Shake-up for Welsh arts

Thirty-two arts organisations in Wales are set to lose their status as revenue funded organisations of the Arts Council of Wales (ACW), and four will gain regular subsidy for the first time under its radical new investment strategy, outlined in ‘Renewal and transformation: building a stronger future for the arts in Wales’. The strategy follows ACW’s formal 18-month review of arts activity in Wales (see AP202 and AP217), during which time arts organisations have put forward their business plans and a case for revenue funding. In identifying the winners and losers, ACW has specified the criteria on which applications were evaluated, and spelled out – in some cases very critically – the reasons for its decisions.

Of 116 organisations which submitted bids, only 71 will be in the new core portfolio of organisations that, according to ACW, are “artistically vibrant, financially durable and [will receive a] level of investment to thrive and not just to survive”. ACW’s focus will be on “front line delivery – those organisations directly involved with the creation, presentation and exhibition of the arts”. Most agencies, umbrella bodies and service organisations, including Audiences Wales, Creu Cymru, Drama Association of Wales and Voluntary Arts Wales, will lose their funding because “the largest proportion of core budgets is taken up with administrative costs. Developmental activity is often the subject of additional funding bids…”. Disability Arts Cymru remains in the portfolio, but public art agency Safle, which of all the organisations losing their funding currently receives the most, was dismayed at claims by ACW that it has “an approach that isn’t working, and the strategic development of this area of work is not being adequately achieved”.

Festival funding is also set for a shake-up, based on prioritisation of revenue funding to “focus on the needs of those organisations delivering a year round programme of activity.” Revenue funding arrangements will end for most festivals, including the Hay Festival, North Wales International Music Festival and Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod. From 2011/12 these will be funded through a new Festivals fund, specifically created out of Lottery funds. Other new funds to be established include a Creative Communities investment fund – “to nurture and develop new activity that encourages culturally diverse arts” – and a Voluntary/Community Sector Training and Development Fund to enable organisations to work with professional artists, trainers and tutors. ACW’s existing Theatre and Young People’s Strategy, which included a vision for Theatre in Education services across Wales, has been abandoned on the grounds that it is “undeliverable”, and consultation on a new arts for young people strategy will be extended into the autumn.

ACW has pledged to support organisations that have lost their core funding through a transition scheme, ‘Making the change’. They will be able to apply for project funding in the future. No one will know how much funding they are likely to receive until December at the earliest, when ACW will hear of its own budget allocation from the Welsh Assembly Government.

Announcing the new strategy, Dai Smith, Chair of ACW said, “We started this process a long time ago. It’s never been about cuts, it’s been about using taxpayers’ money well.” Smith was keen to emphasise that ACW was not “using the worsening economic climate as a convenient excuse, nor are we deflecting responsibility onto potential government funding cuts that might come at some point in the future. These are our decisions, and we take responsibility for them.”