ABSTRACT

In the 2010s, austerity measures had a severe impact on the level of spending on cultural activity. In England, the potential for this was especially great due to the reduction of resources available for local government, the largest funder in this field. Whilst prior work has attempted to establish overall reductions in spending, little attention has been paid to variations in cultural spending across the country in this period of austerity, or which types of cultural services have been cut and why. Here, we compare local authority spending in 2009/10 with 2018/19 to provide further detail on the varied picture that has emerged in this period. Whilst there is indeed a significant reduction in the level of spending on culture in this period, we identify significant variation in local experiences of austerity across England. We also show which types of cultural services are more vulnerable to cuts and explore a range of contextual factors as potential explanations of these patterns.

摘要

在 2010 年代，紧缩措施对文化活动的支出水平产生了严重影响。在英格兰，由于当地政府（该领域最大的资助者）可用资源的减少，这方面的潜力尤其巨大。虽然先前的工作试图建立总体在支出减少的情况下，人们很少关注在这一紧缩时期全国文化支出的变化，或者削减了哪些类型的文化服务以及原因。在这里，我们比较了 2009/10 年和 2018/19 年的地方政府支出，以提供有关这一时期出现的各种情况的进一步细节。虽然这一时期的文化支出水平确实显着下降，但我们发现英格兰各地的地方紧缩经历存在显着差异。我们还展示了哪些类型的文化服务更容易受到削减，并探索了一系列背景因素作为这些模式的潜在解释。