[cma-l] Changes to Arts Council Funding

[Tamar Millen]

For information
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Changes to Arts Council Funding

Arts Council England has announced a major change in the way it chooses 
which organisations to support under its National Portfolio funding 
programme. Faced with a cut in its funding of nearly 30% following the 
Spending Review, it is replacing its current system of how it chooses 
which organisations to fund on a regular basis, with an open application 
process where all recipients will have to apply.

The Arts Council estimates that around 100 of the 850 groups that it 
currently funds will lose their grant by 2015, but the process could 
allow organisations to be funded that have not received Arts Council 
funding before.

 From 2012, funding will be either ‘strategic’ – where organisations 
will “take responsibility for the development of the arts and 
demonstrate leadership at a national or local level” or ‘programme’ - 
where recipients will “deliver outstanding artistic work in their 
field”. Grants will normally be for three years but may last anywhere 
between two and six years and applicants are expected to have “an 
outstanding track record of achievement as evidence of their potential 
contribution to achieving our goals”.

Applications must be lodged online by 10am on 24 January 2011 and 
decisions will be announced at the end of March 2011 with grants 
beginning in April 2012.

The national portfolio programme is only one of the Arts Council’s 
funding programmes. It also has a Grants for the arts, open-access 
programme for arts activities carried out over a set period.

For more information see their website here.

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/
-- 
Tamar Millen
Arts Coordinator
Community Media Association
15 Paternoster Row
Sheffield
S1 2BX
0114 2795219

www.commedia.org.uk