Well, as reported in today’s it turns out that the Arts Council “stands accused of misusing lottery funds after failing to distribute more than £150 million intended for cash-strapped projects.”

The Times has learnt that the council, which announced drastic cuts to hundreds of theatre and orchestra grants last month, has accumulated a big cash pile. Figures obtained by the Council for the Advancement of Arts, Recreation and Education, the only non-government body with access to lottery accounts, shows that £152 million sits unspent with Arts Council England, up from £144 million last August.

Last month the funding body – one of 13 distributors of lottery money – faced a vote of no confidence from actors and directors after it cut the grants of nearly 200 theatres, orchestras and other organisations. [. . .]

Concern about the amount of unused lottery money has prompted warnings from the Commons Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office in recent years. In 2001 the Arts Council agreed with the NAO to reduce its surplus to £75 million. It also missed its own target to reduce the balance to £105 million by March 2007.

From what I can gather, this lottery money comes from ticket sales and can be given away to any cultural organization making a convincing case.

Of course, there’s a completely rational explanation for this situation:

“A lottery cash balance is not spare cash sitting in the bank. It represents committed funds not yet paid out,” she said. “We have already made significant reductions to our balance – down from £224 million in March 2004 to £152 million at March 2008.”

She added that the surplus target was £140 million, but £10 million of payments due to go out by the end of March were delayed “as the necessary legal charges were not in place”. [. . .]

Asked to provide precise details of where the £152 million had been committed, she said that their accounts team would have to check the information before it could be released.

That sounds so reasonable right up to the, “oh shit, I can’t seem to recall the name . . . um . . . I’ll get back to you” part of this.

Does anyone handle PR for the ACE? Anyone? This year has been one PR nightmare after another for this place . . .

In the face of appeals and threats of legal action, Arts Council England has this morning confirmed it is to cut funding from the independent publisher Dedalus Books and the east London literature centre, Centerprise.

As Eric Lane said in this interview, losing this grant will severely impact Dedalus.

“I’m just amazed at their stupidity and the level of malice,” he said. “I can’t be angry, I can’t be shocked because I’ve had four years of this.”

He still “doesn’t understand” why a publisher specialising in literature in translation and new writing – two of the council’s major priorities – has had funding of £25,000 removed.

And this sounds awful as well:

The British Centre for Literary Translation has had it confirmed that funding after 2008-2009 will be subject to specific conditions, which are yet to be spelled out.

Amanda Hopkinson—director of the BCLT and a fantastic translator—expressed some relief and anxiety about the decision:

“However we await with considerable interest and some anxiety to hear the new ‘specific conditions’ which we will have to fulfil,” she said, “and of which we have not been informed.” After a difficult period she hoped that the council appreciates the need to regain trust. “At the end of the day,” she continued, “the Arts Council needs the arts sector more than the other way round.”

Thankfully Arcadia had its funding restored, as did Anvil Press, but what a process . . . Obviously, the Arts Council (or any other funder) has the right and obligation to review its grantees and restructure funding if necessary, but it seems like the process got out of hand this year and led to many organizations spending more than a month focused on fighting with the ACE and trying to get their funding secured rather than focusing on their mission.

All very unfortunate, although there is a silver lining of sorts. Arcadia, together with , Barn Owl Books, Centerprise Literature Project, Dedalus, Enitharmon, Haus, Marion Boyars, Portobello/Granta and Tindal Street have founded the Publishers Liaison Group, “an informal network which will meet from time to time to discuss common funding issues and strategy in regard to Arts Council England (ACE).”

Sounds somewhat similar to Jim Sitter’s LitNet group, which is the national advocacy group for Literature here in the States—another useful and important organization.

Any UK organizations interested in getting involved with the Publishers Liaison Group should contact Gary Pulsifer at gary at arcadiabooks dot co dot uk.

Chad W. Post: I’m familiar with Dedalus from my days in the bookstore, but I was wondering if you could briefly describe your press and the type of books you publish.

Eric Lane: Dedalus is mainly a fiction publisher. The Dedalus list includes contemporary English language fiction, translated European fiction in the Decadence from Dedalus, Dedalus European Classics, Dedalus Europe 1992 -2012, Dedalus Euro Shorts series and Dedalus anthologies. Dedalus also publishes literary non-fiction in the Dark Master, City Noir and Concept Book series.

Dedalus began publishing on November 30th 1983. Our first list consisted of three first novels, one of which—The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin—has been translated into 18 languages and has found worldwide success.

