Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): We will now get an opening statement from the Arts Council's director of arts development, Nóirín McKinney; the director of operations, Lorraine McDowell; and the European engagement officer, Shauna McNeilly. Nóirín, Lorraine and Shauna, you are very welcome to the Committee this morning. Please make your opening statement.

Ms Nóirín McKinney (Arts Council of Northern Ireland): Thank you, Chairman. Good morning. We hope that the briefing paper that we sent in advance was comprehensive on the Arts Council's savings delivery plans. As you will have noted, we have to find £224,000 from our salaries and admin costs and £1·154 million from our grant programme, which is primarily our annual funding programme. You also asked us about our rationale for our funding decisions. We have set out for you the published criteria that were used this year. They are slightly different from those of previous years, given the difficult year that we were in. Again, I hope that that was clear.

We know that you want to ask questions across three areas this morning. We thought, Chair, that we would use the opportunity to allow our colleague Shauna McNeilly to give you a little more detail on the Creative Europe Desk in the first instance. We would then take questions, if you were happy to proceed on that basis, unless you would like us to say anything further about the savings delivery or the rationale for funding.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Could you maybe say a bit about the rationale? Comments from a number of arts practitioners questioned the rationale and logic of decisions. If you maybe say a little bit about the rationale, that would be helpful.

Ms N McKinney: Yes. Absolutely, Chairman. We knew that we would be facing into a very difficult year, of course, and all the signals were thus. We held a number of workshops with organisations, trying to signal to them very strongly that we would be facing a very difficult funding round. As you probably recall, we also had an in-year cut, which was difficult to manage. I think that that brought a lot of concern to the sector as well. However, as you know, we ran an advocacy campaign to try to raise the profile and importance of the arts. We were very pleased with that. We did that hand in glove with the arts sector. That resulted in something like 23,000 submissions to the public consultation on the draft Executive Budget. Needless to say, the Arts Council and the sector were very disappointed that it did not yield any difference to the final Budget outcome, and we were subjected to an 11·2% cut in DCAL. We had to implement that. We did a lot of careful planning, looking at the criteria for funding.

Our normal criteria, which have been set for the last several years, have been artistic excellence, public benefit, and quality of management and governance. As you will have seen in the paper, this year we introduced what we called our balancing criteria, whereby we brought into play a broader range of criteria that underpin the Arts Council's five-year strategy. In particular, we were looking at making excellent art accessible to all, delivering benefits to our community and building partnerships. Again, given the circumstances that we were facing, we also had to look at trying to retain a balance of provision in each art form and across Northern Ireland. We looked at the range of art forms. That is always an important balance. We looked at geographic spread. That is vital, and I know that it is of concern to the Committee. It included organisations that not only provide work in their local base but that have the potential to tour and to bring that work further afield. It also includes organisations that are based right across Northern Ireland, outside primarily Belfast and Derry. We also have to have a range of sizes and types of organisations. As you know, Arts Council executive funding supports organisations from the scale of the Ulster Orchestra right down to very small community-based grass-roots organisations.

We also had to look very closely at any perceived duplication of service, where we simply could not afford to have two or three of one type of arts provision. We gave that very careful consideration. Of course, as always, we take risk into consideration. We went through various steps in our moderation. The first step is that organisations had to meet the three eligibility criteria. If they did, and if they achieved a medium across each — they needed three mediums to proceed to the next stage — that is where the balancing criteria kicked in. We had to look more strategically at the arts infrastructure and at how we would sustain key elements so that in future, with the hope that funding would improve, although that may not be for some time, we have a core from which to build up again. As I said, looking at those balancing criteria, such as geographic spread, etc, was a very difficult process, because it was very likely that, if we did not have our funding cut by £1·34 million, we would have continued to support all the organisations that we had previously supported.

Unfortunately, we were not able to do that, so the decisions that we had to take were very finely balanced. I cannot stress that too much. We really had to take a very hard look at whether, if an organisation was not doing as much regional touring, we had to de-prioritise it. If an organisation was not presenting a year-round programme exclusively, maybe there would be a better fit for it under project funding so that we could begin to effect the savings that we needed to make on this Exchequer programme. From the press coverage and our decisions, you may have noticed a new approach to supporting literature. Again, we are having to look at more organisations moving into project funding, because we simply cannot retain all 115 organisations, with all their overheads and programming costs, to the level that we could. That is self-evident with a cut to the programme of £1 million.

