‘Candour and challenge’ in new system

Arts Council England is launching a new framework for funding regularly funded organisations, including an online self-evaluation process.

The new structure is to be set in place in May to “provide greater clarity and reinforce the importance of artistic excellence at the heart of the funding relationship”, and is the result of last year’s extensive consultation. The framework will come into full effect in 2011-12

It follows the launch of the peer appraisals for clients receiving more than £5m a year in subsidy already under way, alongside which the new framework will run and is part of the new thinking in Arts Council funding which after the “reinvestment” cuts of 2007-08, a PR disaster for ACE which was partly blamed on the remoteness of the council’s national office from its clients.

“Regularly funded organisations are vital partners for the Arts Council” said Althea Efunshile, ACE’s chief operating officer. “This document sets out a renewed basis for our relationship with them and describes new ways in which we will manage those relationships in the future, relationships which are based on partnership, openness and mutual respect.”

The National Theatre had been one of ACE’s strongest critics two years ago, but its executive director, Nick Starr, said this week: “The new framework is a positive step forward. It reinforces the straightforwardness of the Arts Council’s approach to the organisations it funds. Peer appraisals will make a valuable contribution to this and are being developed in the spirit of candour and challenge that characterises the Arts Council at its best.”