Verdict on ACE capital programme

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The National Audit Office has delivered a mixed verdict on the Arts Council of England’s first capital programme. While most of the projects reviewed by the NAO are operating in line with their planned outcomes, there is also plenty of evidence of cost and scheduling overruns, underachievement of objectives and continuing crises.

The NAO report, issued on 2 May, followed up on the progress of 15 of ACE’s largest lottery-funded capital schemes since 1999, when the Commons Public Accounts Committee looked into the programme through an examination of the same schemes.

Despite the PAC’s concerns at the time about cost overruns and delays, the problems in several cases worsened subsequently, leading the NAO report to observe: ‘The fact that most of the projects have experienced further problems illustrates the difficulty of steering projects back on course when things start to go wrong, and the importance of getting projects right at the outset.’ Two of the 15 major projects closed (the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield and the Dovecot Arts Centre in Stockton-on-Tees); and five remain ‘of concern’ to ACE: the National Glass Centre in Sunderland; the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Royal Court Theatre in London; Cambridge Arts Theatre; and the Victoria Hall and Regent Theatre in Stoke on Trent.

In all ACE has been forced to allocate £84m of contingency funding to its first capital pro-gramme – more than 7% of the total programme funding of £1.15bn. This has had a devastating knock-on effect for hopeful applicants awaiting the long-delayed re-opening of the second capital programme, as the NAO report makes clear: ‘The need to increase the contingency budget for the first pro-gramme has been one of the contributing factors in reducing the funding available under the new capital programme, where the budget for the second round of awards has fallen from £88m to £46m.’