News: ACW Statement on "challenging" financial climate in Wales
The Arts Council of Wales have issued a statement addressing a 10.5% cut in its budget for next year.
The Arts Council of Wales have released a statement commenting on the 10.5% cut in its budget for next year and setting out its plans for making “extremely difficult decisions”.
In the statement, Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales, Dafydd Rhys, outlined the uncertainty facing both the Council and the arts in Wales.
“The financial situation facing the arts in Wales is challenging. A 10.5% cut to our budget for next year, coupled with the effects of inflation, means that the Arts Council has to make extremely difficult decisions.
The funding cuts to ACW’s budget mean that its budget is lower in cash-terms than it was in 2010, which equates to a cut of around 37% in real terms. Commenting on the impact of that cut, Dafydd Rhys argued that to pass on a further cut to organisations would be “unrealistic”, instead revealing that ACW have begun consultations with staff regarding the possibility of voluntary redundancies:
“In its meeting last week, our Council agreed that we would reduce our conditional Multi Year Funding offers by 2.5% equally across all 81 organisations. The sector has already suffered a real-terms cut due to the effects of the cost of living crisis and is still struggling following the effects of the pandemic. We strongly believe that to pass on a further 10.5% cut would have been an unrealistic option that would have severely damaged the sector’s ability to deliver against our principles and strategic priorities. We will engage with each of these organisations to discuss the implications of this decision further.
“As an organisation we have consulted with the trade union Unite and have agreed on a redundancy policy that was also endorsed by a members’ vote. We are therefore currently consulting with our staff on voluntary redundancies, but it’s inevitable that we’ll have to consider further cuts to our own operational costs.
“I’d like to thank our staff for their professionalism and dedication during this difficult time.”
The news will come as a further blow to an increasingly fragile arts scene in Wales, still reeling from news of funding cuts to literary magazines, announced by the Books Council of Wales in December.
ACW’s response to the Welsh Government budget can be found here: https://arts.wales/news-jobs-opportunities/arts-council-wales-response-welsh-budget
A statement by ACW about Council’s decision on the 2.5% reduction to Investment Review offers can be found here: https://arts.wales/news-jobs-opportunities/multi-year-funding-update