The impact of austerity measures on local government funding for culture in England

Abstract

In the 2010s, austerity measures had a severe impact on the level of spending on cultural activity. In England, the potential for this was especially great due to the reduction of resources available for local government, the largest funder in this field. Whilst prior work has attempted to establish overall reductions in spending, little attention has been paid to variations in cultural spending across the country in this period of austerity, or which types of cultural services have been cut and why. Here, we compare local authority spending in 2009/10 with 2018/19 to provide further detail on the varied picture that has emerged in this period. Whilst there is indeed a significant reduction in the level of spending on culture in this period, we identify significant variation in local experiences of austerity across England. We also show which types of cultural services are more vulnerable to cuts and explore a range of contextual factors as potential explanations of these patterns.