Current funding for music education hubs (MEH) from the Department for Education (DfE), via Arts Council England (ACE), is £75m a year, so £300m over 4 years. This is not the only funding for music education hubs, it only represents about 38% of their income.
Not all of that goes into instrumental tuition (the hubs have other tasks and roles, too).
The total funding for MEHs has risen 3.5% since 2012, meaning a cut in real terms, due to inflation.
While DfE has increased their funding to £75m a year, local authority funding for MEHs has more than halved since 2012 from £14.3m to a mere £5.5m in 2016/7.
The next highest (and more slowly, but still declining) proportion of MEH income comes from school contributions, at 30%.
But this contribution, to our mind, is also under serious threat. Schools are struggling with budgets and in secondary schools, now burdened with the Ebacc success measure which does not include any of the arts, we have seen a devaluation of music as a subject.
It also means that hubs are not only having to do the work of connecting with schools and providing a service, but they have to ‘sell it’ to schools first, and schools are free not to engage with or take up the hubs’ offer. Consequently, not all schools or all pupils will have access to any of the hubs’ services, including even that basic minimum one term whole class ensemble teaching on one instrument.
The third highest proportion of hub income (rapidly rising 17% every year since 2012) comes from parents, to the tune now of £33m or 18% of MEHs total income.
