The consultation deadline has now passed, and we would like to thank all the campaign supporters for their time and effort in this first stage of the Protect Music Education campaign.

By 4pm yesterday, 1,769 people had visited the campaign website, and since Sunday 1 June 2014, 19,885 people had viewed the ‘respond to the consultation’ webpage.

695+ people had copied the Protect Music Education Campaign Team into their email to the Department for Education’s funding team, and we expect the actual number of responses to be far, far higher given the tens of thousands on views on the consultation website.

None of this would have been possible without your support.

More than 120 organisations from across the music education and industry sector joined you in spreading the word about the reasons behind protecting music education.

These included music industry leaders such as PRS for Music and Yamaha, orchestras such as the Liverpool Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra, and education organisations such as ABRSM, Trinity Guildhalland the UK’s Conservatoires and Universities.

Comments of support came from leading performing musicians such as Dame Felicity Lott, Julian Lloyd Webber, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, Nicola Benedetti MBE, Tasmin Little OBE and Alison Balsom.

The campaign has received coverage in BBC, The Times, the Guardian,Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, LBC and numerous music sector publications including MIPro, Classical Music Magazine and Music Teacher Magazine along with numerous others.

Thank you once again.

David Sulkin, Executive Director, Help Musicians UK said: 'For years now funding for music education has lurched from crisis to crisis.  There have been glimpses of hope, for example the outstanding initiative, Music Manifesto - an inspiring vision to empower specialist and generalist teachers to work together to encourage the widest possible access to music in schools. The wings of Music Manifesto were clipped as the bird emerged from its nest.  Sing Up, another motivating initiative to give all children access to the basics of music-making, has been privatised.  We only have one last chance to make the case for music education for all.  We must not miss it.  All musicians and those who believe in its power, shout now!'

Alison Balsom, trumpeter, said: ‘In its very own, excellent National Plan for Music Education, the Government states that they will continue to fund music education at significant levels during difficult economic times and they say that this funding “will also supplement and draw-in local and national funding for music.” How then, can it make any sense, that they propose local authorities cut their support for music education at this critical time. If funding for music education is ceased, then an entire wealth of invaluable musical experiences for young children will be lost. The same experiences that have enriched many lives, as well as my own. This is something we can ill afford to lose and I encourage everyone to respond to the consultation.’

_ The recent survey undertaken by charity, Music for All (MfA) reveals the importance people place on the provision of music lessons and opportunities in schools. Over 90% of respondents believed it was ‘very or quite important’ that the Government continues to financially support this. It is clear they recognise the countless benefits music brings to a child’s creativity, intellectual development and social skills such as listening and teamwork.

Music education within schools clearly has the support of the wider UK population with over 75% of people who ‘completely and mostly agreed’ that music brings people together, playing a musical instrument provides a sense of personal accomplishment and that they’d be proud of their children playing.

The survey also proves conclusively that not only are more people than ever playing musical instruments, but more would like to learn. It shows that 28% of the UK population now plays a musical instrument compared to 21% in 2005. The most popular instruments played are guitars (by 42% of instrument players), pianos & keyboards (by 40%) and woodwind (by 25%). Some 67% of guitar players are male whilst 56% of piano/keyboard players and 62% of woodwind players are female.

Significantly, the numbers who have never played and would like to learn has risen dramatically to 14.6 million people. The number of lapsed players who would like to return to playing essentially remained the same, however a remarkable 58% of these were found to be women. It is encouraging that over 40% of those who had never played completely agreed that you are never too old to learn to play.

This research adds weight to the current Protect Music Education Campaign, which is seeking to protect music education funding beyond 2015, and stop local authority cuts to music services.

