In advance, 5 reasons why no one needs to apologise to Halbe Zijlstra.

According to the VVD, all artists and art lovers in the Netherlands should 'sorry' say to Halbe Zijlstra. Because they were so angry with him when he abolished 30 per cent of art subsidies without any underlying idea. After all, according to the Ministry of Culture, things were going fan-tas-tically with the arts in the Netherlands. Who the press release reads that the ministry released about it yesterday, might think so too. But if you read the booklet reads, what that press release is about, a very different picture emerges. And also the room letter from the minister tells a much bleaker, if more nuanced, story. We are going to see that in the coming time deeper on. To begin with, the cheers from the press release:

1: We are all insanely cultural.

Says the ministry: "Half of the population aged six and above visited a museum, 84 per cent of the population visited a show."

Is the question: what performances is this about? Not the subsidised high art offer, it turns out. The ministry uses the following, rather broad definition: "theatre, opera, classical music, classical dance, literary evening, video art (canonical performances), and cabaret, film musical, pop music, urban, dance, jazz, life song, world music, musical, folk dance, party with performance (popular performances)"

So that's anything where someone shows something to more than one other person. Likewise, someone who puts on a song at the corner pub is also giving a performance. Pub-goers in the Netherlands are cultural participants. People riding along Leidseplein in tram line 1, 2 or 5 see a performance by sometimes quite good street performers. Nuance follows: Forty per cent of Dutch people are spotted at something that can be counted as genuine art once a year, and well over eighty per cent thus sit in line 5 enjoying street acrobats.

2: The ministry does not have good long-term figures

In the Netherlands, we have had a culture index, but it has not yet been updated with 2013 data. If we look at the long-term trend, we see that the ministry is now using data up to 2007. Of course, some trends can be seen in that, but they are of no use at all in 2014.

It gets worse when assessing our cultural participation through the media. What does the ministry say?

"In 2013, as in 2007, the Netherlands appears to have the highest cultural participation, together with Scandinavian countries. This includes visiting performing arts, museums, libraries, film, reading books and listening and watching cultural programmes on radio and TV."

So far, nothing wrong. But as we read on, a monkey comes out of the hat. Named Lingo and Matthijs van Nieuwkerk. Note:

"The most frequently mentioned category in Europe is watching or listening to cultural programmes on radio and TV: 72 per cent do so at least once a year. The Netherlands is also in the upper echelons here with 84 per cent."

Watching DWDD at least once a year, or Lingo, counts as cultural participation. After all, DWDD and Lingo fall - or fell - under cultural television programming. We suspect that the number of people who watch Kunstuur, Opium or Het Uur van de Wolf once a year is much lower. And so we are still talking about the situation up to 2007. Meanwhile, cultural participation via TV is declining: "Across the board in Europe and in almost all countries, cultural participation is declining, most notably in cultural programmes on radio and TV (from 78 per cent in 2007 to 72 per cent in 2013)."

Enfin. We are only in chapter 3. At one-third of the Culture in Focus booklet and we are already perishing in mystifications. The evolution from just watching TV to video on demand was non-existent in 2007. In 2012, the last year for which there are real figures, Netflix had yet to arrive.

3: Things are going fan-tas-tically with genealogy amateur art

The ministry ignores the Opinion of the Council for Culture from March, in which the council sounded the alarm about the future of amateur art and arts education. At the time, that advice did prompt the minister to intervene, but she now prefers to use other criteria: "The Monitor Amateur Arts (MAK) reports a decline from 52 per cent in 2009 to 41 per cent in 2013. Here, however, the questioning has changed, making the figures difficult to interpret. Hagenaars combines AVO figures and MAK figures and also concludes that there is a decline."

So far, no reason for enthusiasm. But then the Social Cultural Planning Bureau comes up with a handy addition: "heritage practice". What turns out? According to SCP's most recent measurement, we are macraméing en masse. Because practising old crafts is now also part of active cultural practice:

"These include genealogical research, studying local or regional history, a historical person or event, collecting and refurbishing historical objects and practising an ancient craft."

Punnelling is also culture. Of course.

4: The halls are really getting emptier.

As for the performing arts offer, the minister nuances the cheering story from the press release considerably: although more audiences are coming, the theatres are empty. In fact, there are more performances, more theatres. And that does not outweigh each other. Can we comment on that already, minister?

"Based on one year's figures, it is still difficult to draw a conclusion about the effect of the cuts on the cultural sector here. One possible explanation for the increase is that many performances had already been booked before it became known how much would be cut. In addition, institutions that are part of the basic infrastructure were still able, with the help of the friction cost allowance, to continue partly in 2013 at the level they were at before the cuts."

No, in other words. This was also evident from NRC's annual report scan a few weeks ago: no conclusion can yet be drawn about the real effect of the cuts. And if we look at the attendance figures of the performing arts, we should get all sad: "The increase in attendance lags slightly behind the increase in supply, leading to a decrease in attendance per performance. The development of the number of visits to VSCD stages shows a declining trend from 2009. In 2013, the number of visits remains stable. This does not apply to visits to the pop venues. In 2013, there is a relatively stronger decrease than in previous years. Free theatre producers face the steepest decline in the number of visits. They also fared relatively better in 2013 than in the previous period; the decline in visits between 2012 and 2013 is less marked than in the whole period. As with supply, the trend of cinemas and film houses diverges. The number of visits increases by 3.2 per cent per year on average between 2009 and 2012, but between 2012 and 2013 the growth stabilised at 0.9 per cent.

5: The number of jobs is declining tremendously, but we don't officially know that yet.

We quote the ministry: "The number of jobs in the creative sector is declining. In 2012, there are over 153,000 jobs in the creative sector, over 9,000 fewer than in 2010 (-5.8 per cent). The decline is strongest in creative business services: especially between 2010 and 2011, the number of jobs here declines sharply. In the arts and media & entertainment, the decline mainly takes place between 2011 and 2012. The number of self-employed workers increases across the sector. 112 In 2012, there are 104,220 self-employed people working in the creative sector, over 12 per cent more than in 2010. Especially between 2010 and 2011, the number of self-employed workers increases sharply."

And then the cuts were yet to come: "The impact of the central government's cuts is not yet clearly visible in these figures, as they only took effect in 2013."

So things could well get much worse, and the Culture Council has already made this known, but things are not very good between the Council and the minister, as the latter likes to remain positive and thinks the Council is sounding the alarm unnecessarily: "Therefore, assumptions by the Culture Council about a decrease of 3,000 jobs in the subsidised part of the sector cannot yet be confirmed."

Note the subtle use of the word 'Assumptions'.

Anyway, even the minister is concerned, according to her room letter: "For many employees, this meant that the workload went up or the way of working changed drastically. Employees also had to say goodbye. In other cases, employment was made more flexible. Possibly, institutions are exhausting themselves with such measures. I find this a worrying development. I therefore continue to monitor such developments at institutions closely."

So do we.

More soon.