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Funding fiasco averted?

Helen Clifton
20/ 2/2008

DRASTIC cuts to Arts Council funding left many creatives fearing they wouldn’t survive. Helen Clifton found out how Manchester fared...

DESPITE being dubbed "one of our great two-person ensembles" by the Guardian, Chorlton’s LipService theatre company faced the final curtain last month when the Arts Council axed its funding.

The Council said the company was "not a priority for artistic development" but, after impassioned pleas from fans and founders alike, LipService was given a last-minute reprieve.

Founders Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding, who last year celebrated 21 years writing and performing together, will now receive £40,258 – the equivalent of one more year of regular funding.

The Arts Council will then work with LipService to ensure the company’s future survival.

Sue Ryding says the duo are "enormously grateful" to all the people who supported them, but added they still needed help.

She says: "Obviously we are really disappointed that the decision has not been overturned in its entirety, but we are relieved that we have more time to pursue alternative sources of income, and our programme of work for next year is secure."

The company was just one of 17 nationwide given a second chance after the Arts Council’s proposals to slash funding for 194 theatre, literature and music projects were announced amid a flurry of controversy in mid-December.

The cuts – the biggest in the Arts Council’s history – provoked uproar. High-profile figures like Sir Ian McKellen and Kevin Spacey joined actors’ union Equity in a vote of no confidence in the Council. Organisations were given until January 15 – just 18 working days – to appeal the decisions, and frantic administrators complained they didn’t have enough time.

Queer Up North, Manchester’s innovative annual gay and lesbian arts festival, also faced the axe after the council branded its audience figures "unacceptably low."

But artistic director Jonathan Best mounted a high-profile campaign to save the event.

Directors of Manchester and Salford arts venues signed a joint protest letter, and Central Manchester MP Tony Lloyd wrote a letter criticising the move.

The Arts Council reconsidered its decision after admitting it had "underestimated the degree of positive change in the organisation in the last 12 months."

On February 1 it announced the 2008 festival would receive £97,257 funding, while its future would be decided after a September review.

Jonathan Best says: "The Arts Council still has a few concerns about Queer Up North, but we’re confident that we can address them fully. We have an exciting programme of work planned, and we’re happy that we can now get on with making it happen."

He says the funding review demonstrates the need for the Arts Council to become much more transparent, despite its insistence that its processes are fair.

If not, he warns: "Its decisions will continue to be tainted by the mistrust that has characterised the past few weeks."

John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington, echoes this view. He supported Queer Up North and LipService in their bids to get the funding decision overturned, tabling a motion condemning the cuts in Parliament.

He says: "In the long term, there needs to be more done to ensure transparency within the Arts Council. I think it needs to be made clear how funds are distributed in the future. The Arts Council processes need to stand up to better scrutiny."

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. The Arts Council North West’s £72m will benefit four new organisations between 2008 and 2011 – and more than 80 per cent of its 110 regularly funded organisations (RFOs) received increases in line with or above the rate of inflation. One of the major winners in Greater Manchester was Oldham Coliseum, one of only two theatres in the north west to receive an above-inflation increase in its funding. It will receive £485,463 over the next financial year.

But administrative director Liz Wilson says she was still shocked by some of the Arts Council’s decisions – and adds that financial pressures are still tight. She says: "We are constantly torn between a production that we like and something that will sell well. It is no different than it has always been.

"If we have got it wrong and we have already invested in it, there is no going back."

Ian Sanders, regional director at Manchester-based Arts & Business North West, adds that although he thinks the arts should always be publicly funded, financial sustainability is also key.

"The Arts Council don’t want things to stand still and for organisations to think they will always get the funding they have always had," he says.