We are also trying to look very closely at and to work with organisations where mergers or other efficiency savings could be effected. That will be a longer-term process. We are trying to set up a fund, which Lorraine will be looking at, to help organisations to make that transition into a new way of working, possibly with shared resources and overheads and ideas of centralised hubs. We realise that things are probably set to be worse next year. The organisations that feel that they have been very badly affected this year will not be alone next year.

I think that 27 organisations have had a cut in funding. Again, I do not want to go in to any individual cases, because, as you will appreciate, a number of the organisations are going into our review process, and it would not be appropriate for us to share the detail of their applications and why we felt that they were maybe not as strong on one aspect as opposed to another. It has been a very difficult year. We have also looked strategically at perhaps who can best, if I can put it that way, sustain a cut. We looked very hard at the venues, because at least they have the capacity to raise money through the box office. No one wants to have to increase their ticket prices or to reduce their programmes, but they at least have that capacity.

Other organisations, like art galleries, for example, tend to be free, and that is a principle that we all adhere to. It is more difficult, and programmes that provide free services to community groups do not have that capacity. I think that you could say that the venues have been hard hit.

Publishing is also affected, as is project funding. In terms of percentage cuts to portfolios, theatre has sustained a fairly significant cut. I know that there has been quite a bit of representation on that front. However, when we look at the percentage cuts across the board to particular art forms, we see that it is not alone. We have a large number of independent theatre companies, and we are keen to talk to the sector on that area, as well as probably to the festival sector. Those are areas where there could be synergies for more collaborative working. We now have to start to engage in that process with those sectors and organisations.

You will have noted that six organisations were removed completely. Again, we are talking to each of those organisations about other sources of funding. You will be aware that our annual funding programme is but one; there are a number of other funding streams, from small grants to lottery project funding, through which we hope to be able to sustain them. However, the difficulty for them is that there will be a new model of working, because we cannot cover all their overheads any longer and we want to help them through that transition. It will be a difficult transition, and they will need support.

You will have noted that the Mac, the Lyric, the Grand Opera House, the Play House and, indeed, the Millennium Forum in Londonderry, sustained fairly significant cuts. We also looked very closely at umbrella organisations. Arts and Business and Audiences Northern Ireland both sustained 20% cuts. Again, there were detailed discussions about their core remit and how they can downsize but still deliver a very effective service for the arts sector. We have had productive conversations with them already about that. There will, of course, be new service level agreements with organisations.

The other organisation that was hit very badly was the Nerve Centre, which, of course, runs the Culture NI website. Sadly, we had to take the decision that, in the current climate, we could no longer support a cultural website. There are priorities to try to keep arts organisations that are delivering product, such as plays and the arts on the front line, so we had to protect them first. That has been unfortunate, and, again, there has been quite a groundswell and lobby of support on Culture NI's behalf.

I will end by saying that, had we not been cut, we would not have been passing on cuts of this scale to the organisations. We would have hoped to continue to fund them, probably at a comparable level. There are always some weaknesses that can be addressed, and there are also sometimes changes in programming. However, that is the broad picture and the broad context. To add, as I noted, we wrote to organisations in October to advise them of their governance responsibilities and, in particular, their responsibilities towards staff. That is because we had to say bluntly that we cannot guarantee that there will be funding next year. Lorraine held two workshops with all those in the sector to take them through the new balancing criteria and our whole approach to the funding round this year.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Picking up on that point, you mentioned workshops earlier, so I assume that those are the workshops that you are referring to. What was the uptake at those like?

Ms Lorraine McDowell (Arts Council of Northern Ireland): Of the 115 clients we had on the annual funding programme, 100 turned up to those two workshops.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): There was quite an incentive to turn up, I suppose.

Ms McDowell: It was quite an incentive to find out about it and to get the inroads to it. It was very positive, and, as Nóirín said, the message was very clearly there. We are in a tough financial environment, and there is no guarantee that anybody will get funded after 1 April. So, people need to be aware of their governance as well.

One of the other messages that we gave — we also included this in the guidance notes for the programme — was that we were not going to salami slice our clients. We wanted to take a strategic view of who was best delivering against our five-year plan. As such, we did not ask clients to apply for a cut. We asked them to apply for what was reasonable to deliver a good, ambitious programme. Some did, and you will see from the list, obviously, that some people got an uplift in their grant because they were delivering very specifically against our strategic view. We did not want to salami slice, because that would detrimentally affect even more clients and could have closed some down.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I understand that there is a review of premises for the Arts Council. How is that?

