Somerset is one of the most rural counties in England, says Sue Isherwood.
45%of its population live outside the 15 main towns, the largest of which is Taunton with around 65, 000 inhabitants. It has a two-tier local government structure with the County Council, serving a population of half a million, and having statutory responsible for the provision of education, social services, highways maintenance and libraries. Five district authorities are responsible for more local services such as waste disposal and planning. Along with the rest of the South West, it has the highest concentration of resident artists outside London and a higher than average number of voluntary arts groups, including amateur drama associations, choirs, music and visual artists 'societies.
No publicity
There is no lack of local ideas and ambition, so why did I decide three years ago to stop having a publicly advertised arts grant programme? When I arrived in the county in April six years ago I inherited an arts budget which had historically been spent on revenue grants to a number of small, mainly performance venues and three county-wide agencies for dance, disability arts and rural development. This left around £25,000 available for 'other projects'. There was no clear advertising policy, and a rather daunting application form gave a useful budget proforma, but no indication of strategic priorities or the amount of money available, and no advice on matching funding.
First things first
My priority in the first year was to consolidate the position of the revenue clients who provided the professional arts infrastructure of the county. Three year partnership agreements were negotiated with the management of the organisations and the district authorities, who were also funders. These set out clear performance targets for the programmes and management of the organisations, as well as the financial and advisory support available from the authorities. This ended a system which could mean small organisations filling in up to 6 different local authority application forms annually, and at least the same number again of monitoring forms. It also formalised the crucial partnerships between the two tiers of local authority support, leading to improved joint strategy development across the county.
Out of focus
Meanwhile, the small grants programme had already been advertised, mainly by contacting the people who had had funds the year before. A single date for applications was set, and I received bids for around £150, 000 from 18 organisations, including several existing revenue clients, and for sums between £300 and £20, 000! This type of ill-focussed and basically unfair local authority scheme may well still exist, particularly where there is no specialist arts development officer, although the Best Value regime should see it off within the next 5 years. The best way of taking advantage of such a scheme is to talk directly with whoever is administering it, more than once if necessary, to draw out their criteria, requirements for matching funding and maximum size of grant previously given. Then make it easy for them! Give a short, clear description of your project -get a colleague or a friend who knows nothing about it to read through first, as you'll probably be too close to see what 's missing. Use the same words you've heard in your consultation phase, maximise your matched funding, including clear costing of 'in kind 'support, and bid for just a little less than the previous maximum.
Clarity creates demand The following year because of overall budget cuts within the county I had a smaller grants budget of £20, 000. This time I wrote clear artistic and financial criteria, simplified the application form, included a guidance sheet with contact addresses on other funding sources, encouraged potential applicants to talk to me first, and advertised two application dates in the main local newspapers. That year I received bids for around £250, 000 from 120 organisations. The following year (with then only £16, 500 to allocate -more cuts!) I tightened the criteria and prioritised the visual arts as this was an under-supported area in terms of revenue clients work. I received a similar number of applications and the quality was continuing to go up. At least 1 in 4 applications were meeting all the criteria, but I could fund barely 1 in 10. All those who remember the time and energy spent on creating 'Arts for Everyone' Lottery bids and the frustration of failure will empathise with the local level of rightly pissed off applicants in Somerset. The debriefing of unsuccessful applicants took over a week. A 'juster' scheme was not producing a fairer outcome and could not manage expectation. What good did come out of this programme? Some excellent artists' residencies, an extraordinary performance event in Wookey Hole Caves and, crucially, the ground work for establishing ongoing county-wide agencies in the fields of arts and education, visual arts, and film and video. (These three are now all revenue clients with full partnership agreements with the six authorities in the county.
Strategic leverage
Since 1999 the non-revenue funding has been used strategically rather than reactively, to plant small acorns which have the potential to turn into full-grown oak trees. I have split the project money, now back up to £25, 000 (sometimes one can win the internal budget arguments!), into two strands. One of these is for research and one for delivering projects, but these must be of county wide importance, either as exemplars of work which could be extended across the county or which will take place across at least two district authority areas. Both strands of funding work to lever much larger amounts of money from other sources. For instance, an investment of £5,000 in high quality consultants to write two major funding bids has resulted in £210,000 from DfES/NOF to create a new media centre for the county, and £70,000 from the Regional Arts Lottery Programme for a major commission and residency programme to relaunch the River Parrett Trail, an arts, tourism and sustainable environment project. A further £5, 000 over two years committed to the delivery of the new Trail arts work levers a further £145, 000 from regeneration, business and trust sources.
Quality opportunities
The County Council 's funding has not been allocated directly in response to local community groups, but in response to the artform and local knowledge of Regional Arts Board officers, district councils and Somerset arts groups. It has resulted in more high quality opportunities for exhibition, events and participation than the open application arts grant scheme. Having no small grant scheme does not mean that the County 's Arts Office is closed for the giving of advice, information and practical support though. We regularly give advice on project development, fundraising strategies and sources and application writing to individuals and groups. I also offer an application review and referee service, reading and commenting and signing off draft bids. Somerset is fortunate in that all five district authorities have arts development officers and these offer well structured and supported small grant schemes to arts organisations, voluntary groups and individuals living within their boundaries. The demand, of course, a ways exceeds the supply, but in this context it is possible, and I 'd say preferable, for my Council 's small arts project budget to be used in partnership to generate major external funding and to strengthen and grow the arts infrastructure of the county.
Sue Isherwood is County Arts Officer at Somerset County Council, and Chair of NALGAO, the National Association of Local Government Arts Officers e:sisherwood@somerset.gov.uk