There's Art in Barnet - Sadly Barnet Council don't get it

Back in April, I posted a blog titled Barnet Labour doesn't know what art is!

In this blog, I criticised the Labour adminstration for wasting taxpayers money on rather poor videos promoting Art in Barnet. Ihad two issues with these. The first was that the videos made almost no mention of the art and culture that we actually have in Barnet. I referred to this video, which I was really disappointed with, which I felt did nothing to promote the rich culture that we actually have.

I was even more critical of this video, which seemed to confuse art and sport. I am a big fan of sports and people gitting involved. However, this has nothing to do with art and it is clear that Barnet councildo not understand the basic concept of art is.

I vowed to do two things. The first was to find how much Barnet Council had actually spent on these substandard and rather patronising videos. Today I got my answer in the form of a Freedom of Information request. 

The council holds the information requested and it is attached/ the answers to your questions are below Please can you provide details of the cost to Barnet Council of the "There's Art in Barnet" you tube video that was released on Youtube on 19th March

The cost of filming and production of the suite of nine videos that were produced for the ‘There’s Art in Barnet’ campaign was £4,405.50.

The nine videos cost just a smidgen under £500 each. Although this is not a massive amount to pay for videos, it is a huge amount to play for something that is complete rubbish. I always wonder how the council can be so bad at such things. This blog started as a result of Barnet Council putting a BNP activist on their Youtube channel complaing about Jewish people in the borough. I've yet to see anything on there that warrants spending anything on it. 

For a bit of fun, I spent an three hours having a look at Art in Barnet and filming it. I then spent two hours editing the footage. I'd probably have charged the Council around £250 to make this if they'd asked me (£50 an hour for my time and I'd have used a proper camera rather than my mobile phone). 

I love the Borough and I love our culture. The council are welcome to use this video to promote art in the Borough, should they wish. You tell me. Is it better? I'd like to think you know bit more about art in Barnet as a result of my video, rather than the Barnet one. 

I am all for making videos promoting Art in Barnet, but I'd have preferred the council to set up a little competition, with small cash prizes for content providers and the opportunity to have their project showcased by the Council. What do you think?