Ms McDowell: The Arts Council is in leased premises at the moment, and there is a break point in the lease in March 2016. We are required to do an options appraisal to see whether we should stay in the building. We are in the middle of that process and are working with DCAL and the Strategic Investment Board (SIB) to find the best option for the Arts Council moving forward.

Mr Cree: Is that building in private ownership?

Ms McDowell: Yes, it is a private landlord.

Ms N McKinney: I think that we can say that it is inevitable that the Arts Council will be moving. That will affect further savings as we move forward. It will not be immediate, and we are not sure when. We know when the lease will break, but there could be an earlier break in it, so we may be moving sooner rather than later.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Are you looking for a town house, Leslie?

Mr Cree: That would be very nice, yes.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): You mentioned that there are a large number of independent theatre companies. I was at the event at the MAC the other night, and there was one theatre company in particular that I had never heard of. I think that I know most of them, but there was one I had not heard of. How many are there in Northern Ireland? Give me a ballpark figure.

Ms N McKinney: About 20.

Ms McDowell: There are about 20. Under the annual funding programme, I think that we fund 11 independent companies, plus the Lyric and an umbrella organisation, the Ulster Association of Youth Drama, which is merging with the Northern Ireland Theatre Association (NITA). Beyond that, we fund quite a number through project funding as well. So, there are around or just over 20 small independent theatre companies.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): That is more than I thought. I thought that, stretching it, it was maybe about a dozen. If you looked at a comparable region in the UK with a population of only 1·8 million or took a city like Birmingham or Manchester and scaled it up, you would be talking about our having a huge number of companies. Are we above the average?

Ms N McKinney: No, I would not say so.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Is that the general pattern across the UK?

Ms N McKinney: If we were to look at a region like Wales, which we compare to in scale, etc, we would find that that figure is not disproportionate. Indeed, in the South of Ireland, there are probably more. Part of the tension, particularly in drama, is that a number are on the annual funding programme, so they have their anchor overheads, programming, and staffing and administration. Younger companies, if I can call them that, are always coming out. We have the very good drama course at Queen's, so every year, we have ambitious, talented young actors coming out who want to form their own company. They are doing it in a different way. They are doing it more on a project-by-project basis. The funds simply are not there, so they are not getting locked in to office premises and core administration. That is some of the tension that we need to try to unpick. We also need to look at where some of the larger anchor organisations, like the Lyric and the MAC, can provide some of that service for the very small up-and-coming organisations.

There is the idea of creative hubs and shared workspace, and everybody needs a level of administration — of course they do — and a level of marketing etc. We will really have to look at that in more detail.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I must apologise. Before starting questions, I should have taken Shauna's presentation. I will do that now, and then I have a number of folk with their name down for questions.

Ms Shauna McNeilly (Arts Council of Northern Ireland): Thank you, Chairman, for inviting me here to provide an overview of Creative Europe. The Creative Europe Desk UK, which was established in April 2014, saw the Arts Council of Northern Ireland join a network of 10 staff based across five cities in the UK in a partnership that the British Film Institute and the British Council lead. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the European Commission support that partnership.

My role as the EU engagement office began in mid-November 2014, and the main objective of that role is to promote Creative Europe to the creative sector, with an aim to increase the amount of creative funding coming to Northern Ireland.

Creative Europe, which will run until 2020 with a Europe-wide funding pot of €1·46 billion, is the only EU funding strand that is focused entirely on cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors. The fund operates two schemes. One is the media sub-programme, which has been created to support the audiovisual sector, namely film, television and video games. The other is the cultural sub-programme, which supports the creative, cultural and heritage sectors, including, but not limited to, visual arts, theatre, opera, circus, literature, music, dance, fashion, heritage, design, architecture and interdisciplinary projects, as well as publishers of literary translation.

Creative Europe is UK-friendly programme, dealing with audiences, skills and the creative economy. The €1·46 billion allocation of funding is a 9% increase on previous funding levels. It is allocated across the media programme, which has €823 million available until 2010; the culture sub-programme, which has €455 million available; and the cross-sectoral strand, which has an allocation of €184 million.

Creative Europe's predecessors were Culture, which ran from 2007 until 2013; the MEDIA Programme, which has been running since 1991; and the Media Mundas programme, which ran from 2011 to 2013.

