Received from: Prospect
Congress recognises that arts and heritage make a huge contribution to the UK economy, attracting millions of visitors each year as well as playing an invaluable role in education and well-being for everyone.
Congress also recognises that public funding for arts and heritage is too often seen as an easy target for cost-cutting. Successive rounds of austerity at national and local levels have cut funding to the bone, resulting in the loss of key community venues.
Furthermore, for too long world-class arts and heritage have relied on low pay, insecure and precarious work with no opportunities for career progression. For too many people, working in these sectors is becoming unaffordable.
Congress calls for an end to this regime of second class pay. For the UK to continue to be a leading cultural centre, we must safeguard nationally significant institutions and the highly skilled jobs associated with them. We need a new approach to funding for heritage and the arts.
Congress calls on the General Council to:
i. devise a fair and sustainable funding model for arts and heritage
ii. lobby all relevant government bodies for this to be implemented.
Prospect
AMENDMENT
› Insert new sentence at end of paragraph 2:
“This has been echoed by damaging rhetoric about the value of arts education, and drastic funding cuts to arts courses.”
› Remove “and” at end of first bullet and insert new second bullet in “Calls on Congress to” section:
“Reverse cuts to funding for arts education; and”
University and College Union