Britain's Tate museum calls on government for funding "contract"

Duncan Holden of the Tate poses with four paintings of Edvard Munch's ''Weeping Woman'' series at the Tate Modern in London's Southbank, June 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Andrew Winning

By Paul Casciato

LONDON | Thu Sep 19, 2013 3:29pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding "contract" with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture.

The Tate - which comprises four main museums, 70,000 works of art and includes the most visited gallery of modern art in the world - said it required the commitment to provide clarity for its long-term financing plans.

Tate Trustees Chairman John Browne told reporters the Tate's "grant-in-aid" from the government was cut by 3.5 percent again this year, part of a steady reduction in funding for the arts across Europe in an age of austerity brought on by the 2008 global crash in financial markets.

"Our ability to rely on public funds is only going to decrease, which means the link between art grants and the public services we provide will need to be redefined," Browne said at the Tate's annual meeting.

The museum group received 31.5 million pounds ($50.60 million) of government funding money in 2012-13 and took in 56.4 million pounds from what it called "self-generated income" from its commercial activities, according to its annual report. It spent 40.7 million pounds on public programming.

Browne said a clear contractual arrangement with the government would help to unlock long-term and sustainable philanthropic sources of funding.

POWER STATION

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said there had been a "good settlement for the arts" in the latest spending review and new measures to provide easier access to finance.

"These include greater freedom for museums to spend reserves as they see fit, the flexibility to opt out of government procurement controls, and the power to take loans from their sponsoring department. Together, this forms a fantastic new package for these institutions," a spokesman said.

The Tate, which receives donations and sponsorship from major corporations and wealthy people as well as everyday donations from its nearly 8 million visitors, has two major projects already under way.

Its towering modern art gallery on the banks of the Thames in a converted power station across from London's St. Paul's Cathedral is in the midst of putting up a new £215 million building, while its Tate Britain, also in the capital, is nearing the end of a 45 million pound transformation.

The Tate also unveiled some of its exhibitions for the coming year and the latest part of a digital strategy to put art into the public space over the Internet.

The Tate Modern will track the latter part of French artist Henri Matisse's career (1869-1954). British artist and a founding figure of pop art Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) will get a retrospective.

Turner Prize winner Richard Deacon will display 40 works of sculpture and drawings at the Tate Britain, which will also have a themed show on ruins and ruination in British art from the 17th century to the present day

Tate Modern has also installed interactive screens that invite visitors to draw, take pictures and write about art, which are projected onto a wall in the gallery, on screens in a stairwell, sent to social media site Flickr and saved. ($1 = 0.6226 British pounds)

(Additional reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Government embarrassed after UK net migration because too few emigrate

Net migration is the difference between numbers entering and leaving Britain23,000 fewer people than expected have stayed in the UK at end of 2012
176,000 migrants entered UK in the year to December 2012, up from 153,000

By Martin Robinson

PUBLISHED: 14:26 GMT, 29 August 2013 | UPDATED: 15:21 GMT, 29 August 2013

The Government's attempt to slash net migration has suffered a serious setback today after official figures revealed the first increase in more than a year because too few people left Britain.

Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron want to reduce the difference between those leaving and entering the UK from non-EU countries to less than 100,000 before 2015.

But the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed a net flow of 176,000 migrants came to the UK in the year to December 2012, up from 153,000 in the year to September 2012, ending five consecutive quarters of decline.

Picture of Britain: Net migration is up after more people entered Britain than left, official figures revealed

The ONS also revealed the number of children born in the UK to Romanian mothers has reached a record high as the country became one of the top 10 places of origin for foreign-born mothers for the first time.

The figures come amid growing concern that Britain will face a new wave of eastern European immigration when access restrictions to the UK labour market for Romania and Bulgaria are lifted on January 1 next year.

Chris Bryant MP, Labour's shadow immigration minister, said: 'The Prime Minister promised 'no ifs and no buts' to get net migration down to the tens of thousands by the end of the Parliament.

'But these figures show an increase in immigration over the last three months, with more EU migrants arriving.'

Allowed to visit: This graph shows the number of visas issued to people from the main world regions

The increase was driven by a drop in the number of migrants leaving Britain, which fell from 351,000 to 321,000, while the number of immigrants arriving in the country also fell from 566,000 to 497,000.

There has been a 'statistically significant' decrease in the net migration of citizens from outside the European Union (EU) to 157,000 in the year ending December 2012 from 204,000 the previous year, the ONS said.

Disappointment: A Tory pledge to reduce migration has faltered because figures show the over number has risen slightly as fewer British and EU citizens emigrated from the country

This was driven by a drop in immigration of non-EU citizens, particularly in the number of citizens of New Commonwealth countries, which includes African countries such as Botswana, Kenya and Malawi and Indian subcontinent countries such as Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

The drop in New Commonwealth citizens immigrating to the UK - from 151,000 in the year ending December 2011 to 97,000 in the year ending December 2012 - is as a result of fewer people arriving to study in the UK from those countries.

Sarah Mulley, associate director at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said: 'Today's statistics suggest the Government is running out of options to meet its target to reduce net migration to less than 100,000 by 2015.

'Recent declines have been driven in large part by falling numbers of international students, which has come at a high economic cost, but this trend now appears to be levelling off.

'The Government cannot further reduce student numbers without imposing even more significant costs on the education sector and the UK economy.'

Dr Scott Blinder, acting director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: 'This is a mixed outcome for the Government in its plans to cut net migration to the 'tens of thousands'.

'On the one hand net migration is still down on 2011, but the recent increase shows that this downward trend is not reliably consistent and still depends partly on emigration of British citizens.'

A total of 58,000 immigrants arrived from countries which joined the EU in 2004, including Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, down from 77,000 the previous year.

The number of immigrants arriving for study in the UK is now similar to the estimated number of people arriving to the UK for work, the ONS said.

Around 180,000 immigrants arrived in the UK for formal study in the year to December 2012, compared to 232,000 the previous year.

Why they came: The majority of people coming into Britain were here for work or to study, statistics show

Elsewhere, the ONS revealed, in 2012, one in eight or 12.4% of the resident population of the UK were born abroad, compared to one in 11 or 8.9% in 2004.

And in the same period, one in 13 or 7.8% of the resident population of the UK had non-British nationality, compared to one in 20 or 5% in 2004.

India was the most common non-UK country of birth in 2012, with 729,000 residents of the UK born in India, while

Polish was the most common non-British nationality in 2012, with 700,000 residents of the UK having Polish nationality.

And in another pack of data, the ONS revealed a quarter of births - 25.9% - in 2012 were to mothers born outside the UK which was a slight increase from 25.5% in 2011.

Poland remains the most common country of birth for non-UK born mothers in 2012, while Romania moved into the top 10 most common countries of birth for non-UK born mothers in 2012, replacing China.

Pakistan remains the most common country of birth for non-UK born fathers in 2012.

Immigration minister Mark Harper said: 'Immigration from outside the EU is now at its lowest level for 14 years.

'At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of sponsored student visa applications for our world-class universities, and an increase in the number of visas issued to skilled workers.

'We are committed to bringing net migration down from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands

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