Arts Council England have announced the first beneficiaries of its Sustain fund, the £40m of lottery money set aside in June as an emergency resource to help regularly funded arts organisations hit by the recession.

Ten have been named from 87 applicants, and more are expected later this month and in September. Two have been turned down.

Music and especially opera have been the main targets for ACE’s first hits, with the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, British Youth Opera, the Royal Philharmonic and Sinfonia Viva all among the first ten recipients. Over £3m of the £4m handed out goes to classical music and opera, and each award is a one-off for the period 2009-2011.

A range of reasons have been given or the grants, including to make up for loss of grants from trusts and foundations is a recurring theme, to answer the cash flow problems stemming from a slump in fundraising and falling box office, or simply to continue important projects or education and outreach work.

“The aim of Sustain is to keep excellence, innovation and ambition alive for artists and arts organisations, drawing on lessons from previous recessions” said ACE’s chief executive Alan Davey. “The number of applications to the fund illustrates how this recession is challenging the capacity of our arts organisations to continue to deliver the bold, ground breaking and excellent art that audiences demand.

“The creative economy is the fastest growing part of our national economy, so it is no fond thought that arts organisations should see themselves as a key part of this country’s recovery from recession. However, the mixed economy in which they live means they need a balance of proper support in order to fulfil that potential.

“As a finite fund Sustain cannot provide the whole solution – that comes only with continued levels of public and private investment in the arts – but it does offer a stitch in time to help excellence flourish” he said.

BUFFERED AGAINST THE CRUNCH

British Youth Opera, London. £75,000 to ”maintain the quality of artistic output and resolve cash flow problems caused by a recessionary decrease in income from trusts and foundations. Our funding will help to support artistic productions during 2010 and 2011 and to enhance the organisation’s fundraising”.

Dance Consortium, Birmingham. £104,000 to “maintain the quality of artistic output and resolve cash flow problems caused by a decrease in income due to the recession. The award will allow the organisation to cover the additional costs and ensure that the Alvin Ailey tour can go ahead”.

English National Opera. £750,000 to “ support production costs which will enable the Company to continue to present high-profile innovative seasons of the highest quality in 2010 and 2011, that appeal to the widest possible audience at affordable prices and bring work to the UK that would otherwise not be seen. Our award recognises the impact of the economic downturn on corporate fundraising”.

Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. £116,000 to ”allow the company to maintain their investment in the artistic programme. Ikon has suffered a significant drop in earned income as a result of the recession which put the programme at risk. The funds will also allow the organisation to refurbish the café to generate further funds”.

Nottingham Playhouse. £362,000 to “maintain the quality of artistic output and resolve cash flow problems caused by a decrease in income from trusts and foundations”.

Royal Opera House. £700,000 to “enable them to enter the next phase of their internationally important opera development programme, the first phase of which was enabled by a time-limited grant from a philanthropic trust… (to) fund the programme for two years while the Royal Opera House secures new funding. To date, the programme has completed some 34 projects over four years with 13 reaching full production with a range of UK and foreign opera companies”.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. £649,000 to “to maintain the quality of artistic output and to stabilise cash flow problems caused by a recessionary decrease in fundraising and box office incomes… to support promotional activities, rehearsal and preparation time for conductors, preservation of the education and community programmes and to maintain the orchestra’s commitment at its many regional residencies”.

Sinfonia ViVA, Derby. £102,000 to “allow the organisation to maintain the quality of their artistic output and continue their nationally acclaimed education and outreach work… (to) help ViVA continue to invest in the communities and artists it serves”.

South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell. £114,000 to “carry out a programme of activities that aims to attract younger audiences; develop its online presence and mitigate against a loss in sponsorship funding”.

Welsh National Opera, Cardiff. £900,000, plus £300,000 from Arts Council Wales, because the company “has demonstrated that they have been adversely affected by the recession. Having met the criteria of the funding programme” and the award is to act as “bridge funding to mitigate loss from development funds, box office income and bank interest”.

