Arts Depot issues press release clarifying its funding arrangements and relationship with Barnet Council

Please note - The below text is from a press release issued today by Arts Depot.  This does not necessarily imply an endorsement of the statements. The full text is available using the link below. 

artsdepot is a leading cultural hub in North London and has been celebrating the arts since 2004. The award-winning venue has its roots firmly in the community, nurturing young talent, and engaging with people through participation and outreach projects, whilst presenting artists from across the globe. With its vibrant programme of performances and exhibitions, artsdepot surprises and thrills audiences of all ages.

A thriving venue, artsdepot welcomes over 100,000 visitors every year, people who come to watch, learn or be inspired. With its stunning architecture, welcoming public spaces and diverse programme, artsdepot creates space for the imagination.

London Borough of Barnet’s funding of artsdepot which amounted to £194,000 per year ceased on 31 March 2011. The grant was equivalent to 35% of artsdepot’s core funding at the time.

Following a prudent organisational restructure with a focus on reducing costs, artsdepot survived this uncertain period and actually showed growth in the forthcoming year. In the period from September 2010 – August 2011, audience capacity stood at 63%, this increased to 68% for the same period in 2011/12. The venue’s popularity continues to rise with audience capacity reaching an astonishing 80% across its autumn 2012 season.

Tracy Cooper, Chief Executive of artsdepot,  was named in the UK’s first ever Power Part Time list (a prestigious list of 50 of the most senior level part time workers in the UK), recognising her role in saving artsdepot from closure following the complete removal of local authority support in 2011. Tracy is also a member of the Mayor of London’s London Cultural Strategy Grou

View artsdepot's Spring/Summer 2013 season guide online here

Clich here for full text of press release - http://issuu.com/artsdepot01/docs/press_release_-_a_new_partnership_between_artsdepo?mode=window&viewMode=singlePage

Barnet Council claim Arts Depot library only costs £34,200

Many thanks to Councillor Robert Rams for drawing our attention to the letter in the Barnet Press from Bill Murphy, assistant director of Customer services. There is an old adage that to be a good liar, you need to have a good memory. If your memory is good enough to stretch back to yesterday, you will have seen a link to the Prime Time BBC show, the One Show. This featured Friern Barnet Peoples Library and there was a quote from Barnet Council that they needed to save a million pounds. Given that the net saving from the closure of Friern Barnet and the opening of the Arts Depot library is less than £90,000 (if you believe the figures are accurate), then it is clear that there are some whoppers being told.

There are quite a dew distortions in this comparison. First there is no way that the Arts Depot Library can be compared with the Friern Library. For a start, it is tiny in comparison. The opening hours are restricted and it has a fraction of the number of books. It has not even got a link to the Barnet Council library system.  It does not serve the needs of the Friern Barnet community and is simply an extension of the Church End Library which is more or less across the road. The staff at Church End are required to cover the shifts at the Arts Depot. It will be interesting to see how their hours are accounted for. 

As it has less books it will be interesting to see what exactly the figures mean. We need to see a full set of accounts for each operation.

I would be most interested to see if any cost for the management overhead involved in the setting up had been taken into account. Would you be surprised if every conceivable costing has been added to the Friern Library number and every possible ruse used to minimise the number in the Arts Depot figure?

To save the taxpayers of Barnet the cost of an FOI, I've tweeted to my friend Councillor Rams to ask him to publish the full budgets on his blog. We shall see what transpires

Cllr Robert Rams ‏@CllrRobertRams

Just to clarify the cost of the new Library in the Arts Depothttp://pic.twitter.com/NnrK8cmm

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nowRog T ‏@Barneteye

@CllrRobertRams Robert thanks for the link I trust you will be publishing a full breakdown of how these budgets were calculated on your blog

Guest Blog : A most bizarre and frightening experience - is Barnet becoming a Privatised Police State?

Guest Blog by TW,

I’ve had the most bizarre experience today when I tried to get to my council’s building in the North London Business Park to join others in protest of my council’s decision to slash the Art Depot core funding.

When I arrived at the NLBP I saw a small protest outside the business park, on the corner of Oakleigh Road, and the gates to the business park were closed for cars coming in, ‘because of a big demonstration’, as I was told by one of the security guards. So I parked in the street and came walking to join the protesters, only to hear that they were not allowed to have the action inside near the council’s building, as was advertised.

Trying to enter the fortress as a pedestrian I was stopped by three other security guards and asked who I was. ‘A resident’, I replied, ‘I’d like to go to the council’s building’. ‘It’s not allowed’, I was told.

‘Why?!’ – Because it is a private property, I was told. ‘But it’s my council’s building in there and I need to get in!’ – Not now, no one is allowed in unless they visit a named person...

