1. Arts Council of Wales Investment Review
Overall Presentation looking at the Arts and the context of the Investment Review

2. Who have we been talking to?
The Nationals
WAPA and Creu Cymru
VAGW
An invited Music Sector workshop
AD UK
National Advisers, Council and Staff
An invited group of Community Arts organisations

3. What this presentation recaps : The Issues
delivering Inspire… through the Investment Review
where we are now, compared to 2010
the Welsh Government’s expectations
the financial context

4. For Inspire see:
http// etc

5. make : reach : sustain The mantra in Inspire:
Our vision is of a creative Wales where the arts are central to the life of the nation.
Our strategy is straightforward – it’s summed up in just three words:
Make Reach Sustain
Making art, ensuring it connects and giving it a durable legacy are indivisible. And these are
the themes that underpin our work.
When we talk about Make, we mean the act of artistic creation. We want to foster an
environment for our artists and arts organisations in which they can create their best
work. Because if we Make well, we inspire.
If we inspire, people get it. They want it and value it. So we must inspire the people of Wales
to enjoy and take part in the best that our nation has to offer. This is what allows us our ability
to Reach, and crucially to reach further than before.
If in doing this, something of worth is created in what is made or who is embraced, then we
should ask how we protect and Sustain these things in ways that will endure.
And all the time, the goal is Wales – the creative Country.

6. The Welsh Government’s expectations
Number of participants that actively engage in their activities
RFO’s contribution to tackling poverty, including the number of people they reach that are at risk of disengaging from education, or are unemployed
The extent of exposure given to Wales, nationally and internationally, that arises from RFO activities
The return on investment in terms of jobs and growth, and on our other key policy agendas around tourism, education, health and sustainability
From the Remit Letter April 2015:
For the full remit letter see:

7. Where we are now Less flexibility, compared to 2010
The “double whammy” – most RFOs suffering cuts in national and local funding
Trust and foundations ‘nursing’ their capital
Sponsorship environment challenging
Welsh Government demanding and testing value for money
Horizon scanning

8. £995,000
This was the cut to Arts Council for the current financial year. Last financial year The Council also weathered a one off in year cut of £300,000. The Remit Letter includes an indicative budget for and However this is subject to an annual review and decision before a budgetary figure is allocated to Arts Council and generally only confirmed to the sector in Qtr 4 of the financial year. The Investment Review will see the portfolio established in principle in October 2015, with indicative budgets allocated in December 2015 and confirmed in the New Year 2016 for the financial year beginning in April 2016.

9. Devolution has seen investment in the Arts by Welsh Assembly Government until a downturn in However raised levels of funding have not kept pace when adjusted in real terms (the turquoise line in the above graphs)

10. -11%
The average cut across the 22 Local Authorities in to their arts and cultural services.

11. Current Funding

12. Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation
Mapping across from attendance and participation, to RFOs and to WIMD

14. Mapping implantation against deprivation index
Is it possible to look at Cardiff in more detail?
Mapping across from attendance and participation, to RFOs and to WIMD

15. WHAT DOES INSPIRE HAVE TO SAY?
Supporting artists
Fit for Purpose: Showing strong and innovative creative ambitions
In the case of a national…demonstrate how it is national
Make more of environmental and physical assets
Demonstrate fitting international connectivity
Making art part of lives
Nurturing talent
Putting communities first
Making new places
Integrating digital

16. Looking at what we say in Inspire…on
Venues

17. Making More Of our Arts Buildings…inseparable from the communities in which they’re located and to which they relate

18. audience focused, with spaces owned and
Many recognise that they are as much a social as a cultural hub
and that the two are indivisible.
We support this emphasis on community
connection.
But ultimately we are an Arts
Council. So we’re particularly interested in
those organisations that are arts led and
audience focused, with spaces owned and
inhabited by the communities in which they
are embedded.
Their brief we see is
one of creative community renewal - something
you can feel and see when you experience the
building and what it has to offer.

19. Creating the right environment for the artist and the arts to flourish
We know we can provide support at key moments in an artist’s career. Whether working singly or together, locally or globally, our goal is to create the circumstances in which our artists can pursue viable, sustainable careers from a Welsh base. Our support for the individual artist will continue to be built on developing the foundations of our Creative Wales and Creative Wales Ambassadors and production grants, and the existing support that we offer for training and in-career development. We want to go further. We want to see more creative partnerships forged between artists and arts venues, encouraging those venues to provide the advice, facilities and resources that artists need to develop their work.

