SPENDING on culture in Oxford by the city council is set to be slashed by £312,000 in the coming financial year.

The local authority’s culture budget will fall from £438,000 to £126,000, prompting concerns that less profitable minority groups will struggle to attract funding.

Oxford City Council will still provide a further £274,000 grant from its general funds to 10 cultural organisations, such as Modern Art Oxford and the Oxford Playhouse.

On Thursday it also signed off on a new culture strategy for the next three years and the councillor in charge of culture, Christine Simm, said she hoped the cuts would not have a major impact.

She added that the council would try to find other ways to promote culture, such as partnerships with private companies.


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Ms Simm said: “We will do our best to try and ensure that we will meet our aims.

“We very much work in partnership with others such as our colleagues in Experience Oxfordshire so we are already looking for ways to attract money into culture in the city.

“Oxford is a fantastic city and it attracts huge numbers of tourists every year.

“I would hope that the drop in funding does not lead to less people visiting and I do not believe that it will.”

The council’s executive board has approved a strategy for 2015 to 2018 giving details of how the council hopes to support culture, particularly by getting young people and minority groups involved.

Schemes the council has supported in the past include Dance for Parkinson’s and Cowley Road Carnival.

But Green Party group leader Sam Hollick said he was concerned the cuts would hit minority communities, who traditionally attract less private sector funding.

He said: “We seek to celebrate the minority cultures and minority groups and they will be disproportionately hit by the cuts.

“That is exactly what I am concerned about.

“That is why this funding is important.

“I think it is always better to keep funding from public bodies like the council.

“I think if you leave it to private companies they are more worried about things that bring economic benefits and I think we should be focussing on different cultures that do not necessarily bring an economic benefit.”

East Oxford African drum instructor Francis Boua added: “We do not concentrate on African culture enough.

“We need to promote this sort of thing in our communities.

“In trying to attract more visitors from other parts of the United Kingdom we need to make people aware that Oxford is not just the university.”

The council’s culture budget will fall further, to £122,000, in the 2016/17 financial year.