Two organisations, Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham and New Writing North in Newcastle, failed in their bids.

Theatre has never been healthier in this country since the 2001 Boyden Report which showed the producing theatres around England were dying, with two thirds operating in deficits and most, technically insolvent because their liabilities were more than their assets.

The report prompted a £25m extra investment in regional theatre by the government in 2003, and since then £100m of subsidy has gone to the sector.

But audience figures have not responded but remained more or less the same, according to the Arts Council’s new theatre assessment.

The assessment, by the consultants Jodi Myers and Anne Millman, found that English theatre has become “confident and energised”, that there were higher production values, more staff and better pay, and that “innovative” and “risk-taking” drama was being made.

But there has been no discernible uplifting the audience numbers to compliment the improvements, while touring needed to be better planned and organised, and there needs to be better development of talent and creativity, particularly among established playwrights. There also needs to be better development of leaders within the sector.

“We want our theatres to be bold and ambitious” said Barbara Matthews, executive director for theatre strategy at ACE. “This assessment has shown us that the additional confidence and resources the Theatre Review generated enabled many theatre organisations to do exactly that.

“The task facing us all is to keep making progress, in spite of the economic recession, and to ensure that as many people as possible are able to enjoy the results.”

Southampton City Council has confirmed its intention to sell key works of art from the collection of Southampton City Art Gallery.

The council believes that the sale of a sculpture by August Rodin and a painting by Alfred Munnings will help pay for a new £15 museum about the Titanic due to open in 2012.

The two Rodins, Eve and Crouching Woman, and After the Race by Munnings, are valued together at £5m. The entire collection, which includes works by Turner, Lowry, Picasso and Monet, is valued at £180m.

Southampton’s culture boss, John Hannides, chairman of the city’s culture committee, said: “The Munnings has not been seen in Southampton for quite some time and that also goes for the other items too. While they have been on display on occasions they are not central to the collection”. The Rodins have been kept in store.

“We have looked at all potential options for funding, and we have not yet taken a decision to sell them, but without this it would be very difficult to see how we might otherwise be able to fund the heritage museum” he said.

But Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones wrote this week that the collection has a long standing reputation with works of art from the Renaissance. “But it also has a policy of buying modern art, including paintings by Bridget Riley and Chris Ofili. It displays its collection of about 3,500 works in rotation, and uses it to create imaginative exhibitions that mingle past and present.

“It seems to be the collection’s very liveliness that has opened it to attack. First the Riley acquisition was pilloried in the city newspaper; now the council has decided the collection is fair game.”

The Visual Arts and Galleries Association said the sale would be seen as “a test case for cash-strapped councils using one part of their collections to support another. This could have a fundamental effect on museum collections across the country”.

Seven years and £300m on, scheme needs to be revamped for the new National Museums Strategy MLA is planning
Renaissance in the Regions, the programme launched by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to revitalise regional museums and galleries, has been heavily criticised in a report commissioned by the MLA.

Its chief fault, says the report’s author Professor Sara Selwood, is that the Renaissance vision is unclear. “MLA has never restated its aims, nor has it published an overarching statement as to its ambitions in taking Renaissance forward, or set out a strategy for achieving those goals” it says, and calls for a dismantling of the present hubs to be replaced by more flexible partnerships.

There are ambiguities as to whether Renaissance was intended to transform all or part of the sector, what the target was or how it could be achieved. “It is arguable whether Renaissance has changed course, or merely lost sight of its purpose” says the report.

MLA is accused of being myopic and failing to see the bigger picture, so that “Renaissance does not yet amount to more than the sum of its parts”.

And the review sees a tension between serving the public and supporting the museums sector, with reporting tending to be about numbers of people rather than the community empowerment the government had called for.

However, the programme has also had its successes. The report acknowledges that Renaissance has contributed to halting the decline of many regional museums and their financial and political neglect. It has enhanced museums’ appeal, and their confidence.

