The Stage

ACE cancels regular funding for 121 organisations

Published Friday 18 March 2005 at 12:45

Announcing a three-year funding strategy dubbed “hard choices in a tough climate” Arts Council England has told 121 organisations nationwide that they will no longer receive regular funds.

The list includes Blackpool’s Grand Theatre, the recently announced home of the National Theatre of Variety. Equity, which helped create what will become a centre of excellence for the art form, has assured members involved in the project that its future is safe. However, it has issued a stark warning to the government that the cost cutting that created the tough climate in which ACE has to work must not happen again.

Also on the list of organisations having their funding cut or being placed on standstill are Phoenix Arts, Josette Bushell-Mingo’s Push initiative - which is winding down this year after achieving its goals - and Arts & Business. Announcing the cuts, acting chief executive of ACE Kim Evans said organisations facing reductions were those that received less than £20,000 annually from the funding body or, in cases such as Arts & Business, had the resources to make up the difference from elsewhere.

“We have had to make choices and these choices mean that some organisations have had to fall out. The policy decision to look at those on less than £20,000 would have been done anyway but not all of them and not necessarily now,” she said. “If you received less [than £20,000] it is not the best way to fund you.”

Evans and ACE chairman Christopher Frayling also expressed disappointment that they were having to cut £13 million from the budgets to develop new opportunities in the arts and new partnerships, while the Creative Partnership scheme would drop from the budgeted £45 million a year to £32 million in 2005/6, rising to £35 million in 2007/8

However, there was better news than expected for 60% - some 645 regular funded organisations - that have been told that they are to receive a standard annual increase of 2.75% in 2006/7 and 2007/8. In addition, 20%, or 232 organisations, will receive an annual increase of above that figure including significant increases for arts organisations with major capital developments to ensure that they have the revenue to fulfil their potential.

These include the Young Vic, which receives an uplift of more than £500,000, Leicester Haymarket, which sees its funding rise by almost £275,000, and Northampton Theatres, which gets an increase of £125,000.

Frayling added: “We have acted responsibly to ensure a degree of budgetary stability for arts organisations. However, that stability is fragile and cannot be sustained beyond 2008. It is built on one-off flexibility and a reduction in other areas of our budget.”