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.