Budget Crisis at Barnet Council - The council panics and cancels the launch of the culture strategy

 Yesterday, we reported that the wheels have come off the bus on the Barnet Council financial wagon. Today, we see the first tangible sign. Having spent over two years working on a cultural strategy for Barnet, engaging external consultants at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds and who knows how much of officers time in developing it, I saw this today

Culture Strategy launch postponed

 

Following our invitation to the launch of Barnet Council’s new culture strategy on 8 October, we are writing to let you know we have decided to delay the launch until next spring.

 

Like all London boroughs, Barnet is facing an increasing and pressing demand for services we have a legal duty to provide, such as Adult Social Care and Temporary Accommodation, while the council’s budget has reduced in real terms by over 50% since 2010.

 

Following early monitoring of our 2024/25 budget, we are now projecting an overspend of around 5% of our general budget (around £20m).

 

Over the summer, we have been working on actions to bring in-year spend back within budget and to review what changes we may need to make to next year’s budget.

 

For this year, we have just announced that we will be applying rigorous spending controls on all non-essential discretionary spend and the signing of any contracts.

 

Given the current climate, we think it prudent to postpone our event. This means we will also be postponing the announcement of our culture fund and our There’s Art in Barnet campaign until next spring. Although this may be disappointing news, it does give us the opportunity to plan an even bigger and better event for autumn next year, with the potential to showcase all the brilliant cultural activity taking place in Barnet and to bring in external sponsorship. We will also provide an update then on our Cultural Impact Award from the GLA.

 

We will keep you informed as this work progresses and we remain fully committed to working with you to deliver on our new culture strategy for Barnet.

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This is not a surprise to me or anyone who has read the blog. In August 2023, I reported on my concerns with the way the whole process was being managed. This whole mess truly upsets and sickens me. For the money that was spent on consultants, Barnet Council could have staged half a dozen large music festivals on the scale of East Barnet Festival. I wouldn't have advocated that, but it is an illustration of what could be done. In that blog, I detailed what I thought the role of the council should be, I stated

The role of the council

The role of the council in all would be multifaceted.  Much of this would simply to be to help signpost these activities. It would be good to see small amounts of easily obtainable seed money for hyper local projects to be made available. I’d like to see this work in two ways. Grants should be available where there is a good case and the opportunity to work with local financial institutions to guarantee small loans where there is a strong business case. This will mean lower interest rates should be available. Of course, financial diligence is a key to this. Some benefits will be tangible. If artists paint murals that result in a decrease in requirements to paint over graffiti, this would have a financial benefit as well as delivering a more pleasant environment. Local councillors will have a key role to play. They should be engaged with local groups and be aware of where the most need is. They should be driving the case for resources for culture in their ward. There should be a degree of equity in resource allocation, but also a bias towards where the greatest need is. This does not mean splashing huge sums on deprived wards to the detriment of relatively better off wards. It means ensuring that there is proper, easily accessible provision for everyone in the Borough of Barnet and an effort to ensure that any cash the council does spend is use on projects that would not happen otherwise and can deliver a measurable improvement in cultural provision

Sadly, the council had more grand ideas. My view was that the first thing to do was seed local schemes and get people into the mindset that local people could organise their own events and the council would be as supportive as possible. There are plenty of examples of this happening. Local festivals, such as the Mill Hill Music Festival are run by local residents with no council support at all. Many more such events could easily be kicked off, with tiny grants / loans to help with upfront costs.  What Barnet really needs is proper venues run by people whop know what they are doing, be it music venues, theatres or art galleries. The theatres and music venues in London are run by commercial ventures. The history of the Dome/02 is a classic example of how much better commercial companies are at organising venues. Barnet should be working with such companies and helping them through the planning etc. The Borough actually has many venues that could be made use of. Middlesex University, Saracens, St Judes and Golders Green Hippodrome are all good examples of opportunities. As for grassroots venues, the council needs a policy to get pubs, church halls etc, to stage events and work with third parties. 

One of the suggestions I made was that the council should set up a database of facilities, which could signpost people to the resources available in the Borough. Often things like getting chairs or advice on insurance for events is the biggest problem for small organisations with no track record. 

But here we are, hundreds of thousands spent and nothing to show for it. If the council had worked to drum up commercial support for events, then they might have found themselves able to deliver. There are plenty of big companies in the Borough that might be responsive to supporting local initiatives. 

The sad truth is that this is a mess and one that was totally avoidable. Having a proper cultural strategy is not a nice to have. It makes people's lives better, resulting in better social cohesion, less vandalism and greater civic pride. It takes time to develop, but if people feel that they are part of a society, they are less likely to trash it. Music brings £5 million to the UK economy. It is an area the UK leads the world in, but once again, Barnet has failed to deliver a strategy to make participation more inclusive. I run Londons oldest and best respected independent music rehearsal studios. I see a thousand musicians a week, most of whom live outside Barnet pass through the doors. I spent a month in 2022 drafting a strategy document, that I did for free for them. The council totally ignored it. It often seems to me that any cultural activity that occurs in Barnet is in spite of the council. Sadly, my apocalyptic prediction for this strategy has been shown to be 100% accurate. I said they'd waste hundreds of thousands of pounds and deliver nothing. 

