Tim Plyming, director of digital arts and media at Nesta, comments on arts funding in the Spending Review:

"The Chancellor has acknowledged the value of the arts to the UK economy - our theatres and museums attract visitors from around the world and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

"But the sector should not rest on its laurels - we still need to think creatively about how the sector accesses finance. We need to make public money work harder, through efficiencies that come out of collaboration and the sharing of resources, and leveraging investment from new quarters. New ways of financing the arts might include funding models that pool money from different sectors, accelerators, venture funds and matched crowdfunding - where public funders match financial contributions made through crowdfunding platforms - which have had positive results in other areas. These can never be a replacement for public funding but should be complementary. Against a background of financial constraint, piloting, improving and scaling them over the next five years will matter more than ever."

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About Nesta: (www.nesta.org.uk) is the UK's innovation foundation. We help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills. We are an independent charity and our work is enabled by an endowment from the National Lottery. Nesta is a registered charity in England and Wales 1144091 and Scotland SC042833

For more information contact Laura Scarrott at Nesta on 0207 438 2697/[email protected]