Rochdale Council currently owns 1,321 pieces of art at a value of £11,380,000

Touchstones

Rochdale Council currently owns 1,321 pieces of art at a value of £11,380,000, however only 66 of these pieces of Art are on display.

Local authorities alone own at least 5.5 million works of art with an estimated value of £2.3 billion, yet some councils have as little as 0.02 per cent of their art on display.

Much of this art has been bequeathed, and would be inappropriate to sell off, but despite the need for necessary savings central government has bought at least £361,324 of art since 2010, including a £40,000 self-playing piano.

New research by the TaxPayers' Alliance, conducted via Freedom of Information Requests to all public bodies in the country, has revealed that the government owns at least £3.5 billion worth of artwork - yet only 3 per cent of the work is on display.

Commenting on the research, Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:
"No-one is proposing a wholesale sell-off of art owned by the government, but nonetheless the scale of the collection is staggering. Public bodies and local authorities should make an effort to display more of their art for people to enjoy, and they also need to take a good hard look at their art portfolio and think about what does and does not need to be retained.

"At a time when we're making necessary savings, it is only reasonable to ask whether some of the recent purchases represent value for taxpayers' money."