{"id":3217,"date":"2019-10-29T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T07:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/?p=3217"},"modified":"2022-03-02T10:24:39","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T10:24:39","slug":"do-northern-ireland-arts-need-a-660-uplift-in-government-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factcheckni.org\/topics\/economy\/do-northern-ireland-arts-need-a-660-uplift-in-government-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Northern Ireland arts need a 660% uplift in government funding?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
On 20 September 2019, Arts Matter Northern Ireland<\/a> — an arts advocacy group of professionals, participants and volunteers from NI — claimed<\/a> in a Facebook post that as a percentage of total government expenditure, public spending on the arts is 2.2% in Europe and 0.1% in Northern Ireland. In addition, Arts Matter NI stated<\/a>: \u201cIf the UK needs 66% uplift to keep pace with Europe, we require 10 times that locally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Arts spend in Europe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The figures for total government expenditure on \u201carts spend\u201d across Europe are for the year 2018 and come from Eurostat<\/a>. The figures quoted by Arts Matter NI represent \u201cRecreation, Culture and Religion\u201d<\/a>, a wide category which includes: \u201crecreational and sporting services; cultural services; broadcasting and publishing services; religious and other community services, R&D related to recreation, culture and religion; recreation; culture and religion\u201d, as defined by the Classification of the Functions of Government (COFOG)<\/a> for international comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the interest of focusing on arts spend alone, it is more appropriate to use the Eurostat subcategory of \u201cCultural Services\u201d<\/a>, which includes: operation or support of facilities for cultural pursuits (libraries, museums, art galleries, theatres, exhibition halls, monuments, historic houses and sites, zoological and botanical gardens, aquaria, arboreta, etc.); production, operation or support of cultural events (concerts, stage and film productions, art shows, etc.); grants, loans or subsidies to support individual artists, writers, designers, composers and others working in the arts or to organizations engaged in promoting cultural activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The table below shows the Eurostat data in 2017 for Cultural Services<\/a>: total (central plus local) government expenditure (Euro, percentage of all government spend) and population and government spend per person:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This claim is inaccurate. UK government expenditure on cultural services (measured by Eurostat) is just over half of the EU average. Within the UK, public expenditure in Northern Ireland is less than half than in Scotland, Wales, and England. However, Arts Matter Northern Ireland uses European statistics that reach beyond the arts, and make an invalid comparison between EU figures and public expenditure arts spend within the UK.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n