Who gave the instruction? ‘The Site Manager’, I was told. ‘You can contact him tomorrow’.

OK. So that’s privatisation for you.

And one that is oh very convenient for the council (who rents the premises) to hide behind, although needless to say the council rents the place in order to carry out its public duties to its residents, i.e. it is a public place.

But also, that’s the face of democracy in Barnet nowadays; when local citizens are not allowed to carry out their civic duty to voice their anger by using the traditionally democratic means of protest.

Or, is Barnet council afraid of us ????!!!!

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TW is a member of the Barnet Alliance for Public Services. She was attending (or not attending) a protest to demonstrate against cuts to the budget for the Arts Depot on Monday. Guest Blogs are always welcome at the Barnet Eye. Send via the email link in the sidebar. You can click the petition to save the arts depot in the sidebar

Twatman strikes again ........ Robert Rams yet again sticks his foot in his mouth

Robert Rams (right) with two friends

Oh the joys of writing a blog in Barnet. What  a rich vein of material we have to mine on a daily basis. It must be awful writing a blog in a Borough run by vaguely competent councillors, who's priority is to do a good job for the people who pay Council Tax.

Today we have yet another pearl of widsom from Councillor Robert Rams, the man voted for in huge numbers by Barnet Eye readers to be a twat, following his statement that libraries could be replaced by people ordering books on line and collecting them from Tescos (from the Hendon Time)

Councillor Robert Rams, cabinet member for customer access and partnerships, said: “We have to bear in mind that Barnet remains part of one of the world’s great cultural capitals and we’re fortunate to have a rich variety of arts provision, much of it free, just half an hour or so away on the Tube. We will obviously continue talks about funding with the artsdepot and we will do all we can to assist them in reaching the levels of funding they need.”

Can mere words describe the stupidity of this pillock. Does it not occur to Twatman that the Arts Depot is supposed to be a Community Arts hub? This means the LOCAL COMMUNITY can use it - you know local groups, school children, disabled people.

Just a suggestion to Councillor Ramsbottom  if you really intend to do everything you can to assist them reach the levels of funding they require, dip into the budget and find it. This could easily be funded by scrapping the allowance rise for Tory party committee chairmen (not the allowance, just the 50% rise from May, a few weeks after you were re-elected) and by scrapping political assistants, who provide no benefit for council tax payers and are their solely to help lazy councillors.

You could also abolish Future Shape/Easycouncil/Onebarnet and free up £10 million reserved to pay consultants and lawyers.

I have one question for Leader of the Council, Lynne Hillan. How complete an idiot do you have to be, before you get the sack from her cabinet?

Here's the full story -
http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/8770699.Stephen_Merchant_joins_fight_to_save_North_Finchley___s_artsdepot/

I put a comment on it, but Councillor Robert Rams complained and had it removed. The comment said :-

Twatman strikes again and contained the quote above. As Robert Rams asked all his friends to vote in the poll on this blog, where he was elected a Twat, it is a shame that he won't abide by the democratic will of the people and accept his title with grace. I suspect that Brian Coleman might get a close run for next years Waddock-Hunt award, assuming Councillor Mark Shooter doesn't take over the Tories in May and consign Rams to oblivion !!! (I hear the rest of the contenders quite like him)

Barnet Eye : Spotlight on Finchley and Finchlinks

There's a new website for anyone interested in Finchley - http://www.finchlinks.com/ - Unlike this site, it's not a blog but a community resource. Theres an interesting suggestion for a West Finchley Conservation area amongst other things, which sounds like a good idea (although I wish Barnet Council would enforce the rules on the existing areas before adding to them). Anyway, it's always good to have information about the locality, so I'll be adding a link in the sidebar. If you are interested in Finchley have a look (I don't suppose they'll be putting a link to me because I upset the bloke who runs it a while back, but thats another matter).

If you are looking for a night out in Finchley, my personal recommendation would be to visit the Phoenix Cinema - one of the few suburban "proper cinemas" left. If you want to eat out there, my favourite restaurant is the Japanese food at Tosa. It's always been great. Sadly Barnets premier rock venue, The Torrington shut down a couple of years ago, but if anyone knows a good gig venue, please post a comment. No mention of Finchley would be complete without mentioning The Arts Depot.  I was highly amused to see a press release from Boris Johnson giving the Arts Depot the thumbs up. Those of us locals with long memories well remember how our local Tory party poured scorn on the place when in opposition. Now they are in charge they think it's marvellous. I am proud that the Lib Dems and Labour administration at the time had the vision to build such a fine resource.

The picture is the cover of the 1967 album by the New Vaudeville band. Sadly this was the most iconic picture of Finchley I could find.