I will provide some context for the previous Northern Ireland successes that secured EU culture funding during the previous seven-year programme. Eight Northern Ireland beneficiary organisations collectively attracted a total of €1·6 million of culture funding to the Province, while just over €274,000 was awarded to four Northern Ireland media companies during the same period.

Creative Europe is still a relatively new programme, with only two calls being published to date for culture projects. However, September 2014 saw the results of the new programme, and I am happy to confirm that two Northern Ireland organisations received support as partners within the 21 awards made to large corporation projects. Those were selected from 74 applications. In the same programme, there were 337 applications to the small cooperation projects, of which 37 programmes were allocated money.

One of the beneficiaries was the Arts Council of Northern Ireland as a partner in CORNERS, which is a €2·5 million project. It received support of 50% of its total budget, or €1·28 million, from the Culture sub-programme. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland's total CORNERS budget is £208,000, with £123,000 of it being its own funding and £85,000 coming from the Creative Europe programme.

CORNERS is a platform for artisan audiences. The objective is to enable exchange across geographical, political and economic divisions. More than 50 artists and researchers and 30 organisations are part of CORNERS. It involves 11 partners from nine countries who are jointly leading the project, which will run until 2018. The lead partner of the project is Intercult in Sweden, and the other countries involved are Poland, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Kosovo, Spain, Italy, Croatia and Serbia. The University of Ulster also received 50% support in 2014 for its large cooperation project called 'Ceramics and its dimensions'. That €3·9 million project, which will run until November 2018, brings together museums, universities and companies to investigate the cultural, academic and industrial elements of ceramics. Sixteen partners are involved from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain and the UK.

Of the Northern Ireland applications made to the cooperation projects deadline, which was in October 2014, two organisations were successful. The Nerve Centre was awarded 52·44%, which equates to €200,000 of support towards future artist-maker labs. That will harness the creative power of three leading FabLabs in Derry/Londonderry, the University of Limerick and Ultra-lab in Madrid. The project will culminate in a show at the Medialab-Prado in Madrid in 2016. The Nerve Centre is the lead partner in that partnership.

Foras na Gaeilge was awarded 31·3% of its project budget, which equates to €200,000, for its project called 'Other Words — Literary Circuit for Small and Minority Languages'. The project lead is in Spain, with project partners from Slovenia, Sweden and Macedonia.

In the last round, which had the deadline of October 2014, 476 applications from across Europe were submitted to the cooperations project category. A total of €11·9 million was awarded across 64 projects, resulting in a success rate of 13·45%. Of the 127 applications submitted to the large cooperations category, 16 projects were awarded a total of €23·4 million, resulting in a success rate of 12·6%. In the last round, a total of just over €35 million was awarded to small and large cooperation projects across the EU in the most recent call. Northern Ireland has two projects within that.

Since we are part of the Creative Europe Desk UK, through the most recent funding round, UK organisations are involved in just over 50% of all the funded projects. That is 41 out of the 80 successful applicants. Just under €6·5 million was awarded for UK-led projects, which is more than previous results. The overall success rate for UK-led applications was 24%, which is almost twice the Europe-wide average. Eight organisations were awarded funding as lead partners in small cooperation projects, while a further 18 were involved in successful applications as associated partners. Three UK organisations were awarded funding as lead partners in large cooperation projects, while a further 10 organisations were involved in successful applications as associated partners. Results are outstanding for a number of further media and cultural deadlines, and we should learn the outcomes of all these applications by September 2015.

The annual deadline for cooperation projects is October 2015, and at this point I am aware of at least 12 organisations that are developing partnerships to make applications to the programme. Seven identified audiovisual organisations are planning on submitting applications to the media programme this year for the forthcoming deadlines. Creative Europe Desk UK-Northern Ireland will continue to work to promote Creative Europe to the creative sector and to support future applicants.

Thank you for offering me the opportunity to brief you this morning on Creative Europe. I am happy to take further questions.

Mr Dunne: Thank you very much, ladies, for coming in this morning. Where savings are concerned, how many staff do you have at present?

Ms McNeilly: Do you mean within the Creative Europe Desk UK-Northern Ireland?

Mr Dunne: No, just within the organisation. Can we clarify how many staff?

Ms McDowell: It is equivalent to 46 full-time employees (FTEs) at the moment.

Mr Dunne: That is full-time. What about part-time?

Ms McDowell: It is probably about 55 staff altogether, but it is the equivalent of 46 FTEs.

