Ace and the 3 Year Stretch

On the 17th of March Arts Council England released its spending plans for the next three years following the governments announcement late last year that arts funding would be frozen at current levels until 2008 at least. With the funding standstill some 121 organisations will no longer receive regular funding from ACE. Article19 takes a look at the winners and losers in the dance sector.

The documents released only cover Rugularly Funded Organisations (RFO’s). In the press release ACE stipulate that the funding cuts and increases for the RFO’s will seek to achieve the following objectives;

• to provide financial stability for the majority of arts organisations
• to ensure that organisations with major capital developments have the revenue funding to reach their potential
• to develop the infrastructure for Black and minority ethnic artists
• to review the range of organisations receiving regular funding and redirect funding to priority areas

Let’s start with the National Dance Agencies (NDA’s). NDA’s provide support services to professionals and community access classes for their particular region. There are nine NDA’s across England and they are responsible for areas of varying geographic size. The funding for The Place also includes funding for Richard Alston Dance Company.

all figures are in GBP

Both DanceEast and DanceXchange will receive the biggest boost in funding of almost £120,000 over the next 2-3 years. DanceCity, the NDA for the North of England, receives only a modest raise in core funding despite the opening, later this year, of their new multi-million pound facility in Newcastle upon Tyne.

DanceEast are currently developing a new building project but they are still some way off achieving their goal. At the last count they were £1million short of the target figure to begin the new building. DanceXchange is a part of the Hippodrome complex in Birmingham alongside Birmingham Royal Ballet.

As previously mentioned one of ACE’s aims in this funding review is to “to ensure that organisations with major capital developments have the revenue funding to reach their potential”. With their new facility and increased staff levels it is curious that the funding increase for DanceCity is not more substantial.

In response to the funding disparity Mark Robinson from ACE North East told us;

“The decisions regarding the levels of funding for the NDAs are made on a case by case basis. The funding allocated to each is what is judged necessary to allow them to reach their potential.

That one organisation requires an uplift at this moment in time does not imply any other does. Dance City has received significant uplifts in previous funding rounds – from £266,377 in 2003/4 to £346,377 in 2005/2006, rising to £365,500 in 2007/8.

This was exactly in the context of their capital development and was timed to support the organisation being ready to maximise the potential of the new building when it opens next year.”

Poor Dance Northwest take a further hit to remain in last place in the NDA funding stakes. Their dramatic funding cut makes them a lot less well off than a lot of regional dance agencies.”

Dance Companies with RFO status.

[BRB – Birmingham Royal Ballet, ENB – English National Ballet, NBT – Northern Ballet Theatre, C&F Cholmondleys and Featherstonhaughs]

Figures for the Royal Opera House are misleading since ACE puts the funding for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera into one large figure and separate figures are not readily available.

Dance companies in general have done rather well in the funding review with just two companies losing their RFO status (Adzido’s cut was announced some time ago) and two new companies being added to the RFO list. If a company no longer has RFO status they can still receive funding through the ACE Grants for the Arts programme but there are no guarantees that applications for funding will be successful.

Just one company (Shobana Jeyasingh) stays at a standstill in the funding stakes and while most funding increases are fairly modest (or very modest in Sankalpam’s case) at least they are not being cut back. Dance is the poor relation in the arts so it is heartening to see rises almost across the board.

It is particularly pleasing to see BareBones receiving RFO status and Motionhouse getting a significant bump in the right direction. In fact, Motionhouse will receive the largest single increase next year, for contemporary companies at least, of approximately £65,000 in core funding.

BalletLorent are also running into the light with a near 100% bump next year followed by another £20,000 in 2007. Award winning Tees Valley Dance also get an appropriate boost after too many years of working unspeakably hard for very little financial reward.

However the news is by no means all good. The top companies, in funding terms at least, are all receiving 2006 increases in funding that are larger than all of the contemporary dance companies put together. For the record, Article19 does not consider Rambert to be a contemporary dance company despite their endless protestations at being “Britain’s flagship contemporary dance company”.

It should surprise no one that classical companies are all in the upper echelons of the funding tree and despite ACE pleading poverty, to a certain degree, they still find the money for a £2.85 million raise in funding to the large scale companies for the next three years while contemporary dance receives just £233,750.

Overall for 2005 RFO status contemporary dance companies will receive £4.01million. Classical/Neo-Classical companies will receive approximately £28.65million**. This will rise to £4.34million and £30.65million** respectively by 2008. You can work out the difference for yourself but with or without a calculator the difference is staggering!

Arts Council England’s three year spending plans are available from our server as searchable PDF’s. Or you can pick them up from ACE as word documents.