Arts Council briefing presentation
Slide 1
Arts Council England briefing session
November 2013
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Agenda
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The Arts Council’s new structure
Great art and culture for everyone
Investment plans 2015-18
National portfolio funds
Museums funding
Strategic funds
Making the case
Slide 3
The Arts Council’s new structure
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our new structure came into place on 1 July
one national organisation with local presence
five newly appointed Area Councils, working alongside National Council
we continue to work towards our mission of great art and culture for everyone
Notes
 The new Arts Council England structure came into being on 1 July 2013
 these changes saw us reduce our administrative costs by 50 per cent as
applied to our Grant in Aid for the arts by March 2015
 throughout the restructure, we were guided by the principle of remaining
one national organisation with a local presence
 your Area Council is chaired by Midlands: Peter Phillips / North: Joe
Docherty / London: Veronica Wadley/ SE: Jon Cook/ SW: Sheila Healy
 our National Council is comprised of 15 members and chaired by Sir Peter
Bazalgette
 we’re smaller so we’ll do less and we’ll do it differently – but we’ll do it well.
We’ll continue to be effective and work towards achieving great art and
culture for everyone
Slide 4
Great art and culture for everyone
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last week we published our refreshed strategy, Great art and culture for everyone
at its heart are the same five goals
we have clarified what success looks like under each goal. These measures will
direct our investment
Slide 4
last week we published our refreshed strategy, Great art and culture for everyone
at its heart are the same five goals
we have clarified what success looks like under each goal. These measures will
direct our investment
Notes
We published our refreshed strategy last week. It’s the same strategy that you saw in
our pink book (Achieving great art for everyone) and our blue book (Culture,
knowledge and understanding), but it has been updated so it brings together all of our
work across arts, museums and libraries. We have also been clearer about what we
mean, and about how we will measure whether we are succeeding in our mission.
At its heart are the same five goals, slightly reworded for clarity. Our first two goals
encapsulate our mission – we want excellent arts and culture to thrive and we want as
many people as possible to engage with it. And a big part of this is the importance of
ensuring that children and young people are able to experience and participate in the
arts; that’s Goal 5. These three goals then sit upon the foundations of the other two;
we want the models of cultural provision to be financially and environmentally
sustainable, and we want an appropriately skilled workforce which is truly diverse and
reflects contemporary England.
Although these goals are broadly the same, we have aimed to be clearer about what
success looks like, and how we will measure whether we are succeeding or not.
These success measures will guide our investment, and you should refer to them in
your application.
Many people across the arts and culture sector contributed to this book – it is your
work as much as ours. With the new investment round opening next year, please
read it and think about what it may mean to you.
Show video – (Video is 3 minutes in length)
Slide 5
Watch Alan and Baz explaining our strategy
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Measuring success
Goal 1 - Artists, arts organisations, museums and libraries are delivering artistic
work and cultural experiences that represent the height of ambition, talent and skill
-developing and testing a set of principles and metrics to help better understand
quality, reach and impact
-the Quality Metrics Pilot – a sector-led metrics framework that aims to capture
quality and reach
-developing seven quality principles for work by, with and for children and young
people
Notes
The refreshed strategy aims to be clearer about what success looks like, and how
we will know that we’re achieving our goals.
Some of this involves using existing data and evidence sources to explore trends
across our funded organisations and the wider sector. For instance, the annual
survey of NPO/MPMs will continue, which allows us to better understand the
activity of our portfolio funded organisations. This includes things such as
workforce characteristics, which allow us to report against Goal 4.
For other goals, we are working to improve how we measure what impact our
investment makes across the country. An example given here, is goal 1. The pink
text is the first success measure under goal 1, which refers to artistic and cultural
excellence. We have been considering how we might better measure our progress
against this.
One of the ways, we are currently exploring is through working with arts and
culture organisations to develop and test a set of principles and metrics to help
better understand quality, reach and impact. We hope this will help us to become
better investors; help you to plan strategically for future challenges and help us all
tell a richer story about the value of arts and culture.
