A Systems of Care
How could a system of care look, as opposed to the mitigations of care that are currently in place?
Firstly, a system of care would need to be separately funded from the production grants that artists use to make work with, and from the structural funding that theatres and other performance venues use to maintain their buildings and pay their staff. This funding should be ringfenced and used only to provide care (‘accessbility’) and should not be contingent on other funds. Of course, the amount of funding available would be subject to the normal constraints of funding.
This funding should be available for three main purposes. The first is to improve the infrastructure and staffing that is available in the performance venues (such as a care officer role, improved structural work to the fabric of the building, available tech such as headsets, working relationships with specialists, such as interpreters etc) and this funding should be granted to the venues as part of their yearly budgets in a way that it can only be used for this purpose. The second would be funds provided directly alongside project funding to be used for care provision that goes directly to the artist. The third is to fund the support and structures centrally that allow the allocation of these funds, the support to apply them and use them well, and also the ability to make checks and balances ensuring the funds are not incorrectly diverted.
Perhaps the best way to imagine this fund would be that it was allocated in the first instance as a percentage of other fundings given. I don’t know what this percentage should be, as I am not an expert and a study would need to be done, but let’s imagine right now it could be 10 %, just to keep things easy. It might be more. In practice this would mean that each time a theatre got structural funding, they would then get, as an uplift from a different pot, 10 % of that amount specifically for care. When an artist gets funding for a project, they would get a 10 % uplift specificall to spend on care. It is vital that this is not a subdivision of the existing funding pots!!
I would also imagine that there would be a way of applying for extra grants from the fund when more than 10 % is needed. It may also be that such provision could also be partly paid out of the funding structures that already exist.
I would imagine that a corollary of this would be: certain funding requirements both structurally and project based would remain the same, in that, those artists and houses not investing in care would have unaffected budgets. These artists and houses would, therefore, have ‘new money’ to invest. Those artists and venues already invested in care might therefore put in lower budgets as their care needs would be automatically taken care of, or put in similar budgets with uplifted care to create a new standard and set of possibilities. Houses already invested in care might also be able to invest in new areas now care would not come out of the same budget. Overall, care provision would be mandated across the sector, at least in the form of a minimum provision and expectations. Of course, some people would continue to do better than others, but no one could ignore it.
It would be possible that the funding comes from other pots than the core arts funding, such as EU money.
An important point, when it came to coproductions, each partner would be required to put in 10 % as a care budget, not just the public funder. So the scenario would be:
Public funding to artist — 50 000€
Care uplift 10 % — 5 000€
Coproducer 1 — 30 000€
Care Uplift 10 % 3 000€
Coproducer 2 — 20 000€
Care uplift 10 % — 2 000€
This means that an overall budget of 100,000€ would have a care uplift of 10 %, i.e. 10,000€ even though only 50,000€ came from public funds. This requirement would be necessary to avoid having large projects funded with no guarantee of a 10 % uplift, such as in the above scenario, if only the public funder was obliged to put in the uplift, then the care provision in the project would be underfunded by 50 %.
Over time, the budgets could be assessed independently of overall arts funding. If the majority of people needed more than the 10 % to meet their care needs in projects, and this was still being funded out of the production budgets, this would provide hard proof that the 10 % was insufficient and should be raised.
An additional refinement of this overall idea could be that there was more nuance to the way the funding was allocated rather than a simple 10 %. In a system such as this, the basic rate could be set as 10 % for all productions and venues. A higher amount, such as 15 % or 20 % could be allocated to productions the makers of which have special care requirements or to venues that cater specifically to disabled audiences.
As a further imagination, there could also be a separate system to pay artists such as UBI separate from production funding and from care funding. The three could be separate and safeguarded and independent.
This funding should be available for three main purposes. The first is to improve the infrastructure and staffing that is available in the performance venues (such as a care officer role, improved structural work to the fabric of the building, available tech such as headsets, working relationships with specialists, such as interpreters etc) and this funding should be granted to the venues as part of their yearly budgets in a way that it can only be used for this purpose. The second would be funds provided directly alongside project funding to be used for care provision that goes directly to the artist. The third is to fund the support and structures centrally that allow the allocation of these funds, the support to apply them and use them well, and also the ability to make checks and balances ensuring the funds are not incorrectly diverted.
Perhaps the best way to imagine this fund would be that it was allocated in the first instance as a percentage of other fundings given. I don’t know what this percentage should be, as I am not an expert and a study would need to be done, but let’s imagine right now it could be 10 %, just to keep things easy. It might be more. In practice this would mean that each time a theatre got structural funding, they would then get, as an uplift from a different pot, 10 % of that amount specifically for care. When an artist gets funding for a project, they would get a 10 % uplift specificall to spend on care. It is vital that this is not a subdivision of the existing funding pots!!
I would also imagine that there would be a way of applying for extra grants from the fund when more than 10 % is needed. It may also be that such provision could also be partly paid out of the funding structures that already exist.
I would imagine that a corollary of this would be: certain funding requirements both structurally and project based would remain the same, in that, those artists and houses not investing in care would have unaffected budgets. These artists and houses would, therefore, have ‘new money’ to invest. Those artists and venues already invested in care might therefore put in lower budgets as their care needs would be automatically taken care of, or put in similar budgets with uplifted care to create a new standard and set of possibilities. Houses already invested in care might also be able to invest in new areas now care would not come out of the same budget. Overall, care provision would be mandated across the sector, at least in the form of a minimum provision and expectations. Of course, some people would continue to do better than others, but no one could ignore it.
It would be possible that the funding comes from other pots than the core arts funding, such as EU money.
An important point, when it came to coproductions, each partner would be required to put in 10 % as a care budget, not just the public funder. So the scenario would be:
Public funding to artist — 50 000€
Care uplift 10 % — 5 000€
Coproducer 1 — 30 000€
Care Uplift 10 % 3 000€
Coproducer 2 — 20 000€
Care uplift 10 % — 2 000€
This means that an overall budget of 100,000€ would have a care uplift of 10 %, i.e. 10,000€ even though only 50,000€ came from public funds. This requirement would be necessary to avoid having large projects funded with no guarantee of a 10 % uplift, such as in the above scenario, if only the public funder was obliged to put in the uplift, then the care provision in the project would be underfunded by 50 %.
Over time, the budgets could be assessed independently of overall arts funding. If the majority of people needed more than the 10 % to meet their care needs in projects, and this was still being funded out of the production budgets, this would provide hard proof that the 10 % was insufficient and should be raised.
An additional refinement of this overall idea could be that there was more nuance to the way the funding was allocated rather than a simple 10 %. In a system such as this, the basic rate could be set as 10 % for all productions and venues. A higher amount, such as 15 % or 20 % could be allocated to productions the makers of which have special care requirements or to venues that cater specifically to disabled audiences.
As a further imagination, there could also be a separate system to pay artists such as UBI separate from production funding and from care funding. The three could be separate and safeguarded and independent.