| “May Be Forced to Cut Jobs and Programming” |
Arts Policy Report |
| Creu Cymru , Public Culture of Wales , January 14, 2025 |
The year started sombrely. Two reports were issued, one from the Culture Committee in the Senedd and one from Creu Cymru. That from Creu Cymru was the superior: tauter, more cogent, more coherent. Creu Cymru termed it “a Sector Snapshot.” It described its 22 pages and 7900 words as “a collation of the shared experience and challenges facing the Creu Cymru membership in times of financial hardship.” The content included: “The sector has seen a 25% decline in core government funding since 2010, with Arts Council of Wales making challenging decisions around the dissemination of funds. “This in turn has created heavier reliance and significant pressure on National Lottery Funding and the potential income provided by Trusts and Foundations. “The performing arts relies on an ecology of symbiotic creative organisational, independent, freelance and community networks. Reduced funding directly correlates with reduced artistic output, employment and resources, placing unsustainable pressure on sector staff and limiting capacity across the board to support new projects, community and creative collaborations and freelance employment opportunities.” “Lowered organisational headcounts are increasing pressure on the remaining workforce, impacting levels of job satisfaction and heightening insecurity.” “Wales is fast-moving towards a crisis in relation to its ageing arts and theatre building stock. Theatres and arts venues are facing vastly increased operational costs, particularly related to energy, insurance and maintenance.” “Older buildings, many of which are culturally significant and grade 2 listed are environmentally harmful in terms of energy use and demand high insurance premiums that drain already limited budgets. All need urgent investment to remain safe and functional for their communities and audiences.” “Financial constraints are pushing some venues to limit opening hours, rely on volunteers, or defer maintenance, impacting both service delivery and audience experience.” “The impact of reduced funding on the creative ecology – specifically production capacity and increased technical costs – is leading to reduced available product, and fewer home-grown productions. This further limits opportunities for Welsh talent and increasingly raises concerns about the viability of touring in Wales.” “Members express frustration over the lack of coordinated advocacy and data to clearly communicate the sector's value and needs. Many organisations struggle to capture and demonstrate their impact due to limited resources and systemic support.” “There needs to be a shared, coordinated approach between grass-roots, organisational and government level to develop robust, shared understanding of the ecology, mechanisms and value of the sector to develop a plan to protect it from deepening crisis.” “...an increasing shift to short-term or self-employed contracts within organisational teams, with many core staff holding second or multiple other jobs. While short-term, flexible or zero hours contracts have always played their part in the cultural workforce (namely performers and backstage creatives) it was noted that this extension into arts administration and management was having a destabilising impact on the infrastructure needed to support the sector’s creative production.” “These shifts are having a direct impact on organisational cultures. Core staff teams are becoming thinner and less robust, with remaining reduced staff and leadership holding the burden of responsibility and pressure, with increased workload. This feels both un-strategic and unsustainable, and fails to model the systemic change needed across the sector to embed more inclusive practices and better working environments.” “Many members voiced concerns about the disparity of leadership across the sector. Securing the experience and talent in creative and executive leadership is difficult. Specialisms relating to audiences, people management and the organisational change needed to navigate this challenging socio-economic landscape, particularly outside the city regions, were seen as increasingly thin on the ground.” “A common view emerged regarding a ‘squeezed middle’ layer of management in organisations, linked to a wider pattern of roles considered as embodying key transferable skills (notably audience development and marketing, producing and technical production) leaving the sector for opportunities elsewhere.” “Artistic directors noted a historic lack of sector investment in the role of the producer and a joined up producing strategy, leaving Wales with a considerable gap in expertise in this area...the sector has large gaps in skills and experience, with a cohort of junior staff coming through with not enough people to develop them.” “Many of those we talked to spoke of morale being intrinsically linked to value. There can be no doubt that the uncertainty and volatility the sector is experiencing is having a damaging effect on morale across the workforce." "The main assertion is that the consistent de-valuing of arts and culture through cuts to public funding, and the absence of obvious advocacy at a public and political level is perpetuating lower levels of job satisfaction and increased levels of exhaustion and burnout.” “Years of lack of investment in the public estate means that, like our hospitals and schools, arts and cultural buildings in Wales