The Quality Metrics Pilot is exploring the possibility of a sector-led metrics
framework to capture the quality and reach of arts and cultural productions. It is
led by 13 cultural organisations from Manchester and supported with funding from
the Arts Council. The group have developed an outline framework that looks at
quality in a number of different dimensions. There’s more information about this
pilot on our website, and a report on the findings of this pilot is expected by early
January. Go to: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/our-priorities-201115/quality-metrics/
This work is parallel to our work in better understanding and articulating the quality of
the work that organisations deliver by, with and for children and young people. Again,
working with the sector, we have developed seven principles for organisations to
embed into their work.
What is really important about both pieces of work is that they are being led by the
sector for the sector and that they will capture the quality and reach of arts and
cultural activity.
Note: The Artistic Assessment programme will continue, and will remain one of the
mechanisms we will use to measure our impact under goal 1.
Slide 7
Investment plans 2015-18
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Our settlement for 2015/16 represents a 5% cut to our grant-in-aid
A good result in tough times but it’s still a very challenging environment
Local authority investment will be important to our decisions
We won’t abandon our ambition, even in these difficult times
Notes
The Arts Council has received a 33% cut in real terms since 2010, and the climate
for central government funding will remain tight
We will not abandon our ambition, even in these difficult times we will not salami
slice our national portfolio. We will fund organisations at the levels they need to
succeed and contribute to our goals
If you are planning to re-apply, we suggest you use your funding figure for 2014/15
as a starting point. We are unlikely to be offering increased amounts of funding to
applicants; in exceptional circumstances we would consider uplifts but only where
there is evidence of increased ambition and increased match funded investment or
secured funding from other sources.
If you decide to apply for more money, make sure your plans are scalable so we
can see the impact of lower levels of funding. And remember, if you are awarded
more money, this means that other applicants will have to receive less.
We expect that those who do apply for more funding will have to include further
details on how additional funding would be supported by increased leverage from
partnership funding or income from other sources.
As per the last investment round, we do expect some organisations will leave the
national portfolio and others may enter as a result of this process. You should think
about what you would do if we cannot award your organisation funding
National Council have decided that the whole pot of money allocated to Londonbased organisations will not be any larger, in relative terms, than it is at present
The minimum amount organisations can apply for is £40,000 a year
We will use balancing criteria to make sure that we have the right portfolio to
achieve our mission and goals. This will look at a whole range of factors, such as
geography, to address the distribution of funding across the whole portfolio.
Slide 8
Investment plans 2015-18
The full range of investment opportunities over 2015-2018 will be announced in
January. Investment will be allocated across:
 Grants for the arts
 the National portfolio
 museums
 Strategic funds
Notes
Last investment round, we ran the NPO process and then announced a series of
strategic funds. You told us that this was at times confusing and it made it hard for
you to plan for the longer term. That’s why, in January, we plan to announce the
majority of funding programmes that will be open during 2015-2018, so you can
think about a potential NPO application in the context of other funding
opportunities.
This includes setting out the strategic funds that we plan to operate over this
period.
Our National Council have yet to approve the details of how we will divide up the
funding pot, but it is likely that investment will be allocated across the following:
• Grants for the arts
• The National Portfolio – which includes all the MPMs
• Museums (which will include- Museums development –strategic funding)
• Strategic Funds
Slide 9
National portfolio: budget model
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Final decisions at National Council in December. For now our planning model
assumes:
a 5% real cut in our resource budgets and NPO/MPM budgets for 15/16 with
standstill for 16/17 and 17/18
an increase of lottery funding in the national portfolio
a small increase in Grants for the arts
around 20% cash reduction to strategic budgets
we would look at strategic budgets first if there were further cuts to ACE resources
we will cut 5% from our admin, but without job losses
Notes
This budget model is provisional until decisions are made at Council in December.
We have planned for a -5% real cut (3.4% cash) in our resource budgets, and then
standstill funding for the following two years. The 5% cut would also apply to our
overall funding pot which provides the total budget for all NPOs and NPMs.
It is likely we will see a small increase in Grants for the arts.
It is likely we will see strategic budgets reduce by approximately 20% in cash
terms, and we would look at them first if there were further cuts to our resources
from DCMS.
Lottery
We plan to increase the amount of lottery funding in the National Portfolio.
Some organisations will be funded wholly through the lottery, and the rest wholly
through grant in aid. We are examining if lottery may be more suitable for
organisations performing activities like carnival, circus, and participatory arts, but
decisions will be made by Council in due course.
