Arts Council National Portfolio decision day

Today’s the day that arts organisations up and down the country will find out whether they’re going to receive funding over the next few years.

In case a bit of background’s useful, over the past few years, the Arts Council funds organisations in two ways – by giving cash on a project-by-project basis (that’s called Grants for the Arts) and through what’s called ‘regular funding’. In the latter you’d be given an amount of money over a period of time.

The regular funding part is changing – as from this time next year, there will be a number of organisations that will be known as National Portfolio Organisations. Today we’re finding out which those will be.

Headline figures:

Nationally, 695 organisations have National Portfolio status (down from around 880 that had regular funding previously). 206 organisations that were regularly funded didn’t make it into the portfolio. 110 organisations that weren’t regularly funded have got in.

In the West Midlands (and according to my rather iffy maths) we’ve gone from 66 regularly funded organisations to 50 National Portfolio Organisations.

National Portfolio Organisations in the West Midlands

As my first boss always told me – always work from first sources. The official Arts Council info is here. Of course, there’s only so much you can tell from a spreadsheet so the following won’t reveal much detail and may be slightly misleading in places (doesn’t take account of mergers or name changes). Still, this what I’ve made of it, and if I’ve made any mistakes, then please let me know (links are to statements put out by the orgs):

Funding increased from current position:

  • Ace Dance And Music
  • Arena
  • Birmingham City University
  • Black Country Touring
  • Dancefest
  • DanceXchange
  • Fierce! Festival Limited
  • Geese Theatre Company
  • Live & Local Ltd
  • Punch
  • Stan’s Cafe
  • Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service

It seems that some of these increases reflect mergers with other organisations, while others (Stan’s Cafe for one) have requested funding for money that would previously have come via applications to Grants For The Arts Awards.

Funding decreased:

As a side note, most of the reductions in funding here are relatively small. In a few cases they’re  a little more significant – check the spreadsheet for full info.

New to the portfolio:

  • 2 FaCeD DaNcE Company Ltd
  • Imagineer Productions
  • Meadow Arts
  • Nofit State Community Circus
  • Performances Birmingham
  • Sonia Sabri Dance Company
  • Writing West Midlands

Current RFOs that won’t be in the National Portfolio

Please be aware that a lack of inclusion in the National Portfolio doesn’t mean these are just going to shut up shop. There’s also a couple of orgs here (flagged up where they’ve alerted me) who’s funding will come from one of those who are in the portfolio. Of course, some of these might well have not made an application, preferring to stick to project funding.

  • Audiences Central
  • B Arts
  • Bilston Craft Gallery (although they’re part of Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service)
  • Black Voices
  • Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company
  • Chitraleka Dance Company
  • Contemporary Glass Society
  • Designer Maker West Midlands
  • Foursight Theatre
  • Hereford Photography Festival
  • Ludlow Assembly Rooms
  • Made
  • Malvern Theatres Trust
  • Open Theatre Company
  • Rideout (Creative Arts For Rehabilitation)
  • Shindig (which is now covered by Live & Local, so they’re fine)
  • Sound It Out
  • Theatre Absolute
  • Vivid
  • Writers in Prison Network

Links elsewhere:

I’ll keep on updating this post as and when I can. If I’ve made any errors (which isn’t unlikely) then please let me know and I’ll correct them.

12 Comments

  4. Rob Strong

    Fulfilling my usual role on this blog – is it too heretical to say that I’m appalled to find out that some of the above organisations are publicly funded in the first place?

  5. Kate – oh yeah. I shall choose to be flattered, rather than narked.

    Ruth – thanks, that’s probably not clear to most (I forget things like that sometimes)

    Actually, a couple of people have pointed out that in some cases the bare list doesn’t do a great job of the actual position – for instance, Birmingham Jazz will benefit from the Perfomances Birmingham funding, Shindig are covered by Live & Local and Bilston Craft Gallery are covered by Wolves Arts & Museums Service.

  6. Rob – never too heretical to question things, I wouldn’t have said. To some extent the devil’s in the detail though – the spreadsheet doesn’t show what these organisations are going to be paid to do and it might not be obvious in some cases.

  8. Dubois Gautier

    hello I am French, and I would like to know if Museums, and local Museums depends of this new portfolio? Thank you.

  9. Rob Strong

    Chris – lack of clarity is an issue for sure. I’d never heard of Audiences Central until this afternoon. I spent a few minutes on their website and I’m still not sure what they do or what we’ve been paying for. Are they a pressure group for people who like to sit in the middle of theatres?

  10. Dubois Gautier – Non, au moins pas dans la plupart des cas. Des musées sont soutenus financièrement par des conseils municipaux, avec quelques exceptions. Par exemple, Wolverhampton Arts & Museums Service obtient de l’argent du Arts Council – mais ca pourrait juste être pour certains services qu’ils fournissent, je ne sais pas exactement.

  11. Rob – Audiences Central are an interesting case. They’re one of a network of regional orgs that work on audience development, all of which have had their funding taken away. Their job has been to help increase the number of audiences/participants in the arts generally – from what I’m aware, they do that partly through training sessions to help orgs to market themselves better, partly through selling access to contact databases (for mailshots, etc). AC have done a few public-facing projects (and get further ACE funding for those) – The Big Picture in 2008 was one, and recently they’ve been doing a lot over in the Black Country. They also run Scene Central (event listings) and a decent arts jobs service.

    There are a few reasons why their funding might have been taken away though, irrespective of whether or not they put in a strong application – organisations that don’t have an artistic output were earmarked for cuts by this government quite early on. Also, I think there’s a feeling that there should be a competitive market for these kinds of services – that’s the rationale used for ending Arts & Business’ funding, even though the provision of both services (audience dev and private investment) are generally seen to be very important.

    As well as getting money directly from ACE, AC get membership fees from (many ACE-funded) arts organisations and they charge for various services, like training and access to their big database of people interested in the arts (for mailshots and things like that). I was interested to see that AC were getting about 3-4 times the funding that the other audience dev orgs were getting.

    It’s not really my place to speculate, (but…) but the membership fees, occasional project funding and the additional paid services they provide might be enough to keep them going. From what I’ve been reading today, their Yorkshire equivalent, called &Co, apparently have a decent print business to fall back on.

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