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Arts Council England close the books today, October 9, on their Sustain programme, devised to help arts organisations survive the recession, after just four months.
With a week’s notice, today is the last date for applications to the £40m fund from lottery money, but it may not be the end of ACE’s rescue mission. When the last grants are made in November the council will assess whether more help, and perhaps a Sustain 2, will be necessary, and if so where the funds would come from.
“The speed at which Sustain’s funds are being awarded is indicative of just how much the fund was needed” said Alan Davey, ACE’s chief executive. “And there are still big challenges ahead – we need to look beyond the recession to the long term future of the arts in this country and to maintaining and developing their world class quality through continued high levels of public and private investment.”
ACE chair Dame Liz Forgan announced the scheme in April this year, to provide extra financial and technical support over and above existing funding. “Of course, we understand that the national debt has to be tackled, but a few million off the arts budget is going to make no appreciable difference to that task” She said then. “On the other hand, it could undermine years of creative and financial investment. The Arts Council will do all it can to keep that investment in place.”
In the fourth round of awards there are 16 beneficiaries with grants ranging from £940,000 to £84,900, most of them to help with falling box office revenue and disappearing income from trusts and foundations but also, as in the case of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, education, community and audience development work.
The money is paid over two years and projected to cover the estimated period of the effects of the recession, “meaning the positive effects of the programme will continue to be felt up to March 2011” said the ACE’s spokeswoman, adding that the indications were that applications were diminishing and that those organisations most in need were being helped.
To date ACE has handed out £17m from the National Lottery fuelled fund in 52 awards from 151 applications, and there are applications still being considered worth £35m for the last £23m. The last tranch of grants from Sustain is expected to be made in November.
The latest beneficiaries from the Sustain Fund are:
Northampton Theatres Trust, £940,000
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, £568,000
Salisbury Playhouse, £400,000
Northern Stage, Newcastle, £376,000
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, £350,000
Battersea Arts Centre, London, £295,000
The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury £261,300
Almeida Theatre Co., London, £175,000
St George’s Bristol, £171,000
Eastside Educational Trust, London, £150,000
Camden Arts Centre, £140,000
Barbican Theatre, Plymouth, £135,300
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, £117,700
The Poetry Trust, Suffolk, £102,000
Music Beyond Mainstream, North Yorkshire, £94,000
Arts Depot Trust, London, £84,900