Perhaps the ultimate irony is that I wasn't planning to write this blog, before I was informed of this decision. I had a task in my calendar to do some planning work for the 2025 Mill Hill Music Festival., but having seen the press release, I felt I had to comment.

Here's a video of my band, the False Dots, performing at The Adam and Eve Pub for the 2023 Mill Hill Music Festival. Proof that despite the failure of the council, local people still keep culture alive in the Borough.

The #SaveLondonMusic Campaign calls for urgent action from the Mayor of London to protect our night time economy

There are few sectors that have suffered more than live music in London. It is not just venues closing their doors with no notice that is an issue. The staff that earned their livelihoods working in the music sector, especially freelancers, have had no income for the best part of eighteen months.

Many have had to take other jobs just to pay bills. Without skilled staff, it is impossible for venues to function. There were many venues that were just about surviving in London prior to Covid. It seemed to many of us that live music had turned the corner, venues were busier than they had been for many years, but for many businesses there were huge challenges. These have only become more difficult.

The policies of Mayor of London has not been helpful to the live music industry. Whilst we understand the need for policies to address poor air quality, few musicians working grassroots venues are well off. They need to shift large amounts of equipment. Public transport is not a realsitic option for many. Many have old vans or estate cars, often with diesel engines, that are non compliant with the legislation. The ULEZ means these attract huge charges. As musicians often have to arrive early for soundchecks and can’t get out until the show is over and the club is cleared, they can find that they need to pay two days ULEZ simply to do a gig. The Mayor needs to, as a matter of urgency, update his culture strategy so it can properly respond to the challenges facing the night-time economy, the live music scene and the creative sector in general in the aftermath of the pandemic.

For musicians who have had zero income from music for the last eighteen months, this means that playing is not viable. They have no cash in the bank to buy newer compliant vehicles. No one comes to London for its beaches or its sunshine. People come to see our music and theatre shows. A policy that makes this unviable is not a policy that will work for London.

There are a myriad of other problems for performers at grassroots venues. Parking is another huge issue. When you need to unload amps, drumkits, etc you need to park close to the venue. I’ve done this a thousand times and know just how difficult it can be in central London. It has never been a concern of the powers that be. They have just taken it for granted that musicians will take it on the chin. Covid has changed all of this. As musicians have been forced to find other jobs, many working in completely different sectors, they will think long and hard about returning to a business where they simply cannot make a living.

If the Mayor of London is serious about seeing London get back on its feet, he needs to take the issue of getting musicians back into London and getting clubs and pubs back to pulling in the punters with live music.

If we are going to address these issues as a City, we need the Mayor of London to lead the charge. There are so many issues to address and such a diverse collection of live music venues and people working in them, that no one size fits all policy will address all of the issues. Venues in outer London boroughs face a completely different set of issues to the ones in the West End and City. For many there is an opportunity as people may be reluctant to take public transport into town. As a Londoner living in a suburb (Barnet), this is a mixed blessing. I’d love to see more music on my doorstep, but if we lose our music scene in the West End, that will be the end of London as a major music hub. No one should want that.

What the Mayor needs to do is commission an audit of London venues. This should be done with the express purpose of identifying which venues have survived, which can be reopened, what are the challenges facing the venues and how these can be addressed and miigated. We need an emergency fund to support venues and a fund to assist musicians get ULEZ compliant vehicles. A buy back scheme for non compliant diesel vehicles owned by musicians, with assistance for leasing or finance for new vehices would be a good step towards addressing the issues raised by ULEZ.

This is not simply asking for a handout. Every band playing in Central London at grassroots venues generates anywhere between 75 and 1,000 tube and bus fares for the Mayor. Often TFL will make more money from a show than the musician performing. Many of these punters will have meals in West End Restaurants, meet for drinks in pubs and bars before and after shows and spend money in shops on the way.

We need this benefit to be quantified. The Mayor has a major challenge with TFL finances. It is very much in his interest to understand how live music can help him fix the hole in his budget. Of course he could just sit back and let the live music sector try and muddle through. This would be nothing short of criminal negligence of a part of the economy that has generated billions for UK PLC.

Although the Mayor of London is the primary player in this, as the night time economy falls under his powers, national government, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the culture secretary Oliver Dowden need to put aside their differences with the Mayor and work to put London back on its feet. The same is true of our regional cities who have their own issues.

Any audit should be based on identifying practical solutions to the problems faced by the live music sector. These can only be properly identified by talking to venue owners, promoters, musicians, crew and ancillary staff. It should also encompass music studios, support companies (equipment hire etc). These are all part of the pot that makes the London music scene tick.

We formally invite the London Mayor, Amy Lame (the London nightlife Tsar), The London Assembly, our London Boroughs and our London MPs to support this process as a matter of urgency. The Save London Music Campaign will be writing to all of these to get this process in motion. We call on all the industry organisations to back this. We also encourage our friends in the other regions of the UK to do the same with their local Mayors and authorities. We simply cannot afford to wait. This needs to be kick started today.

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This blog was originally posted on the Save London Music website