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Arts Council England has said its recently announced restructure, designed to save £6.5m "in administration costs” through cuts including a 21% reduction in staff, will affect all divisions equally.
ACE had been required to cut costs by 15% by the government. As well as the job cuts, ACE is planning to create "nine streamlined regional offices” grouped in four areas: the north; Midlands and south west; east; and south east and London. A centralised grants for the arts process will be based in Manchester. The head office will become "smaller” and will move to the regional London office, while the executive board is being cut back from 14 members to nine.
A spokesman for ACE said the reductions would be applied "across the whole organisation”. He added: "No specific artform has been singled out for a greater reduction in staff and there will continue to be literature expertise in both the national office and all regional offices.
"We believe that by taking opportunities for more flexible working we can maintain an effective service to arts organisations all over the country.”
When the measures were announced last week, ACE chief executive Alan Davey said they were "no mere tinkering”. He described it as "a challenging process, but one that I am determined will result in an Arts Council that has an ambitious vision for the arts in this country and the confidence, expertise and relationships to achieve that vision.”
The savings made from the organisational review are be invested directly into arts organisations. The council's funding allocations for 2010/11 already take these savings into account.