arts council england: autumn briefing

Arts Council England: Autumn BriefingThursday 15 November 2012The Lowry, Salford

Global Rainbow, Preston 2012Photo: Brian Slater

10:30am Registration

11:00am Welcome and introduction

11:05am The Arts Council’s organisation review

(including Q&A)

11:45am Revising our priorities

12:30pm Lunch

1:30pm The funding environment and making the case

(including discussion, panel session / Q&A)

2:55pm Closing comments

3:00pm End

Agenda and timings for today

Final operating model andorganisation structure

Organisation Review

• our vision is to enrich people’s lives through their artistic and cultural experiences

• our purpose is to lead growth and ambition in the arts and cultural sector across England: investing public money effectively to encourage and enable artistic excellence; championing the value of the sector; and collaborating with the sector to ensure its future resilience

• our success will be in delivering our strategy: Achieving great art for everyone and Culture, knowledge and understanding: great museums and libraries for everyone

Our vision and purpose

Organisation review

• a result of the Government’s requirement that the Arts Council cuts its administrative costs as applied to its grant in aid for the arts by 2014/15

• making savings on this scale has required a major restructure and substantial reduction in staff numbers, and will call for new ways of working

• we will remain an intelligent and collaborative investor, leading growth and ambition in the sector; and being accountable for public money

• we will have to do things differently, through more streamlined investment processes and a more focused set of priorities - we will do less and do it differently

Principal changes

• an overall reduction in staff numbers across the organisation from 559.5 full time posts to 442 (117.5)

• four Executive Directors, reducing from eight, accountable for delivering our strategy, with the Chief Executive

• property costs will come down by 50% through reductions in the size of offices, we will have main offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol, and smaller local offices to keep us close to the arts and cultural sector, and to local government

• five areas covering London, the South East, the South West, the Midlands and the North

One national organisation with local presence

• our thinking has been guided by the principle of being an intelligent and collaborative investor - and by the need to protect our relationship management capability, which is highly valued by the arts and culture sector

• collaborative working, both internally and externally, will be at the heart of what we do

• artform and cultural policy expertise will be distributed amongst our staff working across the country – everyone will have a local and national focus

Locations

South West Bristol

North Newcastle DewsburyManchester

MidlandsNottinghamBirmingham

South East Cambridge Brighton

London

• to ensure each area has an equally distributed workload, and that we can have effective relationships

• the South West boundary will move eastwards to incorporate Hampshire and the unitary authorities of Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

• our staff in the South West will build relationships with organisations over the coming months, supported by their colleagues in the South East

Boundary change

Leadership distributed across the organisation

National policy leads• Children, Young People and Learning • Creative Media• Engagement and Audiences

National discipline leads

• Touring• Philanthropy and fundraising • Organisational resilience and

environmental sustainability • International• Diversity

• Combined Arts• Dance• Libraries • Literature • Museums• Music• Theatre• Visual Arts

7

Organisation structure

Executive Board

Executive Director

Executive Director

Chief Executive

Executive Director

Deputy Chief Executive

Chief Finance Officer(Director Finance & Corporate Services)

National Director Advocacy and

Communications

North

Area Director

Personal Assistant

Assistant, Operations

Directorx3

Assistant x5

Relationship Manager x41

Senior Relationship Manager x8

Senior Manager, Advocacy &

Communications

Senior Manager, Operations

Officer, Advocacy &

Communications

Administrator

Assistant x2

Final post numbers

Posts 2012/2013

2013/2014

Executive & Executive Support 22 13

Investment, Planning & Governance 39 21

Investment Centre 40 41

Corporate Services 74.5 56

Arts & Culture, including AELCU 55 44

Advocacy & Communications , including Customer Services

33 30

London 60 63

Midlands 58 42

South East 58 36

South West 29 30

North 91 66

Total 559.5 442

Over three phasesFrom now until December • as many appointments as possible to Director roles

From January to March • new Executive Board and wider leadership group making further

appointments to the new structure

From April • external and internal recruitment to vacant posts • The new organisation will be in place by 1 July 2013. There may be

changes to office arrangements and locations for some months after this

Transition timeline

Handprint by Alastair Eilbeck and James Bailey Photo: Simon Kirwann

Questions

A small set of clear measurable priorities

• No more than five to six priorities?• Not a ‘bundling together’ of multiple priorities• Relevant across arts, museums and libraries• The new priorities will form the basis of our strategic

funding and are aimed at gaps not addressed through our other funding programmes which remain focussed on our five goals

Reviewing our priorities - what are we trying to achieve?

What do we mean by “goal” and “priority”?

A goal is a desired result that an organisation envisions, plans and commits to achieve• we will focus our activity, working with our partners, on five

long term goals; we will invite organisations to work with us using investment to help achieve our goals

A priority is something given specified attention • these will provide the focus for activity which the Arts Council

is uniquely placed to deliver directly, using strategic funds

• What would be your top three priorities (from the current set of 13) beyond 2014/15 and why?

• Which of these priorities do you consider will no longer be a priority after 2014/15 and why?

• How should our priorities be refined in the light of our new responsibilities for museums and libraries?

• External context for the arts and culture: 

• what key changes in the external context might have a bearing on our future priorities?

• how do you think the priorities need to be refined to reflect this?

• are there any new priorities that we need to focus on from 2014 – 17 in order to deliver our goals and why?

Questions

Send feedback to priorities@artscouncil.org.uk

Feedback

We Face Forward Flag Image: Meschac Gaba, Ensemble

Lunch

• Chancellor’s Autumn statement 5 December• the Arts Council is

o preparing the case for investment in arts and cultureo refreshing the priorities that sit under the five goals of Achieving

great art for everyone o designing next investment strategyo determining the processes to underpin it

• an external reference group will work with us

The funding environment

The cultural sector is a credit to Britain

Through creating great art, building our communities and contributing to economic growth:

o Innovation and regeneration across the countryo Building a talent laddero Promoting the UK on a global stage

•We have created a powerful platform for cultural, social and economic growth•The Olympics exemplified the strength of this platform•We have a modest ask to government to allow growth to continue

Making the case for arts and culture

• the Arts Council will support your communications and engagement work

• use messages in our on-going advocacy work • use examples and stories of the work that you do

What you can do• write your own confident story about how you contribute• use this story with all your audiences• read Measuring the economic benefits of arts

and culture and add your economic impact study to the Arts Council blog http://blog.artscouncil.org.uk/

• share the messages with your staff and board• acknowledge your public funding and tell your story

Making the case for arts and culture

• What evidence of the impact of arts and culture on either people or places can you share with us to help build the case?

• What action can you take through your own local and national networks to make the case?

Nominate someone on your table to chair and feed back 2 or 3 key points.

Discussion

On the Night Shift by Lakes Alive Photo: eventdigital.co.uk

Questions

Thank you