RESTORING THE BALANCE

A one day training event for 40/50 Irish community cultural workers that aims to inform both organisations of each others role and activities. The event will include exhibitions and live performances.

Arts Council England

It has become apparent that many Irish community cultural workers do not really understand what Arts Council England (ACE) does and what its purpose is. Some have found it very difficult to access funding from the various arts funding streams and from Lottery programmes managed by ACE. There is also a general feeling amongst the community that they are unfairly discriminated against. In particular they feel that as an ethnic group the Irish community has not received an equitable share of funding from ACE. Only a handful of our cultural groups have previously received funding from ACE. Successful awards have been relatively small, inconsistent and infrequent.

ACE has recently acknowledged that there have been inequities of access to Arts Council and Lottery funding by the Irish community and that there is a number of reasons for this including.

• A lack of understanding of ACE's role and its objectives amongst many Irish organisations.
• An inexperience, in applying for funding, and of the assessment criteria and processes involved, has either deterred applications or led to the submission of poor applications. With fierce competition for funding, the Irish community have lost out to applications submitted by more knowledgeable and experienced organisations.
• Many statutory and major third sector support agencies, including ACE, have not fully or consistently accepted the Irish community as a valid ethnic group. This is compounded because ACE delegates most of their decision-making powers to the regions and individual arts officers may view and prioritise the Irish community differently.
• ACE has been through a number of major restructuring processes over the last few years and there has been less time for ACE staff to be directly involved in supporting applicants

ACE have agreed to work with FIS to move towards a greater mutual understanding that will allow Irish cultural groups a fairer chance of accessing ACE and Lottery funding.

THE EVENT

The day will be jointly facilitated by Ged Kelly - FIS's National Cultural Development Officer and Tony Panayiotou - the Arts Council's Director for Cultural Diversity. Guest speakers will include representatives from Arts and Business and the regional Arts Councils.

Session one - ACE overview

This session will set out the remit of Arts Council, and what its main objectives and priorities are. We will put these in a broader context of the arts funding industry. We also aim to show how this translates into the various initiatives and funding streams currently available. We will also look at the National Lottery and the effect that the Olympics is likely to have on ACE funding in the next few years.

Coffee break - cultural event

The second session will explore on a more practical level, the type of cultural activities the Irish community are engaged in, and link these to ACE funding streams. We aim to highlight some of the key criteria that would be expected by ACE, and the problems faced by community members in addressing these.

Lunch break - cultural event

The third session will be a breakout session with delegates dividing into four groups based broadly on region. We aim to have a matching regional officer from ACE facilitating each group along with a member of FIS staff. The group will explore in more detail the activities of the Irish community in that region and the regional issues, activities and priorities for ACE. It will also examine the needs of the individual groups to enable them to develop their capacity to be more effective with their grant applications.

Coffee break - cultural event

Final session - The groups will report -back on their findings and there will be an attempt to pull the key elements of the discussion into an outline plan of action for both community members and the Arts Council. This will include a mechanism for monitoring future progress of arts funding to the Irish community.

Evening cultural event

Outcomes

1. To provide Irish community workers with a greater awareness and understanding of the role of Arts Council England, how ACE is structured, its aims, objectives and priorities.

2. Encourage the submission of properly considered, clearly focused and well written applications that will increase the level of ACE and Arts Lottery funding to Irish cultural groups.

3. Develop a broader awareness and understanding of funding opportunities for the development of cultural programmes and the practice of match funding amongst a number of partners.

4. Increase the profile of Irish culture amongst main-stream funders and build a stronger relationship between Irish community and ACE, in particular to build relationships with regional officers of ACE.

5. Improve the overall quality and diversity of Irish festivals and events that aim to build new audiences for Irish culture.

6. Discourage Irish community workers from making inappropriate and poor quality applications.

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