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Dateline: 24th April, 2009
£40m to Sustain the Arts After having £4m taken from its grant-in-aid from the DCMS in Wednesday's Budget, Arts Council England has announced a new £40m fund to support cultural organisations hit by the recession. The new fund, called Sustain, will offer grants from £75,000 to £3 million in the two years 2009/10 and 2010/11. The money will be taken from reserves of Lottery money which, in the past, have been kept in case major projects unexpectedly need an emergency cash injection. The fund will prioritise those organisations which "are seen as vital to the arts council achieving its mission of great art for everyone", although any organisation can apply. It is intended that the fund should be able to respond quickly to requests and the aim is to turn around applications in six weeks. ACE has also announced that it will inject an additional £2m into the Grants for the Arts fund in the current financial year and a further £2m next year. This year £54m will be distributed (as opposed to the projected £52m) and the figure will rise to £56m in 2010 - 2011. It was also announced today that ACE will give £500,000 to the Town Centres Initiative, which aims to fund arts activities in empty retail spaces. ACE's chair Liz Forgan commented, "Of course we understand that the national debt has to be tackled, but a few million off the arts budget is going to make no appreciable difference to that task. On the other hand it could undermine years of creative and financial investment. The arts council will do all it can to keep that investment in place. We cannot protect artists from the realities of recession, but we can be as imaginative, open and useful as possible in our efforts to get us all through this with minimal damage to the creative life of this country. "Showing that we can make a real contribution in even the most difficult of times," she added, "will be the best case we can make for continued public investment in the arts through – and just as importantly – beyond the recession." She also called upon public and private funders to maintain their levels of investment in the arts.
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