Sounding a cautious note

It's a funny old world. The Arts Council's Arts Plan 1995-1997 always made for peculiar reading from a musical perspective. One of the major declared strategic objectives was "to strengthen the position of art forms which are currently considered weak" and the section on music confessed that "the Council has never had the funding to make any real impact on the situation as described here". Yet when you turned to the figures for projected expenditure, which envisaged a doubling in council revenues, it turned out that the overall proposed increase for drama (already the most generously-funded area) would, at £2.1 million, exceed the total amount ultimately to be spent on music (£1.8 million).