Thinking ahead

Like anyone involved in running an Arts Council England RFO, it was difficult to think about much else last week except our Briefing Session on the Portfolio funding programme. The choice of venue for those of us in the West Midlands was quite symbolic: The Crescent Theatre is a volunteer-run theatre built by a private property developer as part of a land-deal with the local authority. New musical ‘Big Society’ was not in the winter season, but is surely coming in the spring.

And what the officers had to say fitted in with the muted tones of ‘The Merry Widow’ set they appeared in front of. Some things were clearer: the confusion between Partnership and Programme funding has gone. Now we all apply to be in the Portfolio, and then a delicate dance will happen with those who are successful, ending with organisations sitting down either in the sections marked ‘Strategic’ or ‘Programme’. Though messages about new organisations coming into the portfolio, and increased funding being a possibility, were still there; they were somewhat tuned down. Or to put it another way, if ACE reckons 100 of the current RFO roster has to go to produce the required savings, and it funds 50 new organisations to a similar level, then it will need to cut a hundred and fifty in total.

We shuffled out with, of course, as many questions than answers. In particular, what on earth would happen to companies whose local authority funding agreements were concluded after their ACE decision. Would Portfolio funding be withdrawn from an organisation whose local authority support is withdrawn? We were given a clear message ACE would not make up the difference. Not having a Service Level Agreement with our Local Authority this was one cause of sleepless nights we might dodge over the next few months.

What we as a company are holding onto at the moment is the lever that this gives us to engineer positive discussions about our future. If B Arts is (in ACE’s words) to not just survive but thrive, and demonstrate ambition, then we have to have a vision for the future of the company that is just that. From this we can then write our Portfolio bid, but the vision, and the plan to achieve it, have to be grounded in something wider than merely a desire to keep our funding (however strong this is). So, emailing our ACE Relationship Manager this week, my lead-off question could well be:
How much change – how much ambition – does ACE want to see?