The report calls for continued government funding for Renaissance to allow regional museums to compete with European equivalents, and to make the proposed National Museums Strategy a reality.

But Prof Selwood adds a long list of recommendations, including:

The vision to be restated and a long-term plan published, focussing on museums’ unique contribution rather government agenda, with more effective use mad of collections;
The programme’s management and delivery are kept strictly to its stated aims, and that the distributed funding should be kept separate from MLA’s other funding;
High level funding partnerships should be forged – there has been a lack of consistency – and there should be integrated partnerships between national and regional museums;
Replace the hub structure with more flexible network partnerships, winding up the present Regional Renaissance ~Boards to be replaced by a National Renaissance Board;
Core museums should have a duty of care to other museums;
The creation of a challenge fund to be bid to by partnerships;
The installation of national programmes for organisational change, with museum development officers co-ordinated in s national framework;
The Management of Renaissance should be from a high level and driven by the pursuit of outcomes, and it should be peer reviewed;
There should be better communications in the management of Renaissance
Funding should be regarded as an investment rather than a subsidy;
That, in the “absence of a coherent and logical framework of performance measures”, Renaissance should be performance measured by DCMS and DCLG.

£100m budget shortfall may hit major developments
Major arts capital projects are at risk because of a reported £100m funding black hole in DCMS budgets.

“Our capital budget is currently overcommitted” a DCMS spokeswoman said. “Ministers are examining the reasons for this and looking for solutions. It is possible that difficult decisions will be needed, but none has been taken yet.”

Projects at risk could include the £215m extension to Tate Modern, to which the government had promised £50m representing half the £70m already pledged; the £135m British Museum new exhibitions centre (£22.5m), work on which is due to start this year; and the £165m BFI Southbank development which is hoping for £45m from the Culture Department.

When the DCMS grants for the Tate and BM were announced in 2007 the schemes were hailed by ministers as powerful stimulants for the economy, creating jobs, multiplier earning and new visitor attractions. Now ministers have written to institutions to say that the pledged cash is no longer guaranteed. “It’s a great idea and we would love to support it, but it’s very difficult at the moment” said culture minister Barbara Follett. “There are too many schemes bidding for too little money”.

There could be a serious knock-on with private support for the projects, warned A&B’s chief executive, Colin Tweedy. ‘When government funding pulls out of a project the private sector immediately thinks there’s something wrong with it, which is not the case here – I believe it’s not due to government incompetence, it’s to do with the banks, and unfortunately these situations are going to be coming thick and fast”.

Nor is sponsorship likely to offer immediate comfort, he said. “The private sector is not in the business of rescuing things, it wants to be in partnership. It will be tough but the private sector will recover before the public sector”.

The sudden appearance of the shortfall for 2010-11 and 2011-12 has caused consternation, and the worry is that the process of making up the missing budgeting will mean cuts in other areas. Following the April Budget the Arts Council was relieved not to have the anticipated £14m cut and was able to absorb the eventual £4 reduction for 2010-11, but that might now have to be revisited.

However, the likelihood, the DCMS sources said, was that the promises would be deferred. That would delay the developments into a period of a new government, which may decide to cancel such pledges.

But while criticism was falling on DCMS for rickety budget management, senior arts figures believe blame may eventually land on the Treasury which has also announced a £100m cut in education spending. ‘It seems an extraordinary coincidence and smacks of the Treasury clawing back rather than ministers getting their sums wrong,’ said one.

Prospects for co-operation between the British Museum and the new Acropolis museum are ‘impossible’ unless the Parthenon Marbles are returned to Greece, says eminent classics professor Anthony Snodgrass.
Professor Snodgrass, emeritus professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University said that a call by British Museum director Neil MacGregor for the Greek and British governments can work together so that the Parthenon sculptures can be seen in China and Africa “is quite impossible to settle without reuniting the sculptures where they belong.”
Professor Snodgrass, who is chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles added,” Only then can the possibilities for the transmission of the sculptures to other countries, whether physical or virtual, be seriously discussed,”
The committee added that a recent poll showed that 94% of respondents wished to see the Marbles returned to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

The Welsh Assembly Government has unveiled its first strategy for museums in Wales.
Ministers have agreed that through CyMAL, the Welsh equivalent of the MLA, they will work on four priorities for the development of Wales X museums from 2010 to 2013.

