Don’t believe the spin, this arts cut is a disaster

Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spending review rounds always work like this: officials choose three figures of increasing severity and ask those they fund to model what would happen should their funding be cut by the corresponding amounts. The organisations duly devote considerable resources to trying to work out what they could cut or stop doing entirely, worrying staff and donors and driving speculation in the press. Then the culture secretary of the day proudly announces that he or she has fought culture’s corner and we all now only have to cut by the lower figure. Cue grateful thanks in public, and private pain as the agreed changes are made.

This is no doubt the same across Whitehall, but in culture and the arts it seems a particularly merry dance. Last week, the Culture Secretary Maria Miller secured cuts of ‘only’ 7 per cent to the overall DCMS budget in 2015/16, and ‘only’ 5 per cent to national museums and galleries.