ACE to cut a quarter of national office staff in restructure

Published Thursday 5 October 2006 at 11:30 by Alistair Smith

One in four jobs will go at Arts Council England’s national office, as the organisation restructures in a bid to create savings of £1.8 million.

Under the new set up, the national office will consist of four teams: arts strategy, arts planning and investment, advocacy and communications and resources. According to ACE, the move will create a “more focussed, streamlined and effective organisation.”

Chief executive Peter Hewitt commented: “This is an exciting and challenging time for the arts council and for the arts more generally. The artistic life of the country is changing in ways that could not have been imagined a decade ago. The arts council has to change itself to support these exciting new developments and address the new challenges we all face.

“The 2002 merger of the Arts Council of England with the regional arts boards that saw the creation of a new regionally devolved arts council has posed important questions about the nature of our national office and the strategic role it needs to play. This new structure will address those questions.”

The most major changes will occur in the arts strategy section, which represents a merger between the current policy and strategy departments. Under the new structure the section will feature an executive director of strategy with a director of theatre strategy, director of diversity strategy, director of participation strategy and a director of dance strategy operating underneath. There will no longer be a director of touring.

In the other three departments, the changes have principally been focussed on re-organisation and streamlining. Overall there will be a total of 33 job cuts, out of 120 posts affected by the review.

Hewitt added: “This restructure marks the beginning of a new chapter for the Arts Council and one which I am confident will offer a better service to the arts and to the public.

“A number of people - at all levels and right across the national office - will be moving on and new people will join us. Those that will leave do so with our heartfelt thanks for their contribution, energy and dedication in making the arts council the organisation it is and with our very best wishes for the future.”