Dedalus has invented its own distinctive genre, which we term distorted reality, where the bizarre, the unusual and the grotesque and the surreal meld in a kind of intellectual fiction which is very European.

Our mission is to be unique—an exciting, innovative and distinctive alternative to commercial publishing; to find new talent and put British publishing at the heart of Europe.

CWP: How many books do you publish a year? Are they distributed both in the UK and U.S.? What’s your average print run?

EL: We do 12 new titles a year. Our average print run is 2,000. The highest print run we do is 4,000 the shortest, normally for a reprint, is 1,000. These are actual figures.

Most of our books are distributed in the UK and the USA. (Ed. Note: Via in the States and Central Books in the UK.) Occasionally we sell rights to US publishers. We see the USA as part of our home market. We want to offer a European dimension to the English-speaking world. From a publishing perspective US readers are better at letting you know what they think of our books. In our petition USA readers are well represented.

CWP: Here in the States we have “nonprofit publishers” (not that most publishers make a profit . . . ), these presses survive by receiving government grants (for profit presses are ineligible from receiving these funds), grants from foundations, and donations from individuals—do you have a similar designation in the UK? On a related note, how does your revenue stream breakdown in terms of sales vs. grants? (Nonprofits in the States are usually 50-50.)

EL: Our last full year our figures were:

Sales of books £70,000
Foreign rights £46,000
Arts Council £24,250
Other grants £10,000

We are a limited liability company and if we make a profit it is fed back into the company. We believe we publish in the public interest. We see our role as extending what is available to readers in the English-speaking world. In the UK you can get funding from ACE, local councils (we don’t as we are not in a big city), and donations from individuals are not really heard of. We do apply for translation grants from a variety of sources, including ACE and foreign governments. If we lose our ACE grant we will also not get any translation grants from them. Having got rid of us,they certainly will not give us money for anything. If they fail to get rid of us it is more difficult to refuse us translation funding. So with ACE it is all or nothing.

CWP: How much of your annual budget does your ACE grant represent?

EL: Figures above. The ACE money basically means we can support a staff of 1.25. With any organisation run on a very limited budget it is hard to make up the shortfall with one month’s notice.For us we want to continue publishing the kind of books that we do which we, and many others, believe are published in the public interest.

CWP: Why do you think the ACE is trying to eliminate your funding?

EL: With ACE it is personal. In 2003 it wanted to stop our funding as our grant was under £20,000, i.e., it was too much of a hassle to fund us. However ACE failed to do it correctly and so we kept our funding. But it then became a matter of bureaucratic honour to get rid of us. We had a performance review on 24/25 November 2003 which recommended substantial increased investment in Dedalus but when the printed report appeared in January all the recommendations had been omitted, and what should have been the basis of an expansion for Dedalus had been rewritten to be the basis for getting rid of us. We beat ACE again on procedure. We asked for the Minutes of the Performance Review meeting which they refused to send. In the end ACE chose to reinstate our funding rather than supply the Minutes of the Performance Review on a floppy disc.

We have made no secret of what has happened and have said it loud and clear many times.

The current attempt is just the next round. We will win again on procedure as ACE has failed to follow its own non-renewal process. A 7 stage process to be found on their website. Procedural Guidelines for Disinvestment. We will take them to court on these grounds.

CWP: How does the appeal process work?

EL: The current process gives you the right to fill in the gaps in their paperwork. Because of public pressure ACE will now take into account petitions and public support. I think that is just a sop so they can save a few theatre companies that famous actors have campaigned for. I think ACE knows how to manage its regional committees which make these decisions.

CWP: If your appeal fails, what will the immediate (and long term) impact be on Dedalus?

EL: The immediate impact is that we will have to make changes to what we do. Lose our full-time member of staff, ie me. We must work very hard at replacing their money from other sources.If we are not successful at replacing their money we wil probably wither away.

CWP: What can people do to help?

EL: They can sign our petition and email ACE who on Monday 28 January has a new chief executive, Alan Davey. He and Andrea Stark in Cambridge should be asked 2 questions:

1. Why after ACE put on the public record in 2004 that Dedalus was trading while insolvent and in breach of its ACE funding they took the decision to reinstate Dedalus’s funding rather than supply Dedalus with the Minutes of the Performance Review Meeting on a floppy disc?

2. Why won’t you supply Dedalus all the documents in its file? How is it in the public interest—as you claim—to withhold them. ACE should not hide what it says about the organisations it funds from them.