Mr Dunne: Grand, thank you. Obviously, quite significant savings were made through the grants. Can you clarify how you made those savings in relation to salaries?

Ms McDowell: To date, the salary savings have been made by not replacing staff who leave. We are also looking at things like flexible retirement, which staff have asked for. There are those types of savings. Going forward, there is the Civil Service voluntary exit scheme, but we are not sure whether we are part of that at the moment. We are in negotiation with DCAL about whether we can be a part of it. If not, it is expected that we will have our own exit scheme. We are developing that, because we do not have one at the moment.

We have asked staff for expressions of interest. We are moving forward on that basis.

Mr Dunne: There has been no loss of posts as such.

Ms McDowell: Not at this point.

Mr Dunne: How have you made your admin savings?

Ms McDowell: As we state in the briefing paper, we are looking at all our internal corporate services-type costs, which concern staff travel and board and staff training. Those things can be cut. Premises account for the next biggest cost after salaries, and we will be moving, probably before the end of this financial year. There will therefore be a saving there, but it is difficult for a development organisation, which needs to meet the public, to cut back and say that its staff cannot go out to meet the public. We have to be very careful with the balance there, but we are looking at all our internal lines and trying to cut back on those.

Ms N McKinney: To give you an example of that, our communications budget is going from £75,000, which was very small, down to £50,000, and there are similar savings being made across the categories that Lorraine mentioned.

Mr Dunne: I have a couple of other issues. Some 115 applications were received for grants. From those applications, 81 clients were maintained and got their grants. Is that right?

Ms McDowell: Yes.

Mr Dunne: How did you justify uplifting some of those grants while others were declined? I appreciate that there are criteria involved, but was giving people extra funding while others were getting nothing not a difficult issue to deal with?

Ms N McKinney: As Lorraine said, we had stated all along that we were inviting organisations to apply not for an 11% cut or for standstill but for what they considered to be the real costs going forward for their development needs, and so on, because we need to have that benchmark for the sector. Sometimes we will agree, but sometimes we will say, "Hmm, that is a bit much". That analysis is very important, so we did not penalise applicants at entry point.

The Arts Council also said that two things were important in order to continue development where there was excellence and clear developmental needs. I would put Northern Ireland Opera into that category. It is a very young, dynamic company. When you look at the figure, you might think that it is getting a large grant, but it is by far the smallest allocation through any arts council on these islands for opera provision. Northern Ireland Opera has been doing superb work. In three years, it has risen to an international standard. We need to be able to continue to invest in excellence at that level. The council made that clear. You will note from the allocation that there has been a range of smaller uplifts. We were able to mainstream, for example, the Oh Yeah annual music prize rather than make Oh Yeah apply separately for that. That is an important initiative, so we were able to build that into its grant.

It is also important that the annual list does not remain too static, because there are always new organisations coming along. We engaged with DCAL and the East Belfast Partnership on the development of a culture and art strategy for the east of the city. We got a very good application in for three festivals. It is part of the role of the Arts Council to be able to support new initiatives, especially where there is identified under-provision. We have to balance that, and deciding on the organisations that to be cut was, of course, a very difficult decision to make. We are trying to look at other funding streams for them where their funding has been cut completely. However, we will be talking to some of the organisations that have had a reduction in funding about new models of working. We have had to indicate clearly to them that, unfortunately, we can no longer afford to fund a certain aspect of their work but that we do want to continue to invest in other aspects.

Those are the flexible decisions that we need to be able to take, as an arts council, in a context in which we cannot simply keep everybody on standstill funding.

Mr Dunne: You have some very difficult decisions to make.

Ms McCorley: Thanks very much for the presentation. When you were deciding how to make your cuts, how much consideration did you give to the most deprived communities?

Ms McDowell: When we look at where people are delivering, we look at geographical spread. That is one issue. People are asked to identify the areas in which they work, so that became part of the balancing criteria of their spread and reach, and the amount of public benefit obtained. We do look at where people are delivering work. That is a specific thing that they are asked to tell us.

Ms McCorley: Are you concerned that there will be a disproportionate impact on deprived communities, given that they are the hardest to reach? There have been difficulties, and the Arts Council has been working to reach out, but are you concerned that that might have an impact?

Ms N McKinney: No, we are not. This is one funding programme, and we look at the totality of our funding through all our programmes and their spread across Northern Ireland. Even within this programme, we do not think there will be a disproportionate impact, because, as Lorraine said, that is something that we look at carefully. In fact, this year, we asked all organisations to address their outreach programmes more robustly.