All organisations in the portfolio would go through the same process, and have
exactly the same relationship with the Arts Council regardless of whether they’re
funded by lottery or by GiA. And if we were faced with an in year cut that we had
to apply to NPOs, we’d apply that cut to all our NPOs (and MPMs) regardless of
their source of funding.
We believe we can safely use our lottery and GiA in this way and still adhere to the
principles of additionality.
Slide 10
National portfolio: general principles
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financial climate will remain tight
use your funding figure for 2014/15 as your starting point. make sure your plans
are scalable
the shape of the national portfolio will change; some organisations will leave,
others will join
we’ll use balancing criteria to make sure we have the right portfolio to achieve our
mission and goals
Notes
The Arts Council has received a 33% cut in real terms since 2010, and the climate
for central government funding will remain tight
We will not abandon our ambition, even in these difficult times we will not salami
slice our national portfolio. We will fund organisations at the levels they need to
succeed and contribute to our goals
If you are planning to re-apply, we suggest you use your funding figure for 2014/15
as a starting point. We are unlikely to be offering increased amounts of funding to
applicants; in exceptional circumstances we would consider uplifts but only where
there is evidence of increased ambition and increased match funded investment or
secured funding from other sources.
If you decide to apply for more money, make sure your plans are scalable so we
can see the impact of lower levels of funding. And remember, if you are awarded
more money, this means that other applicants will have to receive less.
We expect that those who do apply for more funding will have to include further
details on how additional funding would be supported by increased leverage from
partnership funding or income from other sources.
As per the last investment round, we do expect some organisations will leave the
national portfolio and others may enter as a result of this process. You should think
about what you would do if we cannot award your organisation funding
National Council have decided that the whole pot of money allocated to Londonbased organisations will not be any larger, in relative terms, than it is at present
The minimum amount organisations can apply for is £40,000 a year
We will use balancing criteria to make sure that we have the right portfolio to
achieve our mission and goals. This will look at a whole range of factors, such as
geography, to address the distribution of funding across the whole portfolio.
Slide 11
National portfolio: expectations
All national portfolio organisations will contribute to goals 1 and 2. Many of them
will contribute to goal 5.
In addition we will also be asking for organisations to:
 have a clear plan for addressing equality
 have a clear plan for addressing environmental sustainability
 have a detailed plan and budget and cash flow for three financial years, and to
tell us how they are resilient
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Notes
Our expectations of our national portfolio organisations is that they will all
contribute to Goals 1 and 2, and a good proportion will contribute to Goal 5
We want organisations to show how they will be contributing to these goals by
providing evidence in their applications.
So what does making a contribution to Goal 1 look like? We want you to articulate
how you will be addressing excellence, and issues such as talent development
and the contribution towards the creative case for diversity
Contributing to Goal 2 covers greater and broader access for more people;
engaging the least engaged; quality of experience; use of digital technologies; and
touring, and willingness to share audience data
Contributing to Goal 5 will cover more children and young people accessing arts
and culture; high quality provision; work by and with children and young people;
Arts Award; working with partners; and understanding of education and youth
policy
In addition we will also be asking for:
 a clear plan for addressing equality
 a clear plan for addressing environmental sustainability
 a detailed plan and budget and cash flow for three financial years, and
applicants must tell us how they are resilient.
 We are likely to be looking at how organisations contribute to the resilience
of the sector as part of their contribution to Goals 3 and 4 .
 Service, umbrella and networking (SUN) organisations supply specific
services, act as an umbrella organisation for others or provide a network as
all or part of their function. SUN organisations may be eligible to apply for
National Portfolio Organisation funding if you are able to demonstrate how
you deliver against goals 1 and 2, and 5 if appropriate, directly or indirectly
through your work.
Bridge Organisations:
 Currently we fund 10 Bridge organisations. We imagine that the number will be
more or less the same, but not necessarily the same bridge organisations we
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have now. You may wish to apply for funding to support both a delivery role as
a National portfolio organisation and partnership brokerage role as a Bridge.
You should use the same application form to do this.
Our pre-application guidance will clarify our expectations for Bridge and SUN
activity for 2015-18.
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National portfolio: timeline
Jan 7: Guidance online and portal opens for 10 weeks
March 17: Application deadline
July 1: Announcements of intention to fund
July 2014 to Mar 2015: Funding agreements finalised
Notes
 Here is the timeline for the national portfolio application process for funding:
 The application portal will open and detailed guidance covering the detail in
more depth will be published on 7 January.