These are: Developing the Visitor Experience, Developing access Developing the collections and Developing sustainable organisations. CyMAL will produce a detailed action plan to cover these areas and align any grant funding available to meet these priorities.

The strategy document which is out for consultation until October 23, identifies a number of goals over the three year period of the strategy including the launch of the online People’s Collection in 2010, encouraging all museums to develop learning strategies, improve accessibility, introduce a new scheme for sharing collections and improve the management and governance of museums, including a new emphasis on workforce development.

The strategy also suggests that museums need to study demographic profiles and understand their communities better and could help raise Wales international profile through loans, exhibitions and the sharing of skills and experience
Welsh Heritage Minister, Alun Ffred Jones, launching the strategy at the opening of an exhibition at Abergavenny Museum, said “It builds on a great deal of important research we have carried out with the museums sector and identifies a clear way forward to improve access to our wonderful museum collections”

The Conservatives have threatened to reverse the decision of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) to move operations to Birmingham.
Conservative culture spokesman Ed Vaizey said that a future Conservative government “will review the decision” if they won the next election.
The move follows fears in the art market that the relocation of the Export Licensing Unit, which grants permission for artworks to be exported, could affect London’s pre-eminent position in the European art market.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, who is president of the British Art Market Federation, led criticism of the move in the House of Lords. He said that the decision went against a pledge by the DCMS in 2005 that the Export Licensing Unit would co-locate with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council somewhere within the capital from 2006? He also questioned why the move to Birmingham was happening before the DCMS and the MLA have introduced an electronic licence application form.
Government spokesman Lord Davies said that pledge related only to 2006. He said the MLA was quite confident that it can meet the same levels of efficiency with the relocation to Birmingham. He added that MLA wanted the art market to pay part of the £750,000 cost of moving to an electronic licensing system. “The Government are not prepared—nor is the board prepared from its budget—to sustain the full costs of going electronic.”

Involving local people in decisions about arts funding should not been seen as a threat to the arts.

That’s the verdict of a report commissioned by Arts Council England into participatory budgeting, where citizens are given the power to decide how a public budget should be allocated is a growing phenomenon in the UK.

The report, by Involve and the Participatory Budgeting Unit said that arts projects fare well in the small-grant, community-focused form of participatory budgeting. The projects most likely to succeed are those that are seen to benefit the community directly, provide value for money, are easy to understand and appeal to voters’ emotional response.

The study adds that this form of budgeting can benefit local arts organisations by increasing funding opportunities, creating more public support and ownership of publicly funded arts and allowing for better informed decision making.

However it adds that the research was based on small scale participatory budgets on community arts projects such as youth drama groups, cross-generational dancing events and music therapy in sheltered accommodation. The report says it is difficult to predict how less community-focused artforms would fare in a public vote, or how the arts sector as a whole would be affected if mainstream local authority budgets were opened up to participatory budgeting, which is the direction government wants local authorities to take by 2012.

The report argues that the Arts Council should support the arts sector to
make the most of the participatory budgeting opportunities and by raising awareness among public officials, citizens and service providers of the social value of the arts.

Tony Hall, Royal Opera House chief executive, has been announced as the new Cultural Olympics tsar, with £16m from the Olympic Lottery Distributor to pay for six of the projects already announced.

Hall will chair a new Cultural Olympiad Board which will have arts sector luminaries such as Nicholas Serota of the Tate, Alan Davey of ACE and Munira Mirza, director of culture for the Mayor of London - the new board is a joint initiative of the Mayor and LOCOG. Jude Kelly, currently chair of culture,ceremonies and education for the Olympics, stands down but will serve on Hall’s board.