Back the arts by bringing the curtain down on gimmicks

The idea behind the announcement was simple: get more young people to go to the theatre by enticing them in with a complementary ticket and then hope that they will come back of their own accord.

It's a tried and tested marketing ploy that's worked well for companies and organisations over the years. However, there's one crucial difference. Promoting engagement in the arts is not the same as selling a new product or service; it's harder and needs to be properly managed and funded.

Yet the most basic of calculations reveals that the policy was hugely under-resourced. The Government offer of 2.5m for one million tickets meant theatres were to be given just 2.50 towards the cost of each ticket and the cost of advertising and administering the scheme.

With the real cost of theatre tickets considerably higher than that, it was hardly surprising that many theatre managers were less than enthusiastic about the scheme and within three months the pledge was downsized to 600,000.

Worse was to come. The Arts Council has just revealed that 10 months into the scheme fewer than 120,000 "free tickets" had been used. So not only is the Government a long way off providing the number of tickets they promised but, even worse, demand for those tickets is worryingly low.

Nor has the scheme been well implemented. After all, it was intended to attract new theatregoers, not just give cheap tickets to existing regulars. Yet little has been done to ensure that the tickets go to people who are disengaged, rather than just being snapped up by canny theatre-lovers. Surely the money should have been funnelled through existing organisations which work with less well off and disengaged young people.

And there's a further problem. Many young people can't benefit from the free theatre tickets offer because their local theatre was not involved, or they do not have a local theatre. Indeed, cultural provision is far from uniform across the country. We should be seeking to secure a more equal distribution of arts funding to

the regions and cities outside

of London.

Meanwhile, there is much that could be done with any available resources to ensure greater engagement by young people in the arts and culture. That's why the Liberal Democrats would free up the national curriculum to provide more space for creative learning and give more training to teachers in providing opportunities for children to use their imaginations. We would also allow the Arts Council to be able to fund new and sometimes risky projects which break the mould of existing cultural provision – it is only by enabling a truly diverse range of art forms to flourish that more people will become engaged and inspired.

Instead of chasing headlines with eye-catching announcements, the Government could have put greater resources into youth theatre groups that are struggling because of the recession and diversions of funding to pay for the Olympics. They could have done something to improve drama provision in schools.

With the public finances under increasing pressure, the emphasis must be on making the very best use of taxpayers' money; we need smarter funding not headline funding.

But we should be under no illusion. We cannot afford to use the argument of the financial crisis to justify reducing arts funding. Culture and creativity are a source of inspiration and innovation; they play an important role in driving regeneration, community cohesion, diversion from crime, educational attainment as well

as enjoyment.

Public subsidy of the arts and culture provides good value for money. For every 1 the Arts Council puts in, 2 is brought in from elsewhere. And involvement in arts and culture feed in to developing our cultural industries.

We have the largest creative sector relative to GDP in the world. It contributes more than 60bn to our economy and, if properly supported, could be more important to our economic future than the financial services industry.

With so much at stake, we need more than gimmicks. After all, the Government schemes for free bus travel for the elderly sounded good but left local councils with huge extra bills. The same happened with so-called free swimming. And now the free theatre ticket scheme has floundered.

The arts are a central part of civic and community life. The Liberal Democrats believe that a Britain in which creativity is allowed to flourish is a fairer Britain. It is the responsibility of the Government to ensure this through public funding and investment; through education and by giving people from all backgrounds the opportunity to participate in a cultural environment free from excessive government interference. Ill-thought-out, headline grabbing gimmicks simply won't do.