For more information, visit http://www.musicforall.org.uk or contact paulmc@mia.org.uk

Government funding for music education to be slashed, unless we all respond…

It's not often that we take a political stance here at MusicTech but we do believe that musical education of all sorts is important, almost a basic right as far as any schooling goes. Yet according to the organisation Protect Music Education, the Department Of Education has launched a consultation that recommends that local authorities stop funding music services, saying that there are other sources of funding available. In the document the Department explains that this funding could come from 'music education hubs and from school budgets' but what it fails to explain, according to PME, is why these hubs have already had their funding slashed from £82.5m to £58m in 2014/15.

True to most consultations these days, there is a response procedure available which we would urge anyone who agrees to take part in. It's very easy with templates already set-up and email addresses supplied. If you do respond, please include the email below.

You can also join the campaign as an individual or organisation. If you are an individual, all you need to do is sign up on the sign up page. If you represent an organisation, just send a quote and logo to protectmusiceducation@ism.org who will put it on-line.

By Nigel M Taylor, Chair, The UK Association for Music Education – Music Mark supporter of Protect Music Education

When the coalition government’s National Plan for Music Education (NPME) was first published in November 2011 it was welcomed for its demonstration of strong political support for the importance of music education and the continuing need for ring-fenced money to underpin key area provision and opportunities that schools alone could not deliver.

A key initiative in the plan was the development of music education hubs, to take forward the work of local authority music services. Partnership would be at their core - bringing together a range of organisations to work together with schools to provide the best music education for children and young people.

The Department for Education’s Music Education Hub Grant (MEH) is the successor to the previous government’s Standards Fund Grant. It is distributed through the Arts Council to 123 new music education hubs, almost all of which are led by music services.

Some hubs serve two or more local authority areas (and have two or more music services in their partnership). The hubs have core roles prescribed in the NPME including the provision of high quality instrumental and vocal teaching in and out of schools and the huge range of bands, choirs and orchestras for children and young people.

As with previous government funding for music, the MEH was only ever intended to be an underpinning, a proportion, of the overall funding needed. In 2013 the grant accounted for 34% of the £187m spent nationally by music education hubs. The rest of the funding continued to come from other sources – schools’ budgets (31%) parents’ contributions (17%) other grant aid or income streams (10%) and in some cases grants from the Local Authority (8%).

The MEH has been cut in four successive years: from over £80m in 2011-2012 down to £60m in 2014-2015 (although only £58m actually reaches the hubs themselves). Whilst the new music education hubs had known about most of these cuts since the plan and the indicative budgets were first published in 2012, it hasn’t been easy to deal with them, especially with the colossal bureaucracy demanded in accounting for the diminishing grant and funding formulas that seem to have changed mid-stream producing some additional surprise cuts for some hubs.

Worryingly, it isn’t only the MEH that has been cut. Huge downward pressures on schools’ budgets and a significant decline in parents’ disposable incomes in the last four years have added to the financial strain for music education. Together they have already precipitated a withering of the infrastructure in some schools and markedly in some music services, a number of which have been forced to displace teaching staff and/or significantly reduce their terms and conditions of employment in their efforts to balance the books.

The number of children and young people who are able to learn to play a musical instrument will be reduced as a consequence.

Schools continue to be hallmarked by turbulence, with constitutional, curriculum, examination and budget upheaval and an Ofsted inspection regime that places scant, if any, value on music education in its Section 5 school inspection framework. Though it strongly criticised schools and music hubs for not doing enough in music education in its latest subject report “Music in Schools: What Hubs Must Do”.

Schools and music education hubs must indeed do more and the new School Music Education Plans currently being written by hubs and schools could play a very important part in driving standards. But others must do more too.

For all the NPME is lauded to be important by the government, and by Ofsted, neither appear to have a willingness to write to schools to let them know just how important they think it is. Whilst it wouldn’t solve any of the issues, one letter would go some way to raising the profile with key decision makers.

But now appears yet another potential blow for some music services, specifically those that benefit from financial support from Local Authorities. (The range of Local Authority financial support for music services varies widely from 0% to almost 52% of their budgets - an average of nearly 8% nationally. The total amount spent by those Local Authorities that do provide financial support is over £14m per year.)

