The latest round of cuts - which saw the departure of five of the six art form directors and the loss of 37 posts - started last autumn and now drawing to a close. Only a few departments such as human resources remain to be reviewed, with some further redundancies still likely. ACE has now announced a new structure, and hired two key directors to steer through a revised set of policies for each art form.
The latest restructure will, according to chief executive Peter Hewitt, save the council £1.8m a year - money that will be directed to front-line arts organisations.
'Our intention throughout has been to devolve funding and regional strategy to the regions, leaving national planning and strategy at the centre,' Hewitt told Museums Journal. 'In 2002 we completed most of the changes, but it became increasingly apparent that the central office needed looking at again.'
The result is a national office, now with 190 posts, that is organised into four new divisions: arts strategy; arts planning (dealing with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS], and development of performance indicators); communications; and resources.
Of these, the strategy and planning jobs are clearly the most powerful. What used to be the mighty art form director positions have now been retitled and are regraded as subsidiary positions within the arts strategy department.
It is a far cry from the mid-1990s when Raymond Gubbay, the popular opera impresario, remarked that the Arts Council of England should be scrapped, and that its work could be done by a civil servant ticking off a list 'on a wet Wednesday afternoon'.
Many people were outraged by Gubbay's remarks, but there was a strong view that the council and its nine regional arts boards were heavily staffed and bureaucratic.
The fact that these criticisms were raised in an era when many arts organisations faced cuts in their revenue budgets highlighted the need for action.
In 1998 Hewitt, the director of Northern Arts, was hired as the council's new chief executive. He quickly made it clear that the council had to slim down, devolve power to the regions, and get more money to artists and arts organisations. And although he has always stated that reorganisations have not been politically motivated, the council has been rewarded by central government when it has shown willingness to change.
The 2001 spending round saw the arts council's grant increase by £100m, although in 2005 it was then frozen at £412m until 2008. For the latest Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) the message from Hewitt is that it wants as a minimum an inflation increase, which would cost £12m a year.
The latest moves have been welcomed by many as sensible and arguably more clear-cut than the ongoing confusion between strategic and executive functions that continues to bedevil the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and its regional agencies.
'MLA and ACE have been redefining their relationship with their regional offices,' says Helen Wilkinson, the Museums Association's policy officer. 'It's too early to say how it will work in practice but the arts council's approach does at least seem more logical.
'At MLA, work on policy and strategy is split between regional and national offices, which leads to duplication of effort and perhaps a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies. MLA's approach has the virtue of democracy, but ACE's might turn out to have the virtue of simplicity,' she adds.
But there are concerns about the potential loss of expertise. 'The visual arts department used to have 15 members of staff, which went down to eight after 2002 and now it is one,' says Hilary Gresty, the director of the Visual Arts and Galleries Association.
Louise de Winter, the new director of the National Campaign for the Arts, agrees: 'It is too soon to tell what the result will be but although we are all for working efficiently and getting money to the front-line, it is important not to lose the credibility that comes from having experts making decisions in the national office.'
Some in the art world also fear that the timing of restructure has been damaging to Turning Point, the first major review of visual arts in Britain for over a quarter of a century, and the parting gift of Marjorie Althorpe-Guyton, the former head of visual arts at ACE.
Among the many issues Turning Point addresses is the fact that contemporary visual arts organisations have had no substantial increase in funding since 1984. The review is also seeking to forge closer links between contemporary visual art and historical art museums.
Visual art is, politically at least, fragmented: contemporary centres and organisations are funded by the arts council, the Tate directly from the DCMS, while major regional galleries such as Manchester and Birmingham look to their local city councils and the MLA. Turning Point aims to close the gap, and align policies such as diversifying the workforce more closely with the MLA and bodies such as the National Museum Directors' Council.
According to Peter Hewitt, Turning Point is a priority for the arts council. He says the organisation is currently working out the amount of funding needed - although some say it could be as much as £40m a year.
'We are committed to Turning Point,' Hewitt says. 'I am leading the lobbying on the CSR and I'm not affected by the restructure. I believe the crucial time is between now and the summer, and we are making our case forcefully. No momentum has been lost.'
