Around half of NPO applications will be unsuccessful, says Davey
One thousand, three hundred and forty organisations have applied to become Arts Ciuncil England’s (ACE) National Portfolio Organisations (NPO), and of these, about “half will fail”, according to Chief Executive Alan Davey. Following the DCMS’s decision to levy a 30% cut on ACE after the Comprehensive Spending Review, ACE handed down a flat-rate cut of 0.5% to all of its Regularly Funded Organisations for 2010/11 and 6.9% in 2011/12. However, Davey, speaking at the Select Committee enquiry into the Funding of Arts and Heritage, was clear that this time will be different: “nothing is off the table in terms of withdrawal of funding… [and] it would be formulaic and produce distorted results” to try and share the pain equally. Liz Forgan, Chair of ACE, speaking the same event, agreed: “we did a flat-rate cut last year because there wasn't time to do anything else or publish the criteria... but to have equal pain for everybody now would be to abdicate our responsibilities”.
She said, “You can’t take this sum of money out of the arts without a hoo-ha, but we’re prepared for that.” She strongly defended Davey, saying that he had revitalised and improved ACE: “The Mackintosh report [which Davey commissioned] turned ACE on its head… everything has been changed… we have put in place all of the things that the report said we were missing in the last funding round.” These included a lack of transparency over the decision-making process and criteria; something ACE has addressed by publishing its 10-year plan and strategic goals. It hopes that these measures will avoid the ugly scenes and backlash that followed the last review of ACE’s funding.
However, although Forgan and Davey defended the new application system, they were blunt about the coming decisions: they will be tough, and many people will be unhappy. Of the 1,340 applications received, 830 are from current RFOs, meaning that only 20 RFOs chose not to apply. This means that 510 applications are from organisations not currently receiving regular funding from ACE – although they may currently be receiving funding. Davey told the Select Committee that about half of the applications will be turned down, meaning that more than 600 organisations are likely to be unsuccessful. However, he was clear that “it’s overdramatic to say that 600 organisations will go to the wall… the withdrawal of ACE money doesn’t necessarily mean the death of an organisation”.