 Everyone needs to apply if they wish to be part of the National Portfolio from
April 2015. Bridge organisations and SUN organisations will go through this
NPO process (although some funding for Bridges will be Strategic funding)
 Around half a dozen organisations in the current portfolio are on longer-term
funding agreements – something we were trialling. These organisations are
expected to submit an application along with everyone else
 The deadline for applications is ten weeks later on March 17; we will then notify
all applicants on 1 July if they have been successful or not with an in-principle
decision or provisional offer of funding, subject to funding agreements.
 Funding applications and offers will cover the period 2015-2018, but we won’t
be able to confirm the amounts you will receive for 2016/17 and 2017/8 until
the government confirms the amount we will receive as part of the 2015
Spending Review in 2015
 Any decision to offer funding will be subject to discussing and finalising a
detailed funding agreement and receiving a satisfactory business plan for
2015-2018.
Slide 13
National portfolio: a two stage process
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In the first stage, we will:
assess the quality of the application’s contribution to our goals
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make a risk assessment of your capacity for management, leadership and
governance and financial resilience
Notes
Our assessment process will be split into two stages. In the first stage, the
application will be assessed against:
 potential contribution to the goals
 finance and resilience
 governance
By resilience we mean the vision and capacity of organisations to anticipate and
adapt to economic, environmental and social change by seizing opportunities,
identifying and mitigating risks, and deploying resources effectively in order to
continue delivering quality work in line with their mission.
 In terms of making a contribution to the goals, it’s important to say that we
will expect all NPOs to contribute to Goals 1 and 2, and a good proportion
to Goal 5
 So what does making a contribution to Goal 1 look like? Talent
development; excellence; quality review and improvement; Diversity; and
international
 Contribution to goal 2: including greater and broader access; engaging the
least engaged; depth of quality of experience; use of digital technologies;
and touring
 You can also contribute to Goals 1 & 2 indirectly and still be an NPO, for
example through another organisation.
 Contribution to goal 5: including more children and young people accessing
arts and culture; high quality provision; work by and with children and young
people; Arts Award; working with partners; and understanding of education
and youth policy
We will also make a risk assessment of your capacity:
 to effectively lead and manage the programme of work that you propose
 for financial resilience and ability to deploy resources effectively in order to
continue delivering work of quality
The risk assessment will inform monitoring conditions for successful applications.
We also expect to work more closely with applicants with high risk ratings to
develop a robust business plan during stage 4: the funding agreement negotiation.
Slide 14
National portfolio - a two stage process
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At the second stage we will balance the portfolio across:
contribution to our goals
contribution to diversity
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range of artforms represented
size and type of organisation
geographical spread
level of risk
Notes
At the second stage, we will be considering, across the national portfolio of
organisations,
how it is contributing to goals 1,2 and 5, alongside our other investment in the arts
how it contributes to the Creative Case for Diversity. Overall, we want our
investment in the arts to create the conditions in which there is a diversity of
leaders, producers and creators of art and audiences, reflecting our creative case
for diversity and our commitment to advance members from the protected
characteristics under the equality duty. We will take into account the needs of a
range of audience and potential audience demographics. We want to see a range
of diversity led and focussed organisations.
Slide 15
Museums funding
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Major partner museums
open fund
commissioned Strategic fund
museum development
Notes
Our approach for museums funding is provisional and subject to National Council
Approval; It is likely Museums wishing to become Major Partner Museums (MPMs)
will be part of the same application process as the National Portfolio.
For the first time, we will be applying a total investment approach to museums and
aligning this as far as possible with the total investment approach for Arts. The
overall approach will cover those Museums who have MPM status already, those
who have a designated collection who wish to become an MPM and allowing us to
develop high level, strategic resilient organisations in the sector. The investment
approach will include applications to be Major Partner Museums, we will also run
an open fund that allows access to funding for a wide range of museums of all
sizes and a commissioned strategic fund approach for other projects
It is likely that around half of the overall available budget for museums will be
allocated to MPMs. Applications will be assessed against the overall programme
and resilience of the organisation, as well as plans for area and/or sector
leadership. We would expect to have roughly the same number of MPMs as in the
last funding round. We anticipate that MPMs will be expected to demonstrate
contribution to all five goals:
 contribution to goal 1: quality of the collection; use of the collection; research
and scholarship; standards; diversity (collection); and international (export and
exchange)
 contribution to goal 2: reach; engagement; distribution; lifelong learning;
diversity (audiences); and international (appealing to visitors)
 contribution to goal 3: innovation and adaptability; governance; business
models; brand and marketing; sustainability; partnerships
 contribution to goal 4: leadership; partnership; workforce development; and
diversity (workforce)
 contribution to goal 5: quality; reach; diversity (children and young people)
Governance and management and financial resilience will be risk assessed at
application stage.