3. Buy our books—that is what we are here for.

4. If we receive confirmation on 1st February that our funding has been stopped we will launch ARTS VERSUS ACE, an organisation to raise money for a legal challenge against ACE. The challenge to be a class action for all arts organisations like Dedalus who has lost its funding without ACE going through the 7 stages of its disinvestment policy. We will have a separate bank account and ask for donations from anyone who wants to support this cause.

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.”

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. . . .

First off, a couple of the new people who have signed on in support of Arcadia are Dominick Dunne and Caroline Michel. Which is great in and of itself, but what I find really fun are some of the “Early Day Motions” from Parliament about the cuts.

the EDM about the general cuts:

That this House regrets the timing of the decision made by the Arts Council to notify its regularly funded organisations of the details of its investment strategy; is concerned that this occurred over the Christmas period and that the appeal process is only lasting six weeks; is surprised that investment plans were announced before the publication of the McMaster Review and before the new Chief Executive of the Arts Council takes up his position in February; and calls on the Government and the Arts Council to ensure that there is sufficient time for organisations that are having their funding withdrawn to be properly consulted.

“Concerned that this occurred over the Christmas period”?!?? I can’t imagine anything so civilized (or open to interpretation as being in favor of a particular religious holiday) occurring here in the States. I mean, I guess I have a hard time envisioning anyone in Congress saying something like this either:

That this House condemns plans by the Arts Council to cut funding to Queer Up North; recognises the excellent work that organisation has done, including tackling homophobic bullying through performances of F.I.T. at local schools; notes with concern that funding cuts will lead to the cancellation of the 2008 festival in Manchester and all future touring plans, end its unique programme of work for young people and result in the immediate closure of the organisation; and therefore calls on the Arts Council to overturn its decision.

or

That this House condemns the decision by the Arts Council to cut funding to LipService Theatre Company; notes with concern that the timing of the decision occurred over the Christmas period, leaving very limited time to appeal; recognises the unique contribution to the Arts made by LipService, described by the Independent newspaper as Britain’s favourite literary lunatics; further notes with concern that LipService was given no warning or indication in its Annual Review 2007 that it would have its funding cut; and calls upon the Arts Council to reverse its proposal and reinstate funding to LipService for the coming year.

(Britain’s “favourite literary lunatics”—nice.)

One aspect of this that I haven’t adequately covered here is the timing issue. As referenced above—and in op-ed piece by Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Minister for Culture—Peter Hewitt, the current CEO of the Arts Council England is stepping down in February and being replaced by Alan Davey.

Furthermore, the $100,000 report on artistic excellence (the aforementioned “McMaster Report”) was in mid-January, after the funding cuts had been announced. Of course, the report seems to run counter to the actions of the ACE, and it really doesn’t make sense to commission a report to figure out how best to stimulate the arts and then, less than three weeks before it’s released, slash funding for heaps of arts organizations.

Ed Vaizey sums this up quite nicely:

To be sure, the Arts Council has played a bad hand even worse. Faced with this late settlement, it should have had the courage to put the cuts on hold. Peter Hewitt should have said what is true – “I’m leaving, and a new guy takes over in February. I’ll let him read the McMaster report, and decide what he wants to do. It will be status quo for a year”. Instead, cuts have been rushed through, with, because of the Christmas period, arts organisations having just 18 working days to get their appeals together. And more and more arts organisations are showing that the decisions made by the Arts Council are based on flawed data and false assumptions. Even worse, those arts organisations that are getting an uplift have already been told. The council has sowed division among the arts community, with one organisation knowing it will only get fed if another starves.

First off, last Friday ran an article by Antonia Byatt claiming that funding for literature is actually increasing:

Far from “decimating” the arts, our funding proposals will see a significant increase in investment in the literature sector over the next three years. [. . .]

We are prioritising a number of areas, including poetry, the promotion of contemporary literature in translation, live literature, children and young people, and supporting reading through libraries and audience development.

She goes on to touch upon the criteria the ACE is using, and to highlight two presses for which they’ve proposed funding increases:

We are also looking for regularly funded organisations that work to support the best in literature through being genuinely national/international in their reach and distribution, as well as effective, well-managed, forward-looking and offering good value for money.

Two organisations for which we propose increased funding are Tindal Street Press and Bloodaxe. A relative newcomer to our portfolio of regularly funded organisations, Tindal Street Press specialises in new voices from the English regions. In its short life, its authors have won many prizes and accolades. Bloodaxe Books is among the most important independent poetry publishers in the country, with an award-winning list that spans both homegrown talent and work in translation. Bloodaxe is renowned for its imaginative and adventurous approach to marketing, and its unstinting commitment to developing new audiences.

