Arts Council England (ACE) has today rebuffed an MP’s suggestion during a Commons hearing that parts of its latest £1bn round of spending were “politically motivated”.
The body’s chief executive, Darren Henley, was before a DCMS committee in the midst of controversy over millions of pounds of grant aid being taken away from London and handed to charities and other groups outside the capital.
Some charities described the changes when they were first announced as “devastating news”.
But Henley said ACE’s decisions represented “a really strong way” of moving arts funding across the country.
He told the committee that grants worth £16m would be moved from London to arts organisations outside the capital, rising to £24m by 2025.
Henley said it meant more funding going to arts charities and beneficiaries that had been “underserved in the past, and we felt that this was a really strong way of changing that dynamic”. He added that one-third of ACE’s budget will still be spent in London next year.
Questioned over high-profile charities that are set to lose funding or whose funding is dependent on moving outside London, Henley said: “We absolutely understand that anybody who we take money away from, who doesn’t make a successful application – there are problems there.
“But all the way through it is a balance, and there will be other people who are benefiting.”
Rupa Huq, a former Labour MP who currently sits as an independent, said there were “lots of people outside London who are massively dissatisfied at this” and asked if the funding cuts to some organisations had been “politically motivated”.
Pete Massey, director of northern economy and partnerships at ACE, replied: “There was no political influence in the decisions we have taken.”
Later in the session, Henley acknowledged that rising inflation was placing pressure on ACE’s grantees and said the funder was working directly with charities to be as flexible as possible in the requirements it placed on them.
He also stressed that criticism of the LGB Alliance made at an internal meeting this year, reported in The Telegraph, reflected the personal opinion of a senior colleague and was “not the Arts Council’s view”. He said ACE had “looked at that and reminded the people involved of the process we need to go through”.
The criticism came five days before the London Community Foundation, which is funded by ACE, withdrew a grant it had made to the LGB Alliance.