The Arts Council of England is an organisation of astonishing size and variety. Encompassing everything from lottery grants, to schools programs and capital works, it is without a doubt the most important arts body in Britain. But how exactly does it work? Arts Hub’s Patrick Garson begins the first in a series of peak UK arts body profiles, and fittingly we begin the series with Arts Council England.
So how does the Arts Council England work? How much money does it get? Where does that money come from and where does it go? This leviathan is only monolithic from far away; the closer you get to the Arts Council, the more complicated it grows. For any arts worker in England, it’s important to know what lies behind the structure taking your grant application, funding your local gallery, and subsidising your theatre ticket. What is the Arts Council of England?
ACE is the national development agency for the arts. What this means is that the Council has responsibility not only for overseeing grant applications, etc. but to actually set policy: to create and implement strategy. It the Council shapes England’s arts industry not just through grants. They, not the Department for Culture, Media and Sports, are the policy-setters for the arts.
The relationship that the Council has with the government is what’s described as ‘arms-length’. This means that the government does not control the Council; the department appoints the board, and decides on funding levels, but nothing more. The Council itself determines where to spend that money, and how, and why. This is what’s known as a non-departmental public body, or more catchily: a QUANGO (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Body).
The Arts Council of England is one of – if not the – largest of these bodies (of which there are hundreds). Between 2003 and 2006, it is projected that they will spend about £2 billion on the Arts. This is a very large amount of money, and a large responsibility goes with it. In many ways these sums illuminate why the Council structure is so large and encompassing. Simply put: it has to be. To deal with so much money requires a large infrastructure.
But where does this money come from? Most of it arrives to the Council firstly from the National Lottery, and secondly from the Department for Culture, Media and Sports. The Lottery Funding goes mainly to Grants for the Arts; the Council’s grants scheme. Nearly 21 000 projects have benefited from this money, with funding ranging from £200 to over £100 000. This lottery money is worth a lot – since its establishment in 1994, £2 billion – and it forms the bulk of the Council’s funding. The lottery also funds capital projects and cultural programmes.
The second major funding source is the government. Grant-in-aid has accounted for around £400 million a year since a large funding boost in the late nineties. Only just this week, the department for Culture, Media and Sports announced a funding-freeze at £413 million until 2008, so we can expect this amount to remain fairly static. The funding freeze – in real terms – amounts to a £30 million pound loss for the Council, which is a lot. The effect this will have on the organisation, however, is yet to be seen. It may result in an organisational reshuffling, or simply a downgrading of existing grants and systems.
Systemically, the Council has undergone a few major changes since its establishment in 1994. Probably the biggest of these happened in 2003 with regard to the Regional Arts Councils. Previously, the National Council’s relationship with Regional Arts Councils had been more autonomous, but in an effort to cut down on costs, the two separate admin systems were fused. There were some redundancies, but the changes saved the Council £5.6 million. Also taken on by ACE were the assets and liabilities of each regional council.
These days, the Regional Councils are no less powerful for their integration. The national Council has fifteen places, nine of which belong to chairs from the Regional Councils. Each Regional Council also has fifteen members (excepting the South East, which, due to a higher population, has twenty). Six members (eight for the South East) of which are representatives of local or regional government.
The role of the Regional Councils is to simply apply the National Council’s objectives in their own area. The objectives can be met, managed and assessed in a variety of different ways because they are quite general. Regional Councils also approve three year regional investment plans and agree on detailed regional annual budgets (that include all grants over £25,000 for named, funded organisations).
So what are the Arts Council of England’s objectives? Simply put, they are promotion, funding and acceptance of the arts. Ultimately, the Council has stated that its ambitions are to:
These goals are lofty, but ambiguous enough to encompass a wide range of activities and funding outcomes. In the area of opportunities for young people, for example, the Council has co-funded Creative Partnerships.
The focus of Creative Partnerships is education, specifically school-based. The program is about exposing schoolchildren to dynamic cultural and creative programs, and since its establishment in May 2002, has implemented over 2 500 projects in Schools all over the country. Funding for Creative Partnerships come from the Arts Council of England (through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) but also the Department for Education and Skills. The pilot program, which only finished in March this year, was budgeted at £40 million, and additional funding of 70 million over the next two years has been confirmed by the Department of Media Culture and Sport.
Directly, the Arts Council of England employs 676 people. In the year 2003/2004, £25.5 million pounds paid their wages. The bulk of Arts Council funding was spent on grants and capital projects, but the Arts Council also has an art collection – the value of which is steadily sky-rocketing – valued last year and £40.5 million pounds. The collection is focussed on contemporary art and regularly loaned out to museums and galleries all over the country.
Ultimately, ACE is a large, but fairly transparent organisation. Their annual report is illuminating and optimistic, though what the funding freeze portends is anyone’s guess. What may seem initially to be an arcane and complicated system is actually quite logical, the deeper one probes. As workers in the arts industry, we often don’t care for how the Arts Council is run beyond funding and board appointments, but we should. The Arts Council of England is the most important body in Britain’s arts industry today, and we owe it to ourselves to become acquainted with its processes and structure.
To read ACE’S annual report, www.artscounicl.org.uk
