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The Arts Council predicts it will cut the number of organisations it funds by more than 100 by 2015, as it unveils its new application process.
Last week it was announced the council would cut funding by 6.9% for the 2011/12 financial year. From April 2012, a new system will replace its Regularly Funded Organisations System (RFO), which provides money for 850 arts organisations. Funds will be fixed for usually three years although organisations will be able to have variable schemes of as little as two or as many as six years. The Arts Council said funding agreements would be "tailor made...rather than the box-ticking targets of the past".
The Arts Council will also fund what it calls strategic organisations, which will take responsibility for developing arts beyond their own business. It will also fund 'programme' organisations, which the Arts Council sees as delivering outstanding cultural work in their field.
Applications for funding open from today and close on 24th January 2011. The decisions on funding will be announced in March 2012.
Liz Forgan, chair of Arts Council England, said: "While the funding cuts will have a severe impact on our budget, they will not dent the shape of our ambitions for the arts and audiences in this country. We are determined to take a long-term view, and to achieve the goals set out in our new 10-year strategic framework.
“Salami-slicing our portfolio of organisations would never have been an appropriate long-term response, regardless of our settlement. That is why a vision for the future is so important to us.
“We want to build a portfolio where organisations, large, medium and small, are able to prosper as well as survive.”