ACE grapples with equality

The financial sustainability of 38% of organisations that applied to become part of Arts Council England’s (ACE) new National Portfolio of regularly funded organisations (NPOs) was assessed as “weak”, according to an ACE study, and only one in ten was judged to be “strong” in this respect. Similarly, the “governance, leadership and management” of fewer than a quarter of organisations was found to be strong, and 22% were judged to be weak in this area. But organisations generally fared better against the third criterion under which applications were evaluated – namely “goals and priorities”, against which 44% were found to be strong, and only 15% weak.

As well as being assessed against these criteria by ACE’s relationship managers, applications were also subject to scrutiny by area senior management teams, whose role was to perform a “national moderation” process to ensure a balance of goals and priorities, range of artforms, size and type of organisation, geographical spread and diversity in the NPO portfolio. Monitoring data collected from applicants on the gender, race and disability makeup of applicants’ boards was taken into account at this stage, and ACE has taken positive action to include more diversity in its national portfolio after the first stage of evaluation, to ensure that the impact of funding cuts “is not disparately weighted on Black and minority ethnic [BME], gender or disabled led or focused organisations”.

ACE’s Equality Impact Assessment of its funding decisions reveals that BME-led organisations were less likely to be assessed as meeting the criteria than other applications at the first stage of evaluation (68% versus 80%): 55% scored as weak on financial sustainability compared with 36% of ‘other’ organisations; 32% as weak on leadership and management versus 19% of others; and 21% as weak on goals and priorities versus 14% of others. ACE attributes the disparities to BME-led organisations often being relatively small, having a higher dependency on ACE funding and depending on a smaller pool of potential board members. Its portfolio-balancing at the second stage of evaluation “mitigated any disproportionate negative impact” that this would have, and eventually 75% of all applications judged “fundable” from BME-led organisations were selected to become NPOs, compared with 66% of all other organisations. Nonetheless, although they now comprise 8% of the proposed portfolio, BME-led organisations account for only 3% (£10m) of the proposed funding for 2012/13, having requested an average of £151,000 while other organisations requested an average of £369,000. Furthermore, 31 organisations from ACE’s former regularly funded clients, which were considered to have the potential to make a contribution to BME diversity, will not become NPOs. ACE has recognised that there is potentially a negative impact on programming, audiences, artists and infrastructure specifically in relation to Black theatre in London if these companies cease to exist. To mitigate the impact of this, designated funding will be earmarked to build infrastructure and support for this work. ACE will also be taking steps “to ensure that Black and minority ethnic and disabled leadership capacity, even in organisations not proposed for inclusion in the new portfolio, can be developed for the future”. It is also considering how strategic funds can be used to support audience development for BME work.

Disability-led organisations were also less likely to be assessed as meeting the three first-stage criteria than other applications (70% versus 79%). Twenty-three per cent scored as weak on leadership and management versus 20% of others, and 47% as weak on financial sustainability versus 38% of others. However, they were less likely to score weakly on goals and priorities (10% did so, versus 15% of other organisations). ACE explained: “Disabled-led organisations tend to be smaller, some of them may not be artform specific, and they are more likely to advocate for disabled people’s rights and inclusion in wider society and therefore may not be attractive to a breadth of funding sources.” Its process of balancing the portfolio again reduced the negative impact: of the applications judged fundable, those from disability-led organisations were more likely to be selected than other applications (76% versus 66%). An assessment of the applications of female-led arts organisations (where at least 51% of the board or equivalent senior leadership is female) found them to be marginally more likely to meet the assessment criteria than other applicants at the first stage (81% versus 77%) but they had a similar success rate of being chosen for the National Portfolio than those from non-female led organisations (53% versus 52%).