Union Dance thwarted in attempt to challenge ACE’s funding cut

Published Tuesday 6 May 2008 at 15:40 by Lalayn Baluch

Union Dance has been thwarted in its attempt to mount a legal challenge to its recent subsidy cut from Arts Council England, after the Court of Administration found the funding body’s disinvestment process to be “fair and lawful”.

The black dance company was informed in February that it would no longer receive its £264,000 annual grant from ACE, following the council’s controversial spending shake-up. Two weeks later, the organisation revealed it was in talks with solicitors about the possibility of demanding a judicial review, in an attempt to overturn the decision.

It criticised ACE for not fulfilling its disinvestment policy, and accused the council of targeting ethnically diverse organisations in its spending review.

However, an ACE spokeswoman confirmed to The Stagethat the case has been rejected by the court.

She said: “We welcome the administrative court’s decision not to grant permission to proceed to judicial review on the grounds that our investment strategy process was found to be fair and lawful and that we have weight to our duty under section 71 of the Race Relations Act.

“We understand that Union Dance has the right to appeal against this decision and are advised that it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”

Union Dance general manager Cara Anderson confirmed the case was not over, and said the company had seven days to appeal. He explained that the organisation was currently discussing whether it was financially viable to proceed with the legal challenge, and that a decision would be reached later this week.

Anderson added: “The arts council was claiming £10,000 costs for defending its case, and the judge said they couldn’t have a penny, so it wasn’t totally negative.”

Meanwhile west London arts centre Watermans, has announced that it has lodged an application with the High Court to challenge a £416,000 funding cut from ACE.

According to a spokesman from the venue, which presents the work of Asian artists, the application was based on “the unfair and irrational approach that the arts council took in deciding Watermans’ funding.” He also accused ACE of ignoring evidence submitted by the company which demonstrated its “successful programmes and impact on the local community”.

An ACE spokesman responded: “We remain confident that our funding review was a fair process, fully compliant with our disinvestment policy. Watermans has now commenced judicial review proceedings and it is therefore inappropriate for us to comment further at this point.”