Back on the other side of the fence, Arcadia just sent out a press release stating that two former ACE Literature Directors—poet Charles Osborne and Dr. Alastair Niven, who is also a part President of English PEN—have signed Arcadia’s petition.

This just keeps getting more and more interesting . . .

Well, is another to add to the list. According to this message, all of their funding is being withdrawn as of April 1st.

A cut to funding could mean:

• the end to delivery of courses for writers at every level of their

development here at Centerprise;

• the end of publication of an important resource for new and established writers of African and Asian descent;

• a threat to the continuation of largest event of its kind in Europe.

After reading about all of these organizations losing funding, it would only be natural to assume that the ACE must’ve had it’s funding cut as well . . . Not so according to Joan Smith’s op-ed piece in :

It takes a particular kind of ineptitude to announce a £50m increase in funding to the arts and set just about everyone in the arts world against you. This feat has been achieved by Arts Council England, which has been inundated with letters, petitions and threats of legal action from supporters of the small theatres, orchestras and independent publishers whose existence is now in doubt. [. . .]

It’s all in the name, apparently, of “the reclamation of excellence from its historic elitist undertones”.

That means trouble for such hopelessly elite venues as the Bush Theatre in west London, not to mention small publishers such as Dedalus and Arcadia, who stubbornly insist on exposing English-speaking readers to work by foreigners. [. . .]

Believe me, there is no other way for such writers to get published in this country. The dreadful state of mainstream publishing is an open secret; profit and celebrity are what drives the industry, and marketing departments don’t see either in a promising young Polish or Croatian novelist. Earlier this week, one of the country’s most distinguished publishers told me he had snapped up a Swedish crime novel, which has been a runaway best-seller in Scandinavia, after it was turned down by just about every mainstream house in London.

This kind of risk-taking is almost unknown in commercial publishing these days.

I have nothing to add. As I said before, I can’t imagine the pressure and difficulties of being on any Arts Council and making funding decisions about so many worthy organizations, but nevertheless, this kind of radical shake-up and fall-out seems pretty easy to avoid.

First off, I got a message from Arcadia that the protest letter we posted about was signed by over 500 people, including Doris Lessing, John Berger, Alan Hollinghurst, James Kelman, Graham Swift, and Lisa Appignanesi, President, English PEN. Which isn’t bad.

Although one would hope thousands of people around the world would come to the defense of a literary press as reputable as Arcadia . . .

Nicolas Lezard echoes this sentiment in about the lack of outrage about funding cuts for literature.

On Radio 4 last Thursday, Sam West made an eloquent defence of the principle of funding small arts groups. Cut off the flow at the small end, he said, and eventually the big companies will starve. There then followed a despicably inadequate rebuttal from Peter Hewitt, ACE’s chief executive, which I will not bother to recapitulate, as I do not wish to type out intellectual nullities, even in précis.

But what bothered me more than anything was that not once in this discussion was any mention made of the cuts to literary operations. It was all theatre, theatre, theatre. And my first inclination was to write, here: like anyone gives a shit.

OK, people do give a shit about theatre, but what is accurate is that literary people aren’t nearly as vocal, as public, as engaging as theatre people.

It’s time for literature to stand up and make its own noise. Writers have to eat, and, yes, drink; they also need to have the outlets available for them. Independent publishers like Arcadia, Dedalus, and the London Magazine keep writing honest. They keep the life of the communal mind ticking over.

Interestingly, there’s a letter from Antonia Byatt [note: not A.S. Byatt as was incorrectly reported yesterday] in today’s basically implying that the outrage over funding cuts to publishers is a mountain and molehill situation. (Specifically this is in reference to a claim in a previous letter that “27 regularly funded publishers face either a complete or partial reduction in their funding.”)

Our funding proposals for literature are part of Arts Council England’s current review of funding to all 990 of its regularly funded arts organisations; 75% of those organisations have been told to expect increases in funding of inflation and above and these include publishers with a specialisation in translation. Under the proposals, 27 funding agreements for literature will be reduced or not renewed. Only a minority are publishers – many are relatively small co-funding agreements with local authorities [. . .]