are reaching their own crunch point. Venue managers are making tough but necessary decisions on a daily basis, prioritising health and safety over artistic or customer experience.” “One of the key issues voiced across the membership is the shortage of artistic touring product - particularly quality Wales-produced work. A lack of producing and touring strategy correlating with limited opportunities for Wales’ independent theatre makers to create work of scale has been a concern for some time.” “But now, continued cuts to funding; matched by increased costs in materials; technical production; artists and creative team fees; travel and accommodation for cast and crew, are deepening the problem further. The number of high-quality professional theatre productions created in both producing theatres and available to tour across Wales is shrinking.” The material for the report came from: • Aberystwyth Arts Centre (University Venue) • Arad Goch (Producing Company) • August 012 (Producing Company / Independent) • Blackwood Miners Institute (Local Authority Venue) • Carmarthenshire Theatres (Local Authority Venues) • Dirty Protest (Producing Company / Independent) • Lighthouse Theatre (Producing Company) • National Dance Company Wales (National Producing Dance Company / Venue) • Newbridge Memo (Venue / Independent Theatre Trust) • Pontardawe Arts Centre (Local Authority Venue) • Pontio (University Venue) • Riverfront Theatre (Local Authority Venue) • Sherman Theatre (Producing House / Venue) • Taking Flight Theatre Company (Producing Theatre Company) • Taliesin Arts Centre (University Venue) • Theatr Clywd (Producing House / Venue) • Theatr Colwyn (Local Authority Venue) • Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru (National Producing Theatre Company) • Theatr Iolo (Producing Theatre Company) • Theatr na NÓg (Producing Theatre Company) • Torch Theatre (Producing House / Venue) • Venue Cymru (Local Authority Venue) • Wales Millennium Centre (National Arts Centre) * * * * A subsequent news feature appeared in “the Stage” on 13th January. It was headed “Welsh theatres warn of closures and job cuts without ‘immediate’ intervention. The sub-headline read: “Theatr Clwyd and Theatr Na nÓg say they may be forced to cut jobs and programming.” The article included: “Theatr Na nÓg’s general manager, Rachel Fryer revealed that the Neath-based producing company was cutting the performance weeks this year for its annual autumn schools production, from its usual 10-11 to a mere six." “Nearly 70% of the company’s annual expenditure in 2024 was on cast, crew and creative fees, including their subsistence and travel costs, Fryer explained. “The only way to make savings is either to employ fewer people or reduce performance weeks,” she said. “We can’t cut the cast and crew beyond what they are already, otherwise you’re putting massive pressure on those we’re employing or the core staff – there are only five of us, so we’re quite limited with how much we can take on. So we’ve had to reduce the number of weeks this year.” “Theatr Clwyd has also been forced to drop its number of productions to eight this year, compared with 12-14 in 2019." “Theatr Clwyd executive director Liam Evans-Ford said Creu Cymru’s research laid bare a “desperate” position for theatre in Wales, contending that its findings were symptoms of a root problem: lack of government funding." “We’re talking about venues closing, about products not being delivered on stages, about communities not getting the offers that they ought to and about staff, both core and freelance, being really run down,” he told The Stage. “None of it is in a good place." “The Welsh government has a huge gap between its narrative and its action. It talks about the benefits [of culture] but it doesn’t realise that those benefits could be even greater if they had investment – and we’re talking about minimal levels of investment when it comes to government budgets.” “This hand-to-mouth funding – both the levels of funding and the periods of time for decision-making, with the Arts Council and arts organisations only ever really finding out year-on-year how much they’re getting, is really hard. It’s unsustainable. We need to change it.” “Sherman Theatre’s artistic director Joe Murphy told The Stage that the past year had been a "game of two halves". The artists we’ve worked with are absolutely incredible, we’re telling more local stories with a global resonance and our audience figures are reaching the highest levels they’ve ever been - in terms of volume, diversity and the distances they travel to see our work." "However, the fight to maintain all of that is costing so much on a human level. Our extraordinary staff and artists are having to work over capacity to be able to deliver it all, and that’s not sustainable." "For me, that’s what this research lays bare; yes, we can achieve a lot on a shoestring and we are hugely grateful for the funding we receive from Arts Council of Wales and other funders, but we can’t go on like this." Sources for reading the original reports in full: https://creucymru.com/sites/default/files/2025-01/Creu%20Cymru%20Sector%20Snapshot%20Research%20December%202024_0.pdf https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/welsh-theatres-warn-of-closures-and-job-cuts-without-immediate-intervention A guide to the sequence on arts reports can be read in the first link below. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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