picture will be more rosy than in the run-up to the Olympics. Being an imaginative pessimist, I’m choosing to focus on 2012/13, the first year when the strategic changes kick in. This is when the newly-funded NPOs will start receiving money, and when the totally cut ones lose it all, so is our earliest indication of ACE’s strategic intentions.
Thirdly, it’s interesting to note that this data omits those companies whose funding will be cut totally. In looking at what’s going to change from the current position, I believe we need to include those. Why include a 67% cut (Ludus Dance), but not a 100% one? By omitting those companies that will drop of the radar, we overlook a major aspect of the cuts. That is, I believe it’s wrong to create a gorgeous plot of the companies who’ll still be funded, and separately simply to list the companies who won’t be. Financially, at least, it’s a question of degree, albeit a major one. Let’s also not forget that all these figures focus purely on ACE funding. There’s nothing about other public or private funding sources, not to mention operational revenues such as box office. So we can’t get a real picture of what these cuts mean to any organisation without a broader picture of their overall operating income.
What a total funding cut means culturally is a different matter. To identify these companies as a separate list seems to foreground their disappearance from a central institutional framework, the removal the seal of approval that an ‘Arts Council Funded’ logo on the programme implies, and breaking a connection between those companies and the ones who remain in the fold. While the money is important, I’m a bit ambivalent about this. It’s the subtle difference between “they’re getting no more money” and “they’re not recognised”. So, I want an analysis that includes these companies on a list that shows them as a 100% cut.
Still no pictures? Well, the truth is that in the time it takes for a solo practitioner like myself to source the data, analyse it and present the results, bigger, fully-staffed organisations have been busily updating the sources. The Guardian’s analysis has been improved, and ACE have now published their own data, which I take to be an authoritative source. So the shaky source I was originally using has been superseded.
There’s always a tension between who has the new ideas and who’s big enough to promote them on a large scale. It’s the classic story of so many inventions, and is equally true in arts that fetishises novelty. So, I’m throwing in the towel on getting the earliest, or the prettiest, analysis. I’m going to go away, look at some numbers, do some thinking, then come back with something that I hope adds meaning.
OK then, for now, based on the shaky data (but including those companies totally cut):
Cash change from 2010/11 to 2012/13 by artform and region:
But let’s not forget this is as much a reflection of the size of those companies (i.e. current funding), and regional skews (London receives a lot more, so gets cut much more in cash terms), so let’s see how those cuts pan out as a proportion of current funding:
Change from 2010/11 to 2012/13 as percentage of current (2010/11) funding:
More to follow, based on better data (and possibly prettier plots)...
Thing is, the 2011/12 cuts are directly proportional to current funding, so the diagram doesn’t tell us anything other than reflect how much each RFO currently receives. That doesn’t really illuminate anything, or give meaning to the cuts announced. And any art devoid of meaning is merely styling: while this government might applaud the distracting eye-candy of bread and circuses, we really should demand more from our data.
In fairness to The Guardian, this diagram (or more probably the source data) seems to have improved somewhat since I started drafting this yesterday. Nonetheless, I still take issue with some points:
Firstly, as already mentioned, looking at 2011/12 figures does little more than reflect how much each organisation currently receives. Certainly an extra 0.5% cut is going to mean each one of those companies doing a rapid reappraising of budgets for next year. But it illuminates little strategically.
Secondly, by 2014/15 (the other year’s figures used), ACE will be redistributing money that is currently being sidetracked to fund the Olympics, so the longer-term picture will be more rosy than in the run-up to the Olympics. Being an imaginative pessimist, I’m choosing to focus on 2012/13, the first year when the strategic changes kick in. This is when the newly-funded NPOs will start receiving money, and when the totally cut ones lose it all, so is our earliest indication of ACE’s strategic intentions.
Thirdly, it’s interesting to note that this data omits those companies whose funding will be cut totally. In looking at what’s going to change from the current position, I believe we need to include those. Why include a 67% cut (Ludus Dance), but not a 100% one? By omitting those companies that will drop of the radar, we overlook a major aspect of the cuts. That is, I believe it’s wrong to create a gorgeous plot of the companies who’ll still be funded, and separately simply to list the companies who won’t be. Financially, at least, it’s a question of degree, albeit a major one. Let’s also not forget that all these figures focus purely on ACE funding. There’s nothing about other public or private funding sources, not to mention operational revenues such as box office. So we can’t get a real picture of what these cuts mean to any organisation without a broader picture of their overall operating income.
What a total funding cut means culturally is a different matter. To identify these companies as a separate list seems to foreground their disappearance from a central institutional framework, the removal the seal of approval that an ‘Arts Council Funded’ logo on the programme implies, and breaking a connection between those companies and the ones who remain in the fold. While the money is important, I’m a bit ambivalent about this. It’s the subtle difference between “they’re getting no more money” and “they’re not recognised”. So, I want an analysis that includes these companies on a list that shows them as a 100% cut.
Still no pictures? Well, the truth is that in the time it takes for a solo practitioner like myself to source the data, analyse it and present the results, bigger, fully-staffed organisations have been busily updating the sources. The Guardian’s analysis has been improved, and ACE have now published their own data, which I take to be an authoritative source. So the shaky source I was originally using has been superseded.
There’s always a tension between who has the new ideas and who’s big enough to promote them on a large scale. It’s the classic story of so many inventions, and is equally true in arts that fetishises novelty. So, I’m throwing in the towel on getting the earliest, or the prettiest, analysis. I’m going to go away, look at some numbers, do some thinking, then come back with something that I hope adds meaning.
OK then, for now, based on the shaky data (but including those companies totally cut):
Cash change from 2010/11 to 2012/13 by artform and region:
But let’s not forget this is as much a reflection of the size of those companies (i.e. current funding), and regional skews (London receives a lot more, so gets cut much more in cash terms), so let’s see how those cuts pan out as a proportion of current funding:
Change from 2010/11 to 2012/13 as percentage of current (2010/11) funding:
More to follow, based on better data (and possibly prettier plots)...
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