Organisations including the British Council, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Big Lottery Fund, the DCMS and Arts Council England are taking part in an evaluation of performance on disability, organised by the Employers’ Forum on Disability (EFD). Participating organisations receive diagnostic reports on their performance, and material gathered from this analysis is used to produce the EFD Disability Standard Benchmark Report, which provides a snapshot of UK business performance on disability. These findings will be made public in September, and awards for the best performers in the Disability Standard 2009 will also be announced in the autumn.
w: http://www.efd.org.uk
A new £10,000 drama training and development bursary has been launched by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The new fund will enable working actors to increase their skills base by accessing professional and vocational training opportunities. Applications are now open for individual grants of up to £2,000.
w: http://www.artscouncil-ni.org
The National Youth Orchestra of Iraq (pictured) has performed its first gala concert at the Opera House in the northern Kurdish city of Suleimaniya. Set up by Zuhal Sultan (who has just turned 18), the orchestra brings together 33 young Iraqi musicians to receive coaching from professional tutors. The inaugural course which led up to the concert was supported by the British Council, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Iraqi government and individual donations. Lord Smith of Finsbury will be the orchestra’s first Patron.
w: http://www.makingmusic.org.uk
The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is offering grants of £1,500 for ‘Disability Stories’ family events across the English regions. These grants are available as part of ‘Setting the Pace’, the MLA’s programme for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Projects will support disabled children, parents and carers to engage with museum, library and archive collections in new ways, and they may also involve disabled storytellers and artists.
w: http://www.tinyurl.com/lsfy27
AmbITion Scotland, an £800,000 programme to support digital development and change in arts organisations throughout Scotland, has been launched. Organisations will be able to access workshops, events, online material, case studies and online tools to help digital development, and financial support will also be available. The programme aims to help achieve sustainable organisational change and improve the capacity for audience engagement through integrated IT and digital development.
w: http://www.tinyurl.com/ommyak
A new report from the Association of British Orchestras, ‘Live the Experience’, shows that 40% of all schoolchildren saw a full live orchestra perform in 2007/8. This is the first mapping survey showing concert provision for schoolchildren, and it shows that access to live orchestral concerts is concentrated predominantly in urban areas. Orchestras will actively seek to maintain and develop current activity, but this will require increased funding.
w: http://www.abo.org.uk
 

Cultural consultancy Arts Quarter is undertaking a follow-up research study into the effects of the recession on cultural and not-for-profit communities, to update the findings from its January survey. It is asking for a wide range of participants to become involved, in order to understand sector, regional and national perspectives and to plot trends. The results will be available in October.
w: http://www.tinyurl.com/r7f477 
The Criminal Records Bureau will reduce the fee for Standard Disclosures from £31 to £26 in October. The decrease has been made possible by an expected increase in the volume of disclosure applications being processed as the new Vetting and Barring Scheme comes into place in October.
w: http://www.crb.gov.uk
New guidance to help local authorities understand the role that culture can play in education has been published by Partnerships for Schools (PfS). ‘Requirements and guidance on culture for local authorities entering the second half of the Building Schools for the Future programme’ sets out the new requirements to progress through the programme. From the autumn, the PfS website will have a dedicated culture section with case studies of best practice.
w: http://www.tinyurl.com/kp9pwk
A new £1m fund offering direct support to artists has been launched by Creative Scotland. The ‘Vital Spark’ awards have been allocated money from the £5m Innovation Fund, to enable collaborative work. Individual awards of between £20,000 and £100,000 will be offered to support collaborations between artists and practitioners working across all the disciplines, as well as between creative practitioners and those from other sectors, including the wider creative industries, science and education. Applications open on 14 September.
w: http://www.scottisharts.org.uk
A study by England’s North West Research Service has found that National Museums Liverpool (NML) is worth £115m to the local economy and supports 2,274 full-time jobs. Nearly three million people visited NML’s museums and galleries in 2008, an increase of 36% on 2007. NML is made up of eight museums and galleries, including the Walker Art Gallery, the International Slavery Museum and Merseyside Maritime Museum. It is the only English national museum group based entirely outside of London.
w: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
The London Philharmonic Orchestra is the first UK orchestra to have its own iPhone and iPod Touch application. The new app is free and allows users to access concert information, buy tickets, listen to music, and keep up with news and CD releases.
w: http://www.lpo.org.uk/iphone/