| Local Authorities Can Do More to Encourage and Assist Adult Learners |
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Michael Taylor, Editor of amateurmusician.co.uk, would like to see more LA's offer music services already extended to children to paying adults.
Regular visitors to this site (God bless you!) will have noticed the addition of a new database for 2007, a database which we hope to develop into as comprehensive a resource as possible for those wanting information on Local Authority Music Service Departments in the UK. The reasons behind such a bold move include: It’s not been done before and we at Amateurmusician like to push the envelope! More importantly, we are confident amateur musicians of all ages, and especially beginners will find much of the  information made available very useful. This point is further supported as it became apparent to us that Local Authorities (LA’s) do not market these services particularly well making this information hard to come by, even on-line.Equally important, we’ve all paid for at least a sizable chunk of the cost of provision for these services through our taxes so we all ought to know what we are getting (or not getting) for our money. Our initial research into the genre revealed a quagmire dogged by years of political upheaval from different parties resulting in huge regional disparities in funding and strategy sometimes between neighbouring authorities. This has led to the often quoted criticism that the provision for Local Authority Music Service in the UK is tantamount to a postcode lottery. So how did it happen? LA's are part of local councils, i.e. borough, county, metropolitan and city, which are responsible for promoting economic, environmental and social well-being of their areas. Within local councils, LA’s are accountable for early years education, schools, adult education and youth services. Between 1950 and 1975 most LA’s (then known as Local Education Authorities) established Music Services as part of their provision for education services. Specific services included instrumental and singing lessons, bands, choirs and orchestras etc. Lessons were provided in schools while group activities were provided outside of school sometimes in dedicated music centres. In 1988 The Education Reform Act redefined Music Services as ‘non-statutory’ thereby relieving LA’s of their obligation to provide such services. In response many delegated funding directly to schools. Over time the non-statutory status of Music Services has made them a soft target for cuts and many are now experiencing financial difficulties. Remarkably some no longer exist. Where are we today? Well, the politics still rage on with the Government under steady pressure to deliver on it’s promises made through the establishment of the Music Standards Fund in 1999 “to protect and expand local authority Music Services” and in 2001 when David Blunkett, then Minister for Education, made the pledge that “over time, every child should have the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument”. In spite of this pressure and the Government’s apparent sympathies, LA’s often continue to offset any additional central funding by reducing their own budgets and the Government seems to want to direct any further central funding wholly to the schools. I bet you’re sorry you asked! It’s most certainly not the intention of this site to pick a fight with the Government either locally or nationally, but, what we do do well is tell you what’s out there a whether it’s any good. And that’s what this new database is all about. Click on any of the LA’s listed, visit their web-sites and you’ll see exactly what’s available to the local community. Now you’ve probably picked up on the fact from this article that Local Authority Music Services concentrate predominately on our kids, often exclusively so. No one can have a problem with teaching kids to make music and there’s enough research around bestowing the benefits of such a policy to sink a battleship. However, what we like to see at amateurmusician is something for the grown-ups. A survey published last summer by the Music Industry Association reported there are 8.5 million lapsed musical instrument players in the UK who would like to start up again. In the same survey a staggering 7 million non-players claimed they would like to take up a musical instrument. With these facts in mind can, or even should Local Authorities do more for adults? Most certainly they can because some of them already do. We’d like to give a special mention to Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire Music Services who all proactively promoted their facilities to adults on their respective sites. Well done guys! However, there are 150 LA’s in England alone and the majority of them either don’t provide or don’t publicise that they provide music services to adults. Most of them have some kind of infrastructure for music education in schools and all of them offer comprehensive adult education resources in a broad range of other subjects so, it wouldn’t take much to bring these two areas together. The political arguments mentioned above are about money. (Aren’t they always?). I don’t believe, save for exceptional cases, funding is the obstacle preventing adults from taking up or indeed returning to a musical instrument. It definitely has more to do with help, advice, motivation and interaction with like minded people. These are things that could easily be provided by a Local Authority for a modest fee. Marketing is also key to making this work. If I want to know where I can take a night class to learn Spanish or where to submit a planning application in it’s really easy to find out. My LA makes sure I know how to do that. How many amateur musicians have even heard of Local Authority Music Services? Finally, many thousands of amateur musicians have children and many of these children will already be benefiting from the system in their county. By embracing the family unit Local Authority Music Services have an opportunity to lay the foundations for generations of musicians. What a legacy that would be. Michael Taylor Editor January 2007 |
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