Craft Council cuts halved

Arts Council England (ACE) has reconsidered its decision to cut funding for the Crafts Council - but the national agency for contemporary crafts will still have its grant reduced by 10 per cent.

In the recent round of grant allocations to 888 regularly funded arts organisations (effective from 1 April 2008 until 2011), the Crafts Council was to suffer a 20 per cent fall in annual funding on its 2007-08 total of £3.1m.

The Crafts Council was among 212 organisations threatened with a funding squeeze, but was one of 16 given a reprieve last month.
Its grant will remain frozen at £2,808,584 until 2011 - 10 per cent less than in 2007-08.

An ACE spokesman said the 20 per cent cut had been proposed because the Crafts Council had made insufficient progress in implementing the findings of its organisational review.

"We are clear that significant progress has been made in this area over the past six months," he said. "In recognition, we have revised our proposed reduction."

But a spokeswoman for the Crafts Council expressed disappointment. "While this cut will inevitably have an impact on our work, we are committed to forge ahead with alternative partnerships and proactive fundraising to ensure that any effect on our long-term ambitions is minimised," she said.

The Crafts Council was one of the few losers among visual arts and heritage organisations, with 99 bodies receiving an increase in funding in line with inflation, and 61 an above-inflation rise.

The settlement was met with relief by museum and gallery professionals following funding cuts to performing-arts venues and publishers.

The biggest winners include new galleries such as the Turner Contemporary centre, which is to open in Margate in 2010. Its grant will rise from £300,000 in 2009-10 to £500,000 in 2010-11.

Established organisations that secured significant funding increases included the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Baltic Centre in Gateshead (see table).