Further details of the open fund will be announced in January. The open fund will
be similar to GFTA and fund a wider range of museums than at present. Likely to
focus on addressing Goals 3 & 4. MPMs will not be eligible.
The museum development fund will be announced in January. We hope this type
of funding has the potential to fund national programmes through a grant system to
support for development and statutory functions (including Accreditation and
Designation, Export Licensing, V+A Purchase Grant Fund, PRISM, Designation
Development Fund, Subject Specialist Networks etc.)
Slide 16
Strategic funds
Strategic funds may cover:
Goal 1
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international
Goal 2
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Strategic touring
digital, creative media, and The Space
Creative people and places, and Audience Focus
Goal 3
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Capital
Catalyst
Goal 4
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workforce development
Goal 5
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Children and young people
Notes
In January, we announce the full detail of our investment for 2015-2018, including
our strategic funds. These will be targeted to address our goals. These are
provisional and may change, but here are some examples of the type of funds that
could be included in that round.
International
We are exploring the idea that the fund will enable England-based artists and arts
organisations to engage more actively in international export and exchange. This
could be a fund that could contain our updated Artists International Development
Fund, and funds for international showcasing and cultural exchange.
Touring
Our initial thinking is that the strategic fund for touring is likely to remain.
Organisations should build touring into their national portfolio application where
appropriate. Obviously ‘touring organisations’ will need to take this approach as
part of their total investment application. We will also be exploring how to take
advantage of exceptional one off opportunities for touring through strategic funds,
but will be small scale.
Digital
There is likely to be a fund for Digital skills and capacity building, in order to upskill and develop the digital capacity the workforce and improve organisations use
of technology. If The Space receives funding for a second round, this would also
be funded through strategic funding.
CPP and Audience Focus
We are also likely to continue the funds for Creative People and Places, and
Audience Focus,
As well as…
Capital, and Catalyst
Workforce development
For organisations to improve their access to training for employees strategic funds
are developing diverse leadership talent across the sector, responding to both
national priorities and local needs
Note:
Goal 5
Cultural Education
Bridge organisations: NPOs which have bridge status will be expected to apply
through the NPO process but our contribution could be through strategic funds- but
we are yet to make any decision on this.
NYMOs are in receipt of DfE funding as well as Arts Council funds– for clarity, we
will be designing separate parallel processes for organisations that receive funding
from the DfE, in discussion with the Department.
Artsmark and Arts Award will continue.
Museums:
We are likely to announce Strategic Funds for Museums that will ensure that
museums are able to access an increasing number of these programme areas.
Slide 17
Questions?
Slide 18
Making the case
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2015 marks a General Election and another Spending Review
together we must make a strong advocacy case that showcases the cultural, social
and economic value of the sector - ‘the holistic case’
the refreshed advocacy toolkit www.artscouncil.org.uk/culturematters
#culturematters
Notes
We learnt this year that working together, we can make a case the value of public
funding for arts and culture can achieve good results – thank you
There’s another spending review on the horizon- we can’t shy away from how
quickly 2015 will come around
We know people are doing great work on this already – there is cross-sector work
being done to develop strong advocacy from organisations such as What Next?
and LARC (an alliance of seven of the Liverpool's major cultural organisations) and
even the smallest organisations are building profile and engaging with MPs
Over the next year we will be strengthening our own evidence base, using the
research to support the holistic case for culture and share our work with the sector.
We have updated and extended our advocacy toolkit – please do take a look.
We’ve also updated and reedited our ‘Credit to Britain film’, so please also do take
a look and consider how you might be able to disseminate it to your networks and
contacts
Slide 19
Watch A Credit to Britain (Demonstrating the public value for investing in
arts and culture)
Slide 20
Thank you
www.artscouncil.org.uk