The Department for Education’s recent consultation document, “Savings to Education Services Grant for 2015-2016”, contains a raft of “proposals” for consultation on what Local Authorities should and shouldn’t do with this similarly declining grant, though it already seems to have made up its mind about LA support for music services.

“As schools have greater autonomy over how they spend their money and in delivering the curriculum, we believe there is a limited role for local authorities in providing these [music] services…. Our expectation is that music services should now be funded through music education hubs (which can cover one or more local authority areas) and from school budgets, not from the ESG.”

Does this “expectation” assume that schools and hubs in those areas affected by this proposal will pick up the £14m budget hole that will appear? Does the “expectation” confuse what is understood about schools’ curriculum responsibility? Does the “expectation” assume that schools are funded fairly and equitably in all local authority areas?

As an aside, the proposal seems to fly in the face of the government’s own policy, in the Communities and Local Government Department, which trumpets that it is "giving local authorities more control over how they spend public money in their area". How does the “expectation” support more control in local decision making?

This £14m cut for some, on top of the £20m cut experienced by almost all music services in the last three years (whether or not they are the lead partners in music education hubs) and the continuing economic and financial gloom that schools and parents are grappling with, will significantly raise further the risk to many children and young people’s music education in the coming months and years.

There are fine words written at the beginning of the National Plan for Music Education, and even quotations from Aristotle and Plato.

But actions speak louder than words. On top of the downward-spiraling financial position for most music services, this latest policy proposal by government will undermine the basic viability of some music services to deliver high quality teaching and learning. It sends an extremely negative message to the whole sector about the value of music education in general, and the value of local decision making in particular.

The UK Association for Music Education – Music Mark stands squarely with all its music service members and on behalf of them asks the Department for Education to:

1. Halt this latest policy proposal which will be very damaging for those music services most affected
2. Confirm that there will be a MEH in 2015-2016 (the consultation document seems to suggest that there will be, which, after months of speculation, of itself would come as welcome news).
3. Agree the financial value of the MEH at better levels (at least an additional £14m would go part way to address the serious challenges being faced by music services because of successive cuts to the MEH, the huge strain on schools’ budgets, parents’ incomes and now the cuts identified in this proposal) 
4. Decide the distribution mechanism for the MEH; the huge financial costs and time expended on the bureaucracy of distributing, monitoring and accounting for the MEH need slimming down to release more resources
   
5. Write to all schools and music education hubs to exhort them to work together to improve children and young people’s music education and accelerate the progress of the National Plan for Music Education  
   
6. Require Ofsted to raise the profile for music education in its Section 5 school inspections framework and require all of its inspectors to take more seriously music of itself, and the role it can play in school improvement
   

My colleagues in music services want our children and young people to have the best music education possible and they aim to provide it, deliver it and support it through music education hubs in and out of schools. There are outstanding examples of brilliant work; some of it with children and young people in the most challenging of circumstances. There is a lot more still to do to spread this best practice and to make the improvements that we all want to see.

The National Plan for Music Education is an eight year plan: 2012-2020. It is but twenty months into its operation across England. Music services are right at the heart of the Plan – its viability and its delivery. If some are caused to fail because of the serious financial challenges they face, and from all sides, far fewer children will be able to learn a music instrument and/or sing, hubs may implode and the NPME will be damaged.

Music, of itself, is vital for children and young people. The large canon of research literature also demonstrates the vast range of its personal, social and educational benefits. 

It’s not just about the money. It’s about what is valued in a civilised society, and just as much about fighting for children and young people’s entitlement to a good music education in a civilised society.

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, and life to everything… Without music, life would be an error.”