The most recent awards info online is from 2005/06, so it’s hard to figure this out. But during that funding period, at least ten presses that do a lot of literature in translation were funded: Norvik, Dedalus, Harvill Secker, Arcadia, Banipal, Bitter Lemon, Serpent’s Tail, Saqi, Peter Owen, and Bloodaxe. (I couldn’t find Carcanet, although I know they’ve been funded in the past.) At least 2 of these presses had their funding reduced—I’ll be interested to find out what happened to the others.

For most arts orgs—especially publishers—cuts of this nature can be extremely detrimental, even fatal. As almost everyone knows, publishing (outside of the mega-media conglomerates) is a break-even (at best) business, especially for publishers who do mostly literature. A typical nonprofit in the States receives approx. half its annual income from grants and donations. And very few presses have any sort of endowment or savings to fall back on if a grant is cut.

Even losing a $5,000 grant can have its repercussions—less money for marketing a book, leading to lower sales, etc., etc. Everything’s connected, and when you’re working on an razor-thin margin, any little blip can foul up your best laid plans.

Anyway, over the weekend, I received two pleas from UK publishers evidencing the severe repercussions of this funding cut that I’m definitely going to support, and hope others will as well.

The first, from Arcadia, asking me to sign a letter to Moira Sinclair regarding the 25% cut in funding occurring next year:

To Arts Council England

Dear Moira Sinclair

We are writing to express our dismay and concern about ACE’s decision to cut future funding to Arcadia Books by 25% after an inflation-linked rise next year. While we understand the need to review grants on a regular basis, this particular cut threatens to undermine what Arcadia has managed to achieve in an impressively short space of time.

We believe that the cultural impact of the cut is disproportionate to the money saved by ACE, and are writing to ask you to reconsider the decision.

As you know, Arcadia is one of the few British publishers whose list features a high proportion (currently 50 percent) of books in translation.

At a moment when the UK is assuming a leading role in the enlarged EU, it is hard to imagine a more important function for ACE than to ensure that the best of European literature continues to be available to British readers.

Since it was founded 11 years ago, Arcadia has made available in English a stream of important books by foreign writers and had its contribution to literature recognised by critics and the judges of important prizes. It has been named Sunday Times small publisher of the year, and won the prestigious 2007 Independent Foreign Fiction prize for The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa.

We are concerned that this public recognition of Arcadia’s achievements may have led ACE to believe that it is in a stronger financial position than is actually the case. Like all small companies, Arcadia depends on a dedicated staff, all of whom put in many hours beyond what would be expected in an established company, and faces regular cash flow problems. It did well in 2006, largely because of the success of a single volume, The White Masai, and a grant from ACE to purchase BlackAmber.

Now, when Arcadia needs to consolidate its success to date and fund growth, ACE has announced this substantial cut in future funding. The most likely effect is to deny the company the opportunity it needs to establish a proper infrastructure, and put its long-term future in question.

We very much hope that you will consider taking another look at the company’s position, and think again about the consequences of cutting your support at this difficult time.

Yours sincerely

(If you would like to add your name to the following letter, please email “Yes” to lucyjpop@gmail.com by 11 January. Many thanks for your support.)

The second from which lost 24,000 pounds (approx. $48,000) in funding this month:

The Arts Council has announced that Dedalus, which was to celebrate 25 years of publishing later this year, is to lose its funding from January.

This will have catastrophic consequences and even if we can survive, we will have to completely re-think what type of books we can publish.

We have an excellent reputation for translated foreign fiction and have won many prizes in this field.

We also publish original English language fiction and are one of the few publishers, large or small, who have been happy to receive unsolicited manuscripts through the post and not only from agents. This has led to the publication of authors such as Andrew Crumey, Jack Allen, Christopher Harris, Christine Leunens and James Waddington.

If you value diversity in the publishing world then please help Dedalus by voicing your concerns by signing our on-line petition at:

and contacting the following:

Hierarchy at the Arts Council:
Sir Christopher Frayling at The Arts Council via his PA: maria.hampton@artscouncil.org.uk
Peter Hewitt, Chief Executive of The Arts Council: peter.hewitt@artscouncil.org.uk
Andrea Stark, Chief Executive of The Arts Council, East: andrea.stark@artscouncil.org.uk

Literature at the Arts Council:
Antonia.Byatt@artscouncil.org.uk
John.Hampson@artscouncil.org.uk
Niki.Braithwaite@artscouncil.org.uk
Lucy.Sheerman@artscounci.org.uk

The Secretary of State for Media & Sport, James Purnell: enquiries@culture.gov.uk
Arts Division, Jane Woolner: jane.woolner@culture.gsi.gov.uk