ACE Funding Update (a.k.a. My Recent Obsession)
Finally, there’s some good news for the organizations at risk of losing their Arts Council England funding. According to , the Arts Council is reconsidering its funding cuts:
The Arts Council has been forced into a partial climbdown to reprieve about 25 of the theatres, orchestras and dance groups whose grants it had threatened to scrap. [. . .]
Two specialist publishers that translate foreign works into English, Dedalus and Arcadia, are also likely to be spared . . .
The absolute best part of this is the reason why Sir Christopher Frayling reconsidered—“It is not the decibel count which has influenced us, but reasoned argument.â€
So not only did complaining about how organizations were treated actually work, but someone affiliated with a government admitted to being swayed by “reasoned argument”! You Brits are so funny and polite . . .
Frayling now accepts it was a mistake of the council not to publish a list of the 194 organisations whose grants were to be removed. It was left to them to go public or contact media outlets.
Doesn’t he know that admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness. . . .

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