Changes to the way the Government assesses its spending are set to undermine the ability of Arts Council England?s (ACE) regularly funded arts organisations (RFOs) to plan ahead. Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced that, instead of conducting the bi-annual spending review scheduled for 2006, the Government will be undertaking a Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in 2007 to assess its spending after ten years in office and to set spending priorities and levels for the next ten years.
Over recent years, RFOs have always had a year?s notice of any changes to their funding status. However, the postponed review will mean that spending allocations to government departments will not be announced until summer 2007, and funding bodies such as ACE will not be able to inform arts organisations of their funding allocations for the financial year 2008/09 until, at the earliest, autumn 2007. Should ACE funding continue to be frozen, as it was following the last spending review, any consequent cuts would need to be made to RFOs with only a few months notice. The announcement of the CSR is likely to herald an intensive evaluation of departmental spending over the past eight years. Previous spending reviews have resulted in frantic lobbying by government departments and sub-departmental bodies such as ACE to promote the case for increased investment. It seems likely that RFOs will be called upon to provide data for the period from 1997 to support funding levels. A spokesperson for ACE commented, ?It is a challenge in terms of timetable but discussions have already begun with the DCMS.?
Published: 12-09-2005