Continued growth in Audiences threatened by NPO announcements

Audiences UK is shocked by Arts Council England's national policy decision to cease funding Audience Development Agencies as part of its core portfolio.

There are currently 12 Audience Development Agencies around the UK (8 in England), some of whom have been in existence for more than 20 years. Each delivers programmes that reflect local need but all work to improve skills in developing audiences and in marketing, provide specialist audience development advice and consultancy, help translate audience data into management information and provide support to the cultural sector in accessing new audience groups.

Seven agencies were in receipt of Regular Funding in England. In total, this accounted for just £1.25 million (0.4%) of Arts Council England’s RFO investment. RFO investment represented only 20% of turnover for these organisations, but was vital in ensuring arts organisations of all sizes could benefit from the specialist skills and knowledge in the agencies. Despite being asked to apply for National Portfolio status, and excellent regional assessments for many agencies, it appears Arts Council England has made a national policy decision not to fund any Agencies as NPOs.

Audiences UK is the national network of Audience Development Agencies. Its Chief Executive David Brownlee commented:

‘The rationale for this blanket decision is hard to understand given the priority given to increasing and broadening audiences in the Arts Council's strategy for the next ten years and the excellent assessments of the proposals submitted by many of the agencies. Arts organisations receive more funding from their audiences than any other source and we have seen audience numbers continue to grow in the last three years, despite the recession. We believe long-term investment in the audience development infrastructure has helped the sector to weather the financial storm so far.

‘It also seems strange at a time when Arts Council England is taking on a broader cultural remit to threaten the sustainability of an internationally renowned support structure that is already working effectively with museums and beginning to help tackle the major issues facing Library Services.

‘We are heartened to see a public commitment has been made to allocating strategic Lottery funds to support Audience Development, although we are not clear about the amount allocated and believe this area should be treated as a priority for core Treasury funding and not as an area of 'additionality' funded by Lottery ticket buyers. However we will do all we can to help Arts Council England ensure the needs of current and future audiences remain a priority and that the cultural sector has the skilled support that will help them understand and grow their audiences in these financially challenging times.’