In the forthcoming edition of nca news, Arts council England’s Chief Executive, Alan Davey has agreed to answer questions from NCA members.

Arts & Business (A&B) have launched The Big Arts Give in partnership with the Reed Foundation and The Big Give.

A proposed code of practice which implements legislative measures aimed at reducing online copyright infringement was published by Ofcom this week, as part of its new duties under the Digital Economy Act 2010 (the Act).

The summer edition of nca news will be published in July. This edition will look at the impact of the arts in health, wellbeing, criminal justice and other policy areas.

NESTA launch of Cultural Innovation report; Drama & Theatre Manifesto Tactics and Action Group; launch of Pushkin Festival at the Russian Embassy; presentation to UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity.

On 25 May the Queen officially opened Parliament delivering a speech outlining the Government’s legislative agenda for the year. The speech had three key themes: Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility and no fewer than 24 bills to be debated and enacted during the coming Parliamentary session.

On 24 May, the Coalition Government announced a £6.2 billion package of cuts to Government spending for the current financial year as a first step towards reducing the UK’s £156 billon budget deficit. The promise from the Coalition was that the savings would be taken out of budgets without affecting the quality of key frontline services.

Following the rather gloomy news from the Treasury we can, perhaps take some small comfort from two recently announced consultations which may pave the way for new avenues of funding for the sector.

Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive of Creative Scotland, the organisation set to take over the reins of Scotland’s cultural stewardship from the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, has announced that he wants to see Scotland in the top 10 ‘cultural nations’ within five years.

Cultural Learning Alliance; NCA Board; VAGA; BAFA; NCA ‘New Politics’ seminars in London, Bristol and Edinburgh.

The NCA attended the new Secretary of State’s inaugural speech to the arts community, themed ‘Arts and Philanthropy’, at the Roundhouse on Wednesday, 19 May. Accompanied by his Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey and Jesse Norman, the new Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire (whose father, Torquil, was the driving force behind the Roundhouse’s restoration), Jeremy Hunt outlined his central tenets on the arts.

On Thursday 20 May, the Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition Government published the full text of the agreement that forms their programme for Government.

We’d like to make an apology to our members and to those who have visited our website over the last few weeks. The NCA’s website has become the focus for a number of attacks from hackers over the past month. This has resulted in long periods when the site has been inaccessible or only partially available. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and assure you that our web team is working to secure the site from future attacks.

The NCA Director was invited to make a presentation to the European Theatre Convention on “Protecting and promoting the arts: Contributions to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in society”. 

European Theatre Convention; Jeremy Hunt’s inaugural keynote speech at the Roundhouse; NCA ‘New Politics’ seminars in Manchester and London; ACE Learning and Skills team; Audiences UK; Drama and Theatre for Young People Tactics and Action Group.

It would seem there is no getting away from the ‘New Politics’ of cooperation and coalition. Given that the political sands have seismically shifted, the NCA will be holding seminar sessions up and down the country looking at the election results, the subsequent coalition government, what this means for the arts and how to effectively campaign and lobby in this new political environment.

In March, the BBC Trust published a proposed strategy for the BBC, inviting views from the public and industry on the future direction for the Corporation.

It won’t have escaped your notice that the UK has its first coalition Government since the Second World War. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats thrashed out a joint programme for Government and their formal coalition agreement gives them a healthy working majority in the House of Commons. So now we have Conservative and Lib Dem MPs sitting side by side on the Green Benches and around the Cabinet table.

It was a night quite unlike any other. Supporters of all political parties are mourning the losses of colleagues and celebrating surprising victories. The political kaleidoscope is still very much in flux and we await results in a number of seats around the country. So, what do we know? The only certainty is, whoever the remaining undeclared constituencies return, no single party will have enough MPs to form a majority Government. Britain has, for the first time since 1974, a Hung Parliament. The next few days, and possibly weeks will see the political parties talking to each other in order to work out how the UK is to be governed.  

Two weeks ago, the NCA launched its Cultural Workforce Survey in order to gather data from everyone who works in the cultural sector, including CEOs, Chairs, Board Members/Trustees, Employers, Employees, Freelancers, Interns and Volunteers. With this data, we hope to create a snapshot of what the cultural workforce looks like today and find out how people really feel about the work that they do.