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20th November 2008

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ACE blasted by Labour and Tories

30.01.08 Tom Tivnan

Both the Labour and Conservative parties have laid into Arts Council England (ACE) for its handling of funding cuts for arts organisations this year.

A Labour spokesman admitted the long-running dispute had "turned into one of the biggest bad news stories of all time". Though concerned with the public fallout from the dispute, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesman reiterated that the government should remain at arm's length. He said: "Against the grain of public spending generally, DCMS was able to secure an above-inflation settlement for the Arts Council. But we are not cultural commissars—nor would we wish to be—and it is a fundamental principle of the system that decisions on how the money is allocated are for the experts there, not for ministers or civil servants."

Tory shadow culture secretary Ed Vaizey agreed that ACE should have distance from the government, but said he was concerned by "the speed of the settlement", with organisations only given one month to appeal funding decisions. Vaizey said: "We think [ACE] should have said to everyone it is too short a time to make a good decision, so we are going to give everyone
an inflationary increase for 2008 and look at it again next year."

The comments come as further pressure was applied to ACE in the run-up to its announcing the fate of 194 threatened arts organisations—including Arcadia and Dedalus—on Friday (1st February).

In a heated meeting in Westminster on 28th January, chaired by Vaizey, ACE executive director of advocacy and communications Andrew White met with members of the arts community who are facing cuts. Juri Gabriel, chairman of Dedalus—which is faced with a complete funding cut-off—lambasted White and ACE for not showing "due diligence" in the disinvestment process. He added: "I am sure we all expect that there should be a proper evidence-based procedure in place, which there is not. We were told we are being disinvested based on the facts. You can't have any facts if you ignore evidence."

But White said ACE did follow procedures, and that every case had been "reviewed fully". He also offered some hope to threatened organisations: "I will say on the record that there will be some changes to the settlements. Some of the appeals have been thoughtful and we have agreed with them."

tom tivnan Arts Council ACE