Richard Exell
In a letter today to the Daily Telegraph, 55 established and up and coming actors protest at the closure of the UK Film Council. The actors – including Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Timothy Spall, Sir Ian Holm and Sophie Okonedo – say they “owe any success we have had in our acting careers, to varying degrees, to films supported by the UK Film Council.”
Philip Pearson
The Government’s information agency, the Central Office for Information will shed 40% of its staff in cuts announced today. Staff numbers will be reduced from 737 to 450, cutting deeply into the COI’s £44m core staff costs.
Nicola Smith
Nursery World reports that the Government’s childcare affordability pilots are being cut, and will be ending in September. These pilots included a ‘100% offer‘ of subsidised childcare to 500 unemployed parents from low income households in five London boroughs, and a subsidised childcare offer to parents of disabled children or children with special educational needs.
Nicola Smith
The Department for Education has reportedly told local authorities to freeze spending on new playgrounds, as it will be cutting £65 million from the Playbuilder budget next month. This will mean 1,400 new playgrounds will cancelled nationally.
Richard Exell
Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport has announced the abolition of the UK Film Council, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Advisory Council on Libraries and the Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites. UK Sport and Sport England are to be merged, as are the National Lottery Commission and Gambling Commission.
Richard Exell
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has floated the possibility of a cut in the licence fee – and thus in funding for the BBC. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Mr. Hunt said that “there are huge numbers of things that need to be changed at the BBC” and “they need to demonstrate the very constrained financial situation we are now in.”
Richard Exell
Directors of major cultural organisations have written to the Prime Minister to say that cuts could threaten “irreparable damage”. Led by the Arts Council England, the letter was signed by the Directors of the Tate, the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Serpentine Gallery, Sadlers Wells theatre and the South Bank Centre.
Richard Exell
Today the Arts Council revealed how it will cope with the £19 million cut in its funding announced last month by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Alice Hood
The future of the major British Film Institute project on London’s Southbank is threatened by the withdrawal of £45 million of government funding, as Richard wrote yesterday. As architect’s journal BD reports, the international competition for the design of the centre was launched earlier this year, and a great deal of work has already been done on the project.
Richard Exell
Two of the cuts announced today seem especially mean-spirited: funding for the Stonehenge Visitor Centre and the British Film Institute Film Centre and digital access project.
