ACE income buoyed by record Lottery sales

Arts Council England’s (ACE) income increased by nearly £36m in 2014/15, amounting to £645m from grant in aid and Lottery revenues. According to ACE’s latest Annual Review, a £6.6m fall in its ‘unrestricted’ grant in aid funding from Government was more than compensated for by a £21.7m rise in Lottery revenues, plus a further one-off £20.7m – its share of the proceeds from the sale of the Olympic Park. An additional £78m was ring-fenced for initiatives including the music education hubs which ACE manages on behalf of the Department for Education.

ACE’s former Interim CEO Althea Efunshile introduces the Review saying, “the big story in the arts often seems to be about how little money there is now, and how much less there may be in the future,” commenting that there is “little room for manoeuvre” with funding decisions. But in fact total arts funding has grown by over £100m since 2008/09. The recent growth, which represents a year-on-year rise of almost 6%, took ACE’s total income to its second highest level ever, only just short of the £668m reached in 2012/13. Not all of this growth in income has yet been felt in the sector, however, with ACE having built up £325m in Lottery reserves over the past five years.

For almost a decade now, Lottery funding has proved to be the more reliable of the two funding sources, having grown almost every year since 2007/08, taking a dip only in 2013/14, following exceptional ticket sales during the Olympic year before. Lottery funding now makes up over 42% of ACE’s available spend. By contrast, government grant in aid has dipped to £371m, of which £42.5m now goes to museums and libraries. This is a fall of 16% since the peak of £443m in 2009/10, which was before ACE took on responsibility for the museums and libraries sector.