• Music services under threat from cuts proposed in a Government consultation
• In a recent survey most music services asked receive some funding from their local authority.
• Protect Music Education urges teachers, head teachers, parents, governors, pupils, musicians and the music industry to respond to Department for Education’s consultation which proposes that local authorities stop funding music services.
• Consultation response pack launched, including key polling figures, quotes from famous musicians and survey data.
  
  

The Department for Education recently launched a consultation saying that music services should be funded only by national and school funding. This would result in a cut of millions of pounds to music services. The proposed ending of such funding seriously risks the successful delivery of the Government’s visionary National Plan for Music Education.

A survey of 55 music hubs found that a majority received funding or funding ‘in-kind’ from their local authority. Even where this is not part of the Education Services Grant (Government Consultation) the funding could be put at risk.

By tampering with the delicate ecology of music education there could be unintended consequences such as undermining progression routes from school through to both university and conservatoire and an adverse impact on the creation of the next generation of musicians. With the music industry being worth over £3.5billion to the British economy, we simply cannot take this risk.

The British public have also shown their concern for the future of music education through a series of polls conducted by YouGov and the ISM:

• 85% of adults back Michael Gove’s statement, taken from the foreword of the National Plan for Music that ‘Music education must not become the preserve of those children whose families can afford to pay for music tuition.’*
• 74% of British adults who expressed an opinion think that the loss of music education opportunities, as a subject at school and as an extra-curricular activity will negatively impact the UK.
• 66% of those who expressed an opinion agreed that schools cannot provide music education alone; they need the support of a wider local music structure.
  
  

Now with the consultation deadline of 19 June 2014 drawing closer, it is time to respond to the consultation.

John Smith, General Secretary of the Musicians Union said:

Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the ISM, said:

For more information about the campaign, including a video message, visitwww.protectmusiceducation.org. 

Editor’s notes

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc.  Total sample size was 2,246 GB adults (aged 18+). Fieldwork was undertaken between 7 - 8 May 2014.  The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).

In the foreword to the National Plan for Music Education in England, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education and Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries said:

About Protect Music Education

The Protect Music Education campaign has been stepped up in response to a consultation document published by the Department for Education recommending that local authorities cut their funding for music services.

The campaign is supported by thousands of individuals, and over 75 key industry organisations assisting with the campaign, including the professional body for musicians, the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ism.org), the Musicians Union, orchestras London Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, organisations Royal Philharmonic Society, ABO, Music Publishers Association, Music Education UK and Orchestras Live, in the field of education Conservatoires UK, Trinity College London, UCan Play and several music services and hubs from across England.

Full list of supporters.

In the second of four videos filmed at the ISM annual conference, this year held at Birmingham Conservatoire, Chair of Sistema England and cellist Julian Lloyd Webber voices his concerns regarding the Department for Education proposing that local authorities stop funding their music services. 

At a recent conference, attendees came forward to volunteer their opinions on the value of music education, to share what music education has meant for them and to also send a message to the Government.

New poll shows public backing for access to music lessonsThe need to protect music education in the UK has been reinforced by the results of the latest ISM/YouGov polling.

The poll comes as the Department for Education proposes that local authorities stop funding music services. The ending of this funding, which is worth millions of pounds, would seriously put at risk the successful delivery of the Government’s visionary National Plan for Music Education.

The ISM/YouGov poll shows that – of those expressing an opinion – 85% of British adults back Michael Gove’s statement, taken from the foreword of the National Plan for Music, that ‘Music education must not become the preserve of those children whose families can afford to pay for music tuition.’*

Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the ISM, welcomed the results, saying:

The Protect Music Education campaign, supported by musicians Julian Lloyd Webber, Nicola Benedetti MBE, Dame Felicity Lott and Tasmin Little OBE, was stepped up in April 2014 following the publication of a consultation from the DfE where it was proposed that local authorities save money by ceasing funding for music services (and visual and performing arts services) in the UK.

*The statement was amended by YouGov for the needs of the survey and read ‘Music education must not become only available to children whose families can afford to pay for music tuition.’