Dear ,

It’s less than 10 days now to the local and European elections.  Time for action…

Currently, on average, local authorities spend 13 cent per person per week on the arts (compared with 98 cent spent by central government).  Our target, and challenge to those in local government, is to invest €1 per person per week on the arts by 2019.  We recognise it’s a huge target and a bold ambition. Read our rationale here.

We’ve prepared a heap of facts and figures in relation to local authority spending on the arts to back up our ask.  Read them here. You might also be interested in this Public Policy App link which gives a breakdown on local arts funding (under Recreation and Amenity and then county).

We’ve prepared an email for you to send to your local election candidates to draw their attention to local authority funding for the arts. The email is available here.  Unfortunately there’s no easy way to access a database of candidates.  Probably the most useful site giving details of the candidates in your area is Adrian Kavanagh’s personal blog.

We’ve also prepared an email for you to send to your European election candidates. Our call in the European elections is for the European Parliament to improve access to the arts for all citizens and safeguard our cultural rights, as enshrined in the International Covenant of Economic Social and Cultural Rights. We want MEPs to

• Fight to place the role of culture, arts and citizenship higher up the Europe 2020 agenda
   
• Publicly support the “Creative Europe” Framework, the EU’s new programme for the cultural and creative sectors 2014-2020.

Some useful EU links:
MEP Candidates and their European Parliamentary Party affiliations 

Profiles of the European Parliamentary Parties

Thanks to all of you who donated following our appeal last week.  So far we have raised nearly €1,500 which is great.  This will support work for about two months. We’re a lean but effective operation! However, to carry us through to the end of the year we’ll need to raise at least another €5000.  Please donate what you can. It all helps.

Best wishes

Valerie Connor
(Chair)