At the end of July, Arts Council England (ACE) met with all Regularly Funded Organisations (RFO) to brief them on the current economic and political situation.
There were a number of items on the agenda, namely the upcoming Spending Review, the ongoing Achieving Great Art for Everyone framework and the funding of programmes.
It was announced that ACE are considering three new funding programmes to be phased in over time:
- a programme to concentrate funding on specific work - could be from one year to longer than five
- a long-term programme - allows Arts Council England to work, explicitly, in partnership with organisations towards the delivery of their goals and mission
- an RFO may be asked to take on a particular task – a relationship based on clearly procured services, with a fee, defined for a specific length of time
They also announced their preliminary timetable for how they are to move forward:
Investment timetable
July - Publish findings from the consultation
July - August Lottery Shares consultation
July - Sept - Spending Review: external consultation
Early Autumn annual reviews - ACE will share more detail on the new funding programmes and timeline
Autumn - publish Achieving Great Art for Everyone, including the final structure and details of the new funding programmes
October (tbc) - settlement from government
November (tbc) - announce Year One (2011/12) funding decisions
March - inform individual organisations of their funding settlement
March - publish Arts Council Plan and 11/12-14/15 priorities
By March 31 - announce 12/13 14/15 investment decisions
RFOs were told that the investment process will run over four years and will be focused on achieving great art for everyone. Year One (2011/12) will be a year of transition and will see a major change in the way that the arts are funded.