Key priorities for us, and for DCAL, are access, participation and engagement, especially with more-deprived communities. I have to say that the organisations rose to that challenge, and those that we are continuing to fund do excellent work in that arena. We hope that the six that have lost their funding will be able to pick up that work through another funding programme.

When you look at the totality of our lottery funding and small grants, you will see that a lot of excellent work is going on in the most deprived communities. I think that, when we re-examine our overall stats, we will still be hitting that 60% of our overall grants hitting the top —

Ms McDowell: The top 20% of deprived areas.

Ms McCorley: Are the six organisations that lost out representative of deprived communities?

Ms N McKinney: Each has an element of education and outreach, of course, and works in harder-to-reach communities. However, not every organisation can do that to the same extent. To be honest, it is more difficult for publishers. However, they deposit books in all libraries across Northern Ireland, which are open, free and accessible. In a way, quality literature is getting into our libraries, where people can access it.

The organisations have been making great strides. Guildhall Press in Derry has been doing locally based work and telling those local stories, which is important. It will do readings and workshops in particular communities, but its core business is publishing books, so not every organisation can do it to the same extent, nor would we expect it to. Still, with the totality of our funding, that is a key priority, and 60% of Arts Council funding is being directed towards those communities.

Ms McCorley: You were talking about the possibility for projects to look at collaborative approaches and synergies. Can you flesh out what that might entail?

Ms McDowell: We have set aside an amount of money in the incoming year and will open a programme for people to apply to look at different ways of working together. As Nóirín said, the 11 drama companies, or however many there are, all have the same back type of back-office services, and that is one thing to look at. They all have administrators and HR people. Is there a way in which to create one set of backstage people, with everybody else on the artistic side in front of that?

It is also about looking at how people can collaborate on delivering specific projects. In looking at our two service level agreements (SLAs) with Arts and Business NI and Audiences NI, we ask whether there is something that they could do together that would save costs and make efficiency savings.

Ms McCorley: Have they expressed openness to that idea?

Ms McDowell: Yes, they have.

Ms N McKinney: Very much so, and the programme that we will devise, which we will be opening soon, will give people the capacity if they need to do some research and business planning around models. That will be essential. We will also help them with some of the set-up costs when they get to that stage. Therefore, it is not necessarily a new company but a new hub that can service a number of independent companies. Those are the sorts of models that we are very keen to look at and on which we are working with the Strategic Investment Board (SIB). It has been doing an analysis of the sector for us and looking at the pattern of funding and at how we can perhaps move forward when funds are so overstretched.

Ms McCorley: It would be a shame for projects to go under if there are other ways of working together.

Ms McDowell: Absolutely.

Mr Ó hOisín: On access to European funding, particularly the Creative Europe project, which is very exciting indeed, is there a perception out there and is it real that we are punching below our weight with European funding, particularly in the arts sector?

Ms McNeilly: The number of applications over the past programme would indicate that one of the things that we could do better is to create partnerships and work collaboratively, and, hopefully, generate further applications. For the previous programme, which ran from 2007 to 2013, I gave the overall figure for the projects that received funding over the seven years. That was just eight organisations. When you consider the number of cultural organisations in Northern Ireland, we could probably try to develop applications to Creative Europe, and Creative Europe Desk UK is there to promote that.

Mr Ó hOisín: Therefore, €1·4 million —

Ms McNeilly: There is €1·46 billion available.

Mr Ó hOisín: Sorry, to have €1·4 billion in the pot is significant.

Rosie asked about the socio-economic spread of cuts. How would you access the geographical spread? I am looking at organisations that were hit, such as the MAC, the Lyric and the Grand Opera House here in Belfast. You also mentioned for Derry the Millennium Forum and the Playhouse, and, to a lesser extent, the Nerve Centre and Guildhall Press, which have all been hit. Is there a proportionality there, given the demographics?

Ms N McKinney: They were not all cut to the same extent.

Mr Ó hOisín: I appreciate that.

Ms N McKinney: The Grand Opera House has taken a significant cut. It applied for less, which was commendable, given that it is potentially our most commercial arts venue in the city , with a very mixed programme — West End shows, and so on. Therefore, it can, and has to, charge higher ticket prices since it is transporting those shows over, with all the additional costs that that entails. It had applied for less, and we also applied a cut on top of that. On paper, the cut looks like £100,000. In fact, the cut from us was £22,000, and, as I said, it applied for less.

