Arts Council England: ‘We want to be a beacon of light promising a return in the future’

The Olivier award-winning musical Come from Away is a work of creative genius, born from a moment of international crisis. The life-affirming story of the 7,000 passengers from across the world who were grounded in Canada during the wake of 9/11, and the Newfoundland community that invited them into their lives, has a joyous and happy ending.

Right now, as Covid-19 continues to sweep around the globe, we’re facing another international crisis – and we don’t yet know the ending. In a society where we’ve increasingly placed value on certainty and control in our lives, this pandemic has turned normality on its head. We’ve been forced to realise that we’re not always the writers of our own scripts or the directors of our own stories. And that can be tough to deal with.

The health of friends, relatives and colleagues is at the forefront of all of our minds at the moment – and, quite rightly, the selflessness, skill and dedication of the nurses, doctors, carers and support staff working across the NHS is being applauded. But, Covid-19 has caused pain in people’s lives in many other ways. Entire sectors of the economy are at risk. Livelihoods have disappeared overnight. And the arts, museums and libraries are no exception. The challenges are very real, and very great.

"I’ve been moved by images I’ve seen on Twitter of the ghost lights in theatres up and down the country"

Three weeks ago, Arts Council England announced a £160 million emergency package to support our sector. As part of this package, we launched two funds: £20 million to support individuals, and £50 million for independent cultural organisations. Of the funding for individuals, £4 million will go to Equity Charitable Trust, the Theatrical Guild, the Society of Authors, Dance Professionals Fund, Help Musicians, a-n (the Artists Information Company) and Outdoor Arts UK. We hope that by working with these funds, we can support the widest range of people. We’ll soon publish details of our third emergency fund: £90 million for national portfolio organisations.

We’ve had to move swiftly and respond decisively, making tough decisions to provide this vital lifeline. That means we’ve suspended several of our funding streams, such as National Lottery Project Grants and Developing Your Creative Practice.

When it came to the latter, we made a simple calculation: in the place of a single £10,000 grant, we could invest £2,500 in four different artists, to help them through the weeks to come. And, when it came to National Lottery Project Grants we knew that, particularly in the theatre sector, there are no practical means of producing work at present, so continuing to fund projects that depend on systems that are no longer functioning was not the right way for us to steward taxpayers’ and National Lottery players’ money.

We didn’t take these decisions lightly and we plan to reopen our National Lottery Project Grants at the earliest opportunity. We’ve held back about £57 million – more than half our usual budget in a given year. For now though, we’re focused on the real crisis that is hitting every part of our cultural ecology. We know that most organisations – public and commercial – depend on very high levels of earned income, which have disappeared overnight. We know that some organisations won’t survive.