20. Looking at what we say in Inspire…on
Nationals

21. For a small nation we have high performing national companies
For a small nation we have high performing national companies. They have a challenging remit to produce great work and connect across the country. The challenge is to do this in a credible and meaningful way, delivering real engagement and involvement with communities across Wales in the excellent work that they do.
Each national company needs to start from the question ‘how are we national?’

22. Wales and its three million people have a right to ask not just how national companies exemplify their flagship designation, but how do they connect with people in Wales?
For our national companies being national is a responsibility, not an assumed right. It brings with it a particular obligation to be an exemplar in every way: creating work of national and international significance; showing leadership in developing the arts in Wales; nurturing the partnerships and relationships that will develop new artists; building the arts audiences of the future.

23. Looking at what we say in Inspire…on
Visual Arts

24. bring about a sustainable and appropriate
Whilst the performing arts have flagship
national companies, there are other areas
of our national life without a fully-fledged
‘national’ entity. Five years ago discussion
focussed around the need for a national centre for the visual arts. Since then, the National Museum has extended its space and created welcome additional capacity for exhibiting the contemporary visual arts. But the wider need remains.
There’s huge national potential
in the contemporary visual arts and crafts.
An important aspect of our strategy over the
coming period must be to explore how to
bring about a sustainable and appropriate
national platform for contemporary visual and
applied arts.

25. Making more of our Arts buildings
At their best, they not only pursue excellence in all that they do, they are also inseparable from the communities in which they’re located and to which they relate… Many recognise that they are as much a social as a cultural hub and that the two are indivisible.
We support this emphasis on community connection. But ultimately we are an Arts
Council. So we’re particularly interested in those organisations that are arts led and audience focused, with spaces owned and inhabited by the communities in which they are embedded. These are arts organisations that understand the role they play in local communities and work hard to build their own
distinctive sense of place. Their brief we see is one of
creative community renewal -

26. Making new places
Our work around Art in the Public Realm has convinced us that we need to pay more attention to the meeting point between people, art, architecture, environment and design. We believe that well designed schemes, ones developed with engagement, creativity and imagination, are more likely to win community support, promote social well being and encourage more sustainable economic development. In short, we want to promote a creative approach to regeneration.

27. Looking at what we say in Inspire…on
Community Arts

28. We need to make sure our funding supports different kinds of arts and reaches a greater range of artists and communities. We want more people in Wales to be able to choose to make the arts a part
of their lives. We know the arts in Wales will be stronger, more exciting and more relevant if they embrace more people. The arts still tend to be seen as for the most privileged in society. We need to change this. For some the place of the arts is unquestioned and economically and socially it seems natural to them. For others the arts continue to feel alien, remote, not for them, beyond their experience or marginal to their concerns or marginalised by prejudice or preconceptions.

29. The central challenge posed to us by the
Welsh Government is to ensure that the
wealth of the arts and the experiences they
give are accessed by more people. Different means of engagement mean different sorts of project – finding different ways to connect with people. The arts as celebration, the arts as the organising principle underpinning planning, the arts as the basis of protest and dissent, the arts as surprise, contradiction and discomfort, the arts as the connective force that binds individuals and communities together. If the art is good it will also extend its audience.

30. Looking at what we say in Inspire…on
Equalities

31. we recognise the dynamic force of art
that’s truly inclusive and makes use of talents of all members of our society. We’ll work with the organisations we fund to help them build inclusion and equalities into their work and we’ll support training in this area. We’ll foreground best practice and seek inroads through those whom we fund as organisations, to adopt this agenda more strongly as a characteristic of their approach.

32. Non-Capital Lottery Grants Awarded in 2010/11 per Artform

33. Non-Capital Lottery Grants Awarded in 2013/14 per Artform

34. Revenue Grants (including Transition & FAW Delegated Funding) Awarded in 2010/11 per Artform

35. Revenue Grants & FAW Delegated Funding Awarded in 2013/14 per Artform

36. Revenue (& Transition) Funding in 2010-11 per Sector

37. Total RFO Funding in 2010-11 per Sector

38. RFO Non-Capital Lottery Funding in 2013-14 per Sector

39. Revenue Funding in 2013-14 per Sector

40. Total RFO Funding in 2013-14 per Sector

41. The Arts Council has used Lottery Resources to support strategic areas of development. It has less flexibility as time goes on to do this but an outcome of the Investment Review will be as 5 years ago a unified financial strategy across revenue, lottery and the Arts Council’s own cost base for its activities.

42. A measure for the Arts Council will be an organisation’s diversification of its funding base and its ability to multiply its sources of support and income income