RFOs shielded for the next few months only, big theatres hit and more cuts stills to be announced.
Arts Council England (ACE) chaired by Dame Liz Forgan has announced a further decrease of £19m from the ACE budget from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) after an initial £4m cut announced in April 2009.
Since the government has allowed access to ACE's historic reserves, it has used £9 million to lessen the blow to its regularly funded organisations (RFOs) which amount to more than 800 in number, 26% of which are theatres and theatre companies. As a result, the initial 3% cuts to the RFOs have been reduced to 0.5% – £1.8 million – to their overall grants, which equates to approximately £2,000 less per organisation.
Nicholas Hynter, director of the National Theatre, who gave strong support to Veronica Wadley's appointment as London chair at ACE for her advocacy of London theatre during her time at the Evening Standard, will see National Theatre take a cut of £100,000 from its funding. The other major theatre company to lose out is the RSC who will see a loss of £80,000.
Curtailing the free ticket scheme designed to encourage more people aged under 26 into theatre audiences, A Night Less Ordinary has also lost funding of around £100,000. Other significant cuts were suffered by the BFI which will not receive the £45m promised to it by the last government.
With scepticism surrounding it, a potential, minute patch on the gaping hole the cuts will leave is a viral funding model. This would involve the use of micropayment technology through social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Ning as well as text messaging to raise funds. Similar models have been used extensively to raise funds for charity.
The cuts announced so far are those planned until the end of the current financial year but more are to be made after the government's next Spending Review which is expected to take place in the autumn. Though with the reserves now spent, no further shielding can be expected for RFOs.
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