Funding for the MAC and the Lyric was cut by £50,000 for both. It is a challenge for them, but we are confident that, with their level of programming, and the fact that they are both relatively new, although both have a previous history, they are beginning to develop their audience profile. The new artistic director at the Lyric is really raising the game there. There have been some tremendous shows in the past season playing to packed-out audiences. 'The Pillowman', which is currently on, is superb and has done extremely well. It is about striking a balance between the quality of the programming, getting the balance right between the audience's taste and likes and the quality of show. It is also about carefully determining ticket pricing. That is quite a scientific exercise. Sometimes, it takes a little experimentation. The Lyric has learnt a lot over the past three years about what works and what does not, but we are confident that it can make that difference up. Indeed, in Derry also, with the Millennium Forum —

Mr Ó hOisín: I know that it is running 'Mamma Mia!' shortly, which is a huge West End hit.

Ms N McKinney: Indeed. It needs those hugely popular shows that will bring people in. Hopefully, that will help to subsidise the more artistic programme.

Mr Ó hOisín: Finally, the Arts Council's current headquarters is a fairly major piece of prime real estate. How much, in real terms, would you save by moving elsewhere?

Ms N McKinney: How much? Gosh.

Ms McDowell: We do not know yet. SIB is looking at options for where we might go. We do not know.

Mr Ó hOisín: I appreciate that.

Ms McDowell: At this point, we believe that there will be a saving, but, until we know what the premises are, we have no idea of what that might be.

Mr Ó hOisín: Is there a downside to that move?

Ms N McKinney: Not in savings terms, because I think that we can say confidently that new premises will be cheaper than Malone Road. It is likely to be more in the city centre and in a shared resource. SIB will be looking at a number of options for us. It has measured all our business needs, as you would expect — square metres per number of staff and all the Workplace 2010 equations that are used for headcounts in organisations — and other needs, but we are expecting to be in a shared resource. We hope that that will bring in further savings on top of a rental saving.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): One of the points to make is that people come to the Arts Council from all over Northern Ireland. A large number drive down. One of the benefits where you are is the ease of parking. There can be issues with that in a very city-centre location. If SIB is looking at premises in a cheaper area, which is not quite as salubrious as the Malone Road, there might be savings to be made there. Do you know whether it is taking in mind the issue of access for members of the public?

Ms McDowell: A very important part of our discussions with SIB is the point that we are a public-facing organisation that needs to make provision. As you say, it is very handy that we are on the Malone Road, because there is bus access, car parking and all of that. We feel that need, and our clients use our spaces. They may come for meetings with us, but they also use our rooms for their own meetings. We are trying to build that into the SIB discussions, but it is more or less a case of, "You have x staff and you get 11 square metres for each". That is how it is.

Ms N McKinney: We may lose that argument on car parking and shared facilities for arts organisations.

Mrs McKevitt: Thanks very much for the presentation. I was a wee bit shocked when I heard that the website was to go. How much was saved by taking away that facility, which, in my eyes, was just beginning to grow?

Ms N McKinney: The Culture NI website?

Mrs McKevitt: Yes.

Ms N McKinney: The cost of the Culture NI website was, from our grant, £100,000. We continue to support the Nerve Centre with £50,000 for its core music programme, which is hugely important. It has been doing wonderful work with young people and providing access to music, facilities, workshops and training. That is a core element that we want to hold on to. All that we can say is that, had we not been facing the cuts, the situation might have been different. Having a cultural website for Northern Ireland is valuable, of course it is. It is an excellent resource for listings, reviews, and so on. It is dynamic. It is all those things, but, as we say, when we are trying to keep the presenting venues and, indeed, the independent arts organisations, which are making the work to tour and go into those venues, the website just became unsustainable. As we say, funding for Arts and Business NI and Audiences NI was also cut. Indeed, Voluntary Arts Ireland, as an umbrella organisation, has taken a fairly substantial cut as well.

Mrs McKevitt: With the changes in society, a lot of social media is used for, I suppose, free advertising, as was shown clearly in your 13p for the arts campaign, which people signed up to through Facebook. People are using computers in different ways. When you lose a website, for what is a small figure of £100,000 in a larger budget, it is hard to swallow, along with a lot of cuts to the arts. Of the 115 groups that could have come to your workshop, 15 did not turn up: are they included in the 27 that face redundancies?

