Tough choices in battle for arts funding

By Rebecca Jones
BBC arts correspondent

Sir Christopher was appointed chairman in December 2003

More than 120 arts organisations are to lose their funding from Arts Council England - among them many smaller organisations which are heavily reliant on the cash.

Take the Roadmember Club in Northampton. Since it opened in 1934, the aim of the club has remained the same: to offer young people in Northampton a cultural focal point.

With its emphasis on live music, the Roadmember Club has played host to bands including Oasis and Coldplay.

But to help fund its activities, it has relied on money from the Arts Council - more than £100,000 this year. Now the cash has dried up.

Jon Gloersen, Acting Executive Director of Roadmember, hopes the venue won't have to close.

We do feel fairly robbed. We're very disappointed Jon Gloersen Roadmember Club

"If Roadmember wasn't in Northampton, Northampton wouldn't have so many gigs, there wouldn't be as many theatre performances, there wouldn't be an opportunity for local artists to exhibit their artwork."

"We do feel fairly robbed," he added. "We're very disappointed."

Arts Council England insists it has been forced to make some tough choices, after the grant it receives from government was frozen.

The government told the Arts Council in December last year that its settlement would stay at £412m per year until 2008. The Arts Council says, in real terms, that amounts to a cut of more than £30m.

As a result, the Chairman of the Arts Council, Sir Christopher Frayling, says the organisation has had to focus on funding fewer organisations.

Critical mass

Many of those who have lost out received relatively small grants - among them, the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lincoln Early Music Festival.

"Some of these organisations are quite small," says Sir Christopher. "There's a sort of critical mass of size of organisation below which it does not seem very sensible to have them on the regularly-funded portfolio."

As such, most organisations which receive less than £20,000 per year will lose their grants.

But Sir Christopher says there are other reasons why the Arts Council is ceasing to fund some of the selected bodies.

The Lowry is among the venues set to benefit from the new cuts

"Some of these organisations aren't delivering the kind of priorities that we've set down in terms of excellence, and that's a very difficult message to give them."

But it's not all bad news for arts groups.

By reducing the number of organisations which receive funding, by cutting other budgets and by freezing administration costs, the Arts Council is increasing the amount of money it gives elsewhere.

The Royal Opera House, the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company will see modest rises in funding of 2.75%, while The Baltic in Gateshead and The Lowry in Salford look set to receive much larger increases.