End of road for NPO legal challenge

The High Court in Manchester has rejected a claim by the Asian Music Circuit (AMC) that Arts Council England’s (ACE’s) refusal to grant National Portfolio funding to the organisation was unlawful. The organisation had pursued its case through ACE’s complaints procedure, but when requests to review the decision or engage in mediation were turned down, AMC issued an Application for Judicial Review in the High Court in June 2011, claiming that ACE’s decision-making process failed to take into account relevant information. In particular, AMC argued that ACE’s evaluation of its financial sustainability was seriously flawed, given that ACE gave grants to many other organisations that it said were financially weak; and that the extent of its contribution to ACE’s diversity objectives was not recognised. Bindmans LLP, the solicitors acting for AMC, argued that ACE’s failure to fund “this prominent, exceptional and innovative organisation” goes against the principles of its Race Equality Scheme, which highlights the importance of “resourcing and building the capacity of black minority artists and potential artists, organisations and groups”. Those objectives also recognise that “there is a need for the Arts Council to continue to be pro-active in developing the [black and ethnic minority] sector of the industry”. The Chief Executive of Asian Music Circuit, Viram Jasani, said: “The economic environment has been the platform for reshaping the arts world in the country based on a narrow Eurocentric view of the arts. It is also telling the Asian communities here that their cultures are not valued. This is not acceptable.” Commenting on the High Court judgement, a spokesperson for Bindmans said: “…there are a number of reasons for this, not least the difficult political climate where it is very hard to get a positive outcome from such challenges. The courts have set their face against overturning such decisions and leave it to the decision maker on the whole as we have seen in a number of recent cases.”