Arts Council England implements budget cuts

Arts Council England last month gave details of how it will implement the £19 million cut to its 2010/11 income from government, announced by the Department for Culture Media and Sport on 24 May.

The £19 million cut is in addition to an earlier in-year reduction of £4 million announced in the April 2009 Budget, meaning that the Arts Council’s original 2010/11 budget has been reduced by a total of £23 million from £468 million to £445 million.

In deciding how best to apportion the latest in-year cut the Arts Council has sought to protect and develop art, and the organisations that enable it to happen, to the fullest extent possible. The cut to regularly funded organisations’ 2010/11 income from Arts Council will, therefore, be limited to 0.5 per cent.

This has been made possible only by the exceptional use of £9 million of the Arts Council’s historic reserves, access to which was previously blocked by government. Had that not been the case, funded organisations would have sustained a three per cent (£10.8 million) cut.

The £19 million will be apportioned as follows:
• £9 million from the Arts Council’s historic reserves (see Notes to editors)
• £1.8 million from revenue grants to regularly funded organisations (0.5% reduction)
• £1.8 million from the revenue grants of the two highest funded organisations not directly producing art (£1.6 million from Creativity Culture and Education and £0.2 million from Arts & Business – a 4% reduction)
• £0.4 million from further cuts to the Arts Council’s operating costs (bringing savings on operating costs to a total of £6.9 million this year)
• £6 million from savings due to the postponement of a major public engagement project, cuts to our audience development plans, and to funds for partnership working with local authorities and the private sector

The reduction to regularly funded organisations’ grants will be taken from the final payment of the year (in most cases the quarterly payment due in January 2011) in order to give them the maximum time to adjust their financial plans.

Dame Liz Forgan, Chair of Arts Council England, said: “In-year cuts are always the most difficult to manage, because plans have already been made against an expected level of income. But we have done our best to minimise the effect on our funded organisations and the art they produce so brilliantly.

“Some immediate impact was inevitable, and in the longer term the arts sector will also feel the effect of the cutting back of projects that are key to its long term sustainability and development. But I am confident that the decisions we have taken are the right ones – for art, for artists and for the audiences we serve.”

Arts Council England’s budget for the next three years (2011-14) will be decided in the government’s Spending Review, for which results are expected in the autumn.

Speaking of the longer term picture, Dame Liz added: “The financial climate is tough, but the arts remain a compelling case for public investment. We will continue to put that case to government, and to make it clear that now reserves have been spent, the burden of any further cuts will fall on funded organisations.

“Sustained levels of public funding are vital if we are to protect the world class arts offer that previous government investment has built, and to maintain our long term ambitions to achieve great art for everyone in this country.”

For further information visit: www.artscouncil.org.uk