From www.thestage.co.uk and related comment from Lyn Gardner on guardian.co.uk

Arts Council England chief executive Alan Davey has warned that the current economic climate could see the industry plunged into a “spiral of decline” if the government does not keep up its investment in the culture sector.

Delivering a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts, Davey called on culture secretary Andy Burnham to show “courage, leadership and principle” in fighting the case for the arts, and urged Whitehall to “be bold and not to retreat”, in order to keep public spending strong and maintain the confidence of private sector funders and audiences.

Davey, former head of culture at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “We know from previous hard times that if standards of aspiration and ambition fall, audiences don’t engage and organisations fall into a spiral of decline, it is then very expensive to escape. We will look to see how, within what we have, we can fund extra ambition.

“My message to politicians – keep up the spending on the arts and do so with confidence and purpose. Include us in any schemes to expand or bring forward public expenditure or to help those engaged in cultural enterprise. Be imaginative, engage with us.”

In his speech, Davey also addressed points raised in Brian McMaster’s report on excellence in the arts, which recommended that the industry moves towards a new investment model based on peer review and self-assessment. The report also advocated that ten of the country’s most innovative companies be given ten-year funding settlements.

Read the full article on The Stage website

Lyn Gardner at Guardian Theatre Blog adds here views here:

An interesting and wide-ranging speech last night at the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) from Alan Davey, chief executive of Arts Council England. There was a lot of talk of “a new era” with promises of new artistic risk, excellence and innovation, and creating work that has “authenticity and integrity”. The kind of guff that always sounds impressive in speeches, but doesn’t actually mean a great deal when you think about afterwards.

But there was some real substance here, too, including a very public throwing down of the gauntlet to Andy Burnham, the secretary of state for culture, to keep the government promise that there will be no further diversion of National Lottery money to contribute to the cost of the Olympics. “Not a penny more can we give,” declared Davey, saying that he knew how the government worked and that pressure would be bought to bear. “Secretary of state, you will have to show courage, leadership and principle and fight for what we do in the arts because in the times we are living in, the arts matter more than ever. There will be pressure to cut, but I’d argue that now is the time to expand.”

You can read the rest of this article at guardian.co.uk