The Stage

ACE launches £40 million fighting fund to combat effects of recession

Published Friday 24 April 2009 at 11:53 by Alistair Smith

Arts Council England has announced a new £40 million fund to which cultural organisations will be able to apply for support if they are struggling financially because of the recession.

The brand new initiative, called Sustain, will be open to all applicants and was announced today by ACE chair Liz Forgan. The new funds have been made available by the arts council significantly reducing its Lottery cash balances over the next two years. These balances have traditionally been kept in reserve in case large projects - such as capital building projects - need unexpected injections of cash.

Grants from £75,000 to £3 million will be awarded and the programme will run initially for two years - 2009/10 and 2010/11. Any arts organisation can apply but priority will be given to those “who are seen as vital to the arts council achieving its mission of great art for everyone”. According to ACE, the initiative has been designed as a “rapid response” fund and it will aim to turn applications round in a maximum of six weeks.

In addition to the Sustain fund, Forgan also announced that there will be £4 million of extra money injected into the Grants for the Arts Budget over the next two years - the 2009/10 budget will be increased from £52 to £54 million and will rise again in 2010/11 to £56 million. Meanwhile, ACE will also give £500,000 support for the Town Centres Initiative, which aims to enable artistic activities to take place in empty retail spaces.

The announcement comes only days after it was revealed in the Budget that ACE will lose £4 million from its 2010/11 funding settlement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Forgan called for both public and private funders to maintain their levels of investment in the arts, and for artists to see themselves not as victims of the recession but as a key part of its solution.

She said: “The arts council has three over-arching aims as we plan for the coming years - great art for everyone will be our mission in life. We will continue to support innovation and creative courage. And we will focus on recovery.

“Of course we understand that the national debt has to be tackled, but a few million off the arts budget is going to make no appreciable difference to that task. On the other hand it could undermine years of creative and financial investment. The arts council will do all it can to keep that investment in place. We cannot protect artists from the realities of recession, but we can be as imaginative, open and useful as possible in our efforts to get us all through this with minimal damage to the creative life of this country.”

Forgan added: “The real challenge for the arts sector is not to ask ‘what is the government going to do to help us?’ but ‘what can we do to help the country weather and recover from this downturn?’

“Showing that we can make a real contribution in even the most difficult of times will be the best case we can make for continued public investment in the arts through – and just as importantly – beyond the recession.”