Art museums and galleries - whether historic or contemporary - are no doubt keeping their fingers crossed that he is right.
Jane Morris
The latest restructure will, according to chief executive Peter Hewitt, save the council £1.8m a year - money that will be directed to front-line arts organisations.
'Our intention throughout has been to devolve funding and regional strategy to the regions, leaving national planning and strategy at the centre,' Hewitt told Museums Journal. 'In 2002 we completed most of the changes, but it became increasingly apparent that the central office needed looking at again.'
The result is a national office, now with 190 posts, that is organised into four new divisions: arts strategy; arts planning (dealing with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS], and development of performance indicators); communications; and resources.
Of these, the strategy and planning jobs are clearly the most powerful. What used to be the mighty art form director positions have now been retitled and are regraded as subsidiary positions within the arts strategy department.
It is a far cry from the mid-1990s when Raymond Gubbay, the popular opera impresario, remarked that the Arts Council of England should be scrapped, and that its work could be done by a civil servant ticking off a list 'on a wet Wednesday afternoon'.
Many people were outraged by Gubbay's remarks, but there was a strong view that the council and its nine regional arts boards were heavily staffed and bureaucratic.
The fact that these criticisms were raised in an era when many arts organisations faced cuts in their revenue budgets highlighted the need for action.
In 1998 Hewitt, the director of Northern Arts, was hired as the council's new chief executive. He quickly made it clear that the council had to slim down, devolve power to the regions, and get more money to artists and arts organisations. And although he has always stated that reorganisations have not been politically motivated, the council has been rewarded by central government when it has shown willingness to change.
The 2001 spending round saw the arts council's grant increase by £100m, although in 2005 it was then frozen at £412m until 2008. For the latest Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) the message from Hewitt is that it wants as a minimum an inflation increase, which would cost £12m a year.
The latest moves have been welcomed by many as sensible and arguably more clear-cut than the ongoing confusion between strategic and executive functions that continues to bedevil the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and its regional agencies.
'MLA and ACE have been redefining their relationship with their regional offices,' says Helen Wilkinson, the Museums Association's policy officer. 'It's too early to say how it will work in practice but the arts council's approach does at least seem more logical.
'At MLA, work on policy and strategy is split between regional and national offices, which leads to duplication of effort and perhaps a lack of clarity about where responsibility lies. MLA's approach has the virtue of democracy, but ACE's might turn out to have the virtue of simplicity,' she adds.
But there are concerns about the potential loss of expertise. 'The visual arts department used to have 15 members of staff, which went down to eight after 2002 and now it is one,' says Hilary Gresty, the director of the Visual Arts and Galleries Association.
Louise de Winter, the new director of the National Campaign for the Arts, agrees: 'It is too soon to tell what the result will be but although we are all for working efficiently and getting money to the front-line, it is important not to lose the credibility that comes from having experts making decisions in the national office.'
Some in the art world also fear that the timing of restructure has been damaging to Turning Point, the first major review of visual arts in Britain for over a quarter of a century, and the parting gift of Marjorie Althorpe-Guyton, the former head of visual arts at ACE.
Among the many issues Turning Point addresses is the fact that contemporary visual arts organisations have had no substantial increase in funding since 1984. The review is also seeking to forge closer links between contemporary visual art and historical art museums.
Visual art is, politically at least, fragmented: contemporary centres and organisations are funded by the arts council, the Tate directly from the DCMS, while major regional galleries such as Manchester and Birmingham look to their local city councils and the MLA. Turning Point aims to close the gap, and align policies such as diversifying the workforce more closely with the MLA and bodies such as the National Museum Directors' Council.
According to Peter Hewitt, Turning Point is a priority for the arts council. He says the organisation is currently working out the amount of funding needed - although some say it could be as much as £40m a year.
'We are committed to Turning Point,' Hewitt says. 'I am leading the lobbying on the CSR and I'm not affected by the restructure. I believe the crucial time is between now and the summer, and we are making our case forcefully. No momentum has been lost.'
Art museums and galleries - whether historic or contemporary - are no doubt keeping their fingers crossed that he is right.
Jane Morris
