1. Arts Council briefing event, York
Arts Council briefing events
Young people participating in a music workshop using
Firestix.
Artists perform at Imagine Watford 2011
Photo: Jim Lockey
Photo: Jeff Busby

2. Agenda and timings for today
1:00 pm Welcome and introduction
1:10 pm The Arts Council’s organisation review
1:30 pm Q&A with Sarah Maxfield & Cluny Macpherson
2:00 pm The funding environment and making the case
2:30 pm Provocations from Kerry Harker, Project Space
Leeds, Nima Poovaya-Smith, Alchemy and
Marcus Romer, Pilot Theatre.
2:55 pm Informal discussion and refreshments
3:25 pm Q&As and further discussion with panel
4:15 pm Close

3. Organisation Review
Final operating model and
organisation structure

4. Our vision and purpose
• our vision is to enrich people’s lives through their artistic and cultural
experiences
• our purpose is to lead growth and ambition in the arts and cultural
sector across England: investing public money effectively to
encourage and enable artistic excellence; championing the value of
the sector; and collaborating with the sector to ensure its future
resilience
• our success will be in delivering our strategy: Achieving great art for
everyone and Culture, knowledge and understanding: great
museums and libraries for everyone

5. Organisation review
• a result of the Government’s requirement that the Arts Council cuts
its administrative costs as applied to its grant in aid for the arts by
2014/15
• making savings on this scale has required a major restructure and
substantial reduction in staff numbers, and will call for new ways of
working
• we will remain an intelligent and collaborative investor, leading
growth and ambition in the sector; and being accountable for public
money
• we will have to do things differently, through more streamlined
investment processes and a more focused set of priorities - we will
do less and do it differently

6. Principal changes
• 21 per cent reduction in staff numbers across the organisation from
559.5 full time posts to 442 (117.5)
• four Executive Directors, reducing from eight, accountable for
delivering our strategy with the Chief Executive
• five areas covering London, the South East, the South West, the
Midlands and the North
• 50 per cent cut in property costs through reducing the size but not
the number of offices
• leadership of art form and cultural policy expertise distributed
geographically across the organisation

7. One national organisation with local presence
• our thinking has been guided by the principle of being an intelligent
and collaborative investor - and by the need to protect our
relationship management capability, which is highly valued by the
arts and culture sector
• collaborative working, both internally and externally, will be at the
heart of what we do
• art form and cultural policy expertise will be distributed amongst our
staff working across the country – everyone will have a local and
national focus

8. Locations
North
Newcastle
Dewsbury
Manchester
Midlands
Nottingham
Birmingham
South East
Cambridge
Brighton
London
South
West
Bristol

9. Boundary change
• to ensure each area has an equally distributed workload, and that
we can have effective relationships
• the South West boundary will move eastwards to incorporate
Hampshire and the unitary authorities of Southampton, Portsmouth
and the Isle of Wight.
• our staff in the South West will build relationships with organisations
over the coming months, supported by their colleagues in the South
East

10. Leadership distributed across the organisation
National policy leads
• Children, Young People and Learning
• Creative Media
• Engagement and Audiences
National discipline leads
• Combined Arts • Touring
• Dance • Philanthropy and fundraising
• Libraries • Organisational resilience and
• Literature environmental sustainability
• Museums • International
• Music • Diversity
• Theatre
• Visual Arts
7

11. Executive Board
Chief Executive
National Director
Advocacy and
Communications
Deputy
Chief Executive
Chief Finance Officer
Executive Executive Executive
(Director Finance &
Director Director Director
Corporate Services)

12. North
Personal Assistant
Assistant Area Director
x2
Administrator
Director Senior Manager,
x3 Operations Senior Manager,
Advocacy &
Communications
Senior
Relationship Assistant Assistant, Officer,
Manager x8 x5 Operations Advocacy &
Communications
Relationship
Manager x41

13. Final post numbers
Posts 2012/ 2013/
2013 2014
Executive & Executive Support 22 13
Investment, Planning & Governance 39 21
Investment Centre 40 41
Corporate Services 74.5 56
Arts & Culture, including AELCU 55 44
Advocacy & Communications , including 33 30
Customer Services
London 60 63
Midlands 58 42
South East 58 36
South West 29 30
North 91 66
Total 559.5 442

14. Transition timeline
Over three phases
From now until December
• as many appointments as possible to Director roles
From January to March
• new Executive Board and wider leadership group making further
appointments to the new structure
From April
• external and internal recruitment to vacant posts
• The new organisation will be in place by 1 July 2013. There may be
changes to office arrangements and locations for some months after
this

15. Arts Council priorities and investment processes
• we will have to do things differently, through more
streamlined investment, grant making and application
processes and a more focused set of priorities
• we will meet our accountability requirements and fund
applications that meet our goals and priorities
• over the next year we will work with the arts and
cultural sector to develop the necessary changes to
our priorities and investment processes

16. Working together
More collaborative working, both internally and
externally, will be at the heart of what we do
•our priorities
•our investment processes
•new ways of working

17. Questions and discussion
Questions and discussion
Irresistible – Jez Colborne
Photo: Tim Smith

18. The funding environment
• Chancellor’s Autumn statement 5 December
• the Arts Council is
o preparing the case for investment in arts and culture
o refreshing the priorities that sit under the five goals of Achieving
great art for everyone
o designing next investment strategy
o determining the processes to underpin it
• an External reference group will work with us

19. Making the case for arts and culture
The cultural sector is a credit to Britain
Through creating great art, building our communities and
contributing to economic growth:
o Innovation and regeneration across the country
o Building a talent ladder
o Promoting the UK on a global stage
•We have created a powerful platform for cultural, social
and economic growth
•The Olympics exemplified the strength of this platform
•We have a modest ask to government to allow growth to
continue

20. Making the case for arts and culture
• The Arts Council will support your communications and
engagement work
• use messages in our on-going advocacy work
• use examples and stories of the work that you do
What you can do
• write your own confident story about how you contribute
• use this story with all your audiences
• read Measuring the economic benefits of arts
and culture and add your economic impact study to the
Arts Council blog http://blog.artscouncil.org.uk/
• share the messages with your staff and board
• acknowledge your public funding and tell your story

21. Provocation: Do you suit and boot?
Kerry Harker
Director, Project Space Leeds

22. Provocation: Food for thought?
Nima Poovaya-Smith, Alchemy
with Anne Cunningham, The Art House

23. Provocation: Where the Hell is team Arts?
Marcus Romer, Artistic Director
Pilot Theatre

24. Discussion and questions
Liz Aggiss in Survival Tactics, part
of Juncture 2012 at Yorkshire
Dance in collaboration with
Charlotte Vincent. Credit: Matthew
Andrews

25. What are the three greatest challenges currently facing you or your
organisation?

26. What do you think the Arts Council can do to help?

27. Thank you