Almost all councils provide time at the start of their agendas for something called ‘public question time’ where residents can submit and ask questions in person to the leader of the council, mayor, or any other member of the council cabinet - on a question within the Council’s remit.
You can submit a question to ask at Council through the Council’s Democratic Services team. You can find this by searching/googling the words ‘public question time’ and the name of your council e.g. ‘public question time birmingham council’. You are looking for an email address, usually called democratic services, where you can submit your question in writing.
If you cannot find it this way, try looking for the agenda of your Council’s next meeting, you should find the details there.
There will be rules about how you can submit your question, e.g. length of questions, and the number of business days it must be sent in advance of the meeting.
Keep your question short and to the point, e.g. something like:
Can the Council confirm that it will not cut arts and culture funding in the current or next financial year?
Or
Will the Council reverse its decision to cut arts and culture funding given the huge impact it will have on the local economy, SEND and education services in the district?
Once submitted and you have confirmation that the question has been accepted, get in contact with your branch and your regional officer to let them know what you’ve done. It is always good to have extra Equity members join you at the Council meeting, in the public gallery, to support you as you ask your question. It shows politicians that your issue matters to a lot of people.
Make sure you turn up in an Equity t shirt or hoody, and go with your question written down, so that you are ready to stand up and read it out when asked.
All meetings of the Full Council, and meetings of its committees or sub-committees should be open to the public.
That should bring up search results with instructions from your local council on how to submit a question.
You can submit a Freedom of Information Request, or look through their budget. You can ask your regional official for support in identifying budget cuts
We want to stop the rolling cuts to arts funding in local government. We aim to do this by building a coalition of support among politicians and councillors, who commit to oppose further funding cuts. We’re using the May local elections as a springboard for this, but our campaign is not limited to the elections, and you don’t need to have local elections in your area to campaign.
Ultimately central government needs to fix this funding crisis, but right now we need to act to save members jobs who depend on this funding, and we know we can move local councils to protect arts funding.
The campaign steps are set out in the campaign guide. It includes instructions and advice on how to take the actions we’re asking you to take. Its really important to remember that we’re not asking you to do this alone. You should work with your fellow members in your local branch to make a campaign happen in your local area. That's what being in a trade union is about.
That’s why our campaign tagline is Stop the Cuts and Save the Arts. Arts funding is under pressure everywhere, but we recognize that big cuts may not be making a splash everywhere. If that’s the case where you are, say for example in Manchester, you could focus your campaign on how the local authority is handing over lots of public money to large private ventures like Factory International without any kinds of jobs commitments or guarantee of an Equity House Agreement.
I know this is something the branch is looking at there. Wherever your council is, it will be feeling the pressure on its funding, and we want commitments from councillors that they will ringfence and protect arts funding come what may. They may not have cut yet, but we want to make they leave arts funding alone full stop.
If you don’t have elections this year, this campaign still matters. Cuts are still ongoing, we’ll see more council bankruptcies before the year is out. Getting politicians on the record is really important, and all of our campaign materials can be used to campaign even if there is no election
Mayors aren’t responsible for as much arts funding as local government, but all of our campaign materials are adaptable to campaign in metro mayor elections. Your branch just needs to decide whether to focus on a mayor or council election
You should be able to find this by googling ‘public question time’ + the name of your council. If not, try ‘ask a question at a council meeting’ + your council name. If you don’t know your local council use this link and enter your postcode to find it: https://www.gov.uk/find-local-council
Sometimes you might have to find it by locating the agenda of your next council meeting - where they sometimes leave instructions for submitting questions.
If you’ve put in the hard work of organising a campaign, you’ll want journalists to cover it. Why? Media coverage will publicise your campaigning activity to a wider audience and show decision-makers that people care about this issue.
Our guide on How to publicise your campaign activity to press includes tips on how to contact journalists, a template email for inviting them to your event, and advice on how to work with them.