Late last year, the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) released the first UK Arts Index. At that time, access to the full report was confined to NCA members, but the NCA has just made the report available to a general readership.
Compiled with the help of Audiences London and Audiences UK, the index aims to be an annual 'health-check' for the arts in Britain. It uses 20 indicators, including funding, employment, donations and engagement, and finds that the overall health of the sector stayed relatively steady from 2007/08 to 2009/10. Both business and individual contributions fell significantly over that time (by 17% and 13% respectively), but this was offset by increases in Lottery funding programmes.
However, the report also found large and growing gaps between some of the English regions: for instance, giving by individuals varied from an average of £36.36 per person a year in London to just 53p in the East Midlands. At the 'nations' level, Scotland's score fell quite sharply compared to the other three nations.
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