ACE’s new programmes

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Arts Council England has unveiled its spending plans for the next three years, which include a big increase in its grant-in-aid funding from £335m this year to £410m by 2005-06. ACE’s lottery funding is worth £167m this year and projected to decline to £156m by 2005-06.

The funding increase is ACE’s reward for the pain of the past 18 months of merger and reorganisation, in which 10 regional arts bodies have amalgamated with ACE headquarters to form a single organisation with nine regional offices. To the outside world there is no distinction between lottery and exchequer-funded programmes. There are no longer separate lottery schemes or application forms, and projects will be treated exactly the same irrespective of their funding source. However, lottery cash will not be used to fund awards for individuals or regularly funded organisations (RFOs). RALP (the regional arts lottery programme) disappears, and in its place the regional offices will handle ‘Grants for the Arts’ budgets which divide into grants for individuals and grants for organisations. Individual artists may apply to their home region for £200 to £30,000, for capital or revenue projects of up to three years’ duration. Organisations (from the private, public or voluntary sectors) may apply to their home region for £200 to £100,000 for projects lasting up to three years. One benefit of the merger is that ACE can now reallocate funds during the year from under spending regions to over subscribed ones so as to meet demand more effectively. Regional offices will also handle awards for national touring, including for educational work, from £5,000-£200,000. The regional offices are anxious to attract new applicants, and happy to deal with informal (unconstituted) groups. Local authorities have been highlighted askey partners and there is a recently launched ACE document, ‘Local government and the arts, a vision for partnership’ available at www.artscouncil. org.uk/press-news/news_article.php?id=18 ACE’s headquarters will continue to handle stabilisation, recovery and capital schemes. The long-awaited launch of Arts Capital Round 2 is going to have to wait even longer, as ACE is currently in pre-election purdah and cannot make any announcements until May. All schemes (with the probable exception of Capital) are permanent rolling programmes. For regional decision making, commitment to turn-around times is:

for grants up to £1,000 – two weeks
for grants up to £5,000 – six weeks
for grants of £5,000-plus – 12 weeks.

Three ‘overview scores’ will operate to determine funding priority for regional decision-making: new applicants; benefit to socially excluded communities and contribution to arts development.

For general information see www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/