WHEN LABOUR PARTY supporters elected Jeremy Corbyn as their Leader, many were looking forward to an era of fairer funding – with money being allocated according to need.
They are going to have to wait a while in London. Although Labour is technically in office, London Mayor Sadiq Khan is chucking bucket loads of cash at London boroughs – on a Thatcher-style competitive system.
The Khan approach is currently being applied to a £3.5 million spend of London taxpayers’ money on culture. That funding could go quite a long way across deprived London boroughs. We could all have a few bursaries to send poor kids to performing arts schools; we could fund music lessons in schools – and we could fund arts activities in summer play schemes.
Instead, the Khan approach begins with a compulsory waste of money. London boroughs will have to spend vital officer time writing up bids to become “London Borough of Culture” – and all but two of them will fail.
Yes, 20 London boroughs are paying one or more officers to write a bid that is bound to be a complete waste of time and money. So strapped for cash are the capital’s councils that most of them are going along with the competition in a desperate attempt to get the money.
If they joined forces and told Sadiq that none of them were bidding and they wanted the money shared round fairly, the London Councils would have the strength to render his system inoperable. If they came together and demanded that Khan re-distribute London’s cash in line with factors such as, for example, the number of pupils entitled to free school dinners, then we could get a glimpse of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialism in action.
Sadly, Councils are so used to Tory-style competition for funding they are happy just to go with the flow. The days when Mayor Lutfur Rahman showed how a Council could be seen sticking up for local people – “If the Tories are going to take Education Maintenance Allowance away, I’m going to bring it back” – are gone.
Apparently the lucky two boroughs which will be named “London Borough of Culture” will be named at a “special ceremony” (how much is that costing us?) at City Hall on 27th February. The two winners will have to share £3.5 million, and half the extra £1 million Sadiq is throwing in at the last minute.
A total of £250k of the extra money will go to each winning borough to spend on projects that “get more young people from different backgrounds involved in culture”. Which young people have a background devoid of culture? Does he mean they are going to share their cultures? Or that, whatever their background, they have to get involved in one culture – in which case, which one?
The balance of the extra money will fund a new Mayoral creative entrepreneurs programme, supporting “the next generation of culture leaders by investing in young people in the two winning boroughs”. You couldn’t make it up.
Setting up the new divisive method of distributing funds was apparently something Sadiq Khan promised to do in his election manifesto. However, the allocating of funds in this grandiose manner leaves them ultimately unaccountable. When a block grant is given to a Council, that body’s elected representatives can be held to account. When Sadiq Khan announces he will fund projects to create “culture leaders”, it is he who sets the priorities. This was the Blair way of doing things – hand me downs, from the top down, to compliant consumers.
Sadiq Khan said, “I’m delighted to be able to allocate an extra £1million of funding for cultural projects aiming to unlock young Londoners’ creative potential and inspire the next generation of artists, performers and creative talent.” He did not point out that he was only unlocking the talent in two boroughs.
He wasn’t the only one to comment. Nii Sackey, a member of the Mayor’s Cultural Leadership Board, welcomed the awards too. Who elected him? Who scrutinises the Mayor’s Cultural Leadership Board and its decisions? Sackey is the CEO of Bigga Fish – a company that encourages businesses to donate towards community events for young people and encourages young people to volunteer.
Hilary S. Carty, Director of the Clore Leadership Programme (which “invests” in turning young people into leaders) also welcomed Khan’s scheme. They are probably both well meaning people, but they are not elected.
Siphoning public funds into non-accountable companies full of unelected pen-pushers who devise how those funds are spent is a Thatcherite way of organising the economy. The excitement young people showed when Corbyn spoke about fairness in funding suggested they do not embrace it.
•Read more about it: Sadiq Khan talks safety with motorcycle industry Fish Island bridges: Biggs anti, Sadiq unmoved
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