Ms McDowell: No. They did not get a cut because they did not go. [Laughter.]

Some of them may well be in the 27 but not as a consequence of that.

Mrs McKevitt: When they did not turn up at the workshop, how did you inform them?

Ms McDowell: They had discussions with their officers anyway; the officers would have noted who did not turn up and had those conversations to explain the issues. It was not that they were not contacted.

Mrs McKevitt: Some of this stuff has already been covered. Is there a risk to any of the courses at Queen's, such as the excellent drama course, which was mentioned earlier, given the headlines during the week about the cuts from DEL?

Ms N McKinney: We expect so, of course. As with everything else, unfortunately, arts and humanities tend to suffer. We are very concerned, indeed, but we do not know what approach the new vice-chancellor will take. They have not announced which courses will be affected, but, obviously, they will be entering into discussions. As with everything else, I suppose, it will come down to how many people are applying for which courses, and those will be the priority courses. Yes, I fear that the arts and humanities are on a downward trend.

Mrs McKevitt: I have two more questions, Chair. The new councils are now coming into play. Do you see any risks to groups with reduced funding, or even to those whose funding has been maintained, because decisions have not yet been taken by the new councils? It might be a case of joint or matched funding through local government. Do you see risks to any projects?

Ms N McKinney: Potentially, yes. We have tried to become actively involved with a number of the community planning processes, although we cannot cover all 11 super-councils, which are at different stages of developing their plans. We have, however, been involved with Derry/Londonderry, and I was very heartened to see that arts and culture is a central pillar of their eight themes for development. Not surprisingly, given their experience as city of culture, the impact that that had, and the change that it made to the city, they want to continue to provide that support — I do not know if I can use the word "invest", but of course it will all come down to money at the end of the day.

Arts and culture is a central pillar along with economic development, education etc, and that is heartening. Belfast has a good track record on the arts; I cannot see that being diluted, and certainly we will work with them. We have just run two very successful programmes with Belfast and Derry: the Derry Legacy Fund and the Creative and Cultural Belfast Fund. They were mechanisms to enable organisations to do more ambitious, high-impact projects, for which there would not normally be the resources. We hope to look at a continuation programme.

Ms McDowell: We will look at how we can engage with the other nine new councils to do something similar by joining with them to promote the arts and ensure the sustainability of some of the organisations that may be there.

Mrs McKevitt: My final question is for Shauna. There is now a weak euro, and projects would have been costed in their application. Do you see either of the two that were funded being put at risk? That could not have been predicted when they were putting up —

Ms McNeilly: The way it works is that the euro exchange rate that is used through the lifetime of the project is the euro rate on the day that the call was published, for up to four years. It should not, therefore, have any direct effect.

Mrs McKevitt: Ok, I did not realise that. Thank you.

Mr Humphrey: Thank you for your presentation; I am sorry that I missed the very start of it. May I point out that Shankill Road Mission is for sale, when you are looking to move premises, and it is an excellent building — [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I predicted that you would mention the Woodvale Road, but you have stretched it round to the Shankill.

Ms McDowell: We will tell the Strategic Investment Board (SIB).

Mr Humphrey: You contact Presbyterian Church House. I declare an interest as a member of the Presbyterian Church. I welcome what you said in response to Mrs McKevitt on local councils; that is very important. I appreciate the difficulties that you face, but now that councils have larger budgets, they have greater scope for working in the arts and following the example that Belfast has so clearly set. I commend Belfast City Council for its work in that area. Just to go back to what you said about the voluntary exit scheme, Lorraine, is that because arm's-length body staff are public rather than civil servants? Are you waiting for clarification on that issue?

Ms McDowell: Yes.

Mr Humphrey: Some of your money comes from the lottery. Is there scope for more to be done on lottery funding? I know that a lot was taken away because of the Olympics in London and the infrastructure for that. Is there more scope?

Ms McDowell: Lottery money is now pretty static; it is sitting at just over £10 million a year, which almost matches our Exchequer funds at this point, so much have they dropped. Those funds are pretty much at the limit; we have had to cut back even on some of our small programmes with the lottery. However, the fund that we were talking about — the sustainability, capacity-building fund over the next year — will be funded from lottery resources, because we got a little back from the Olympics, which we will use to help organisations.

Mr Humphrey: Is that because lottery sales are static?

Ms McDowell: Yes, the forecast for the next four years is that sales will be static.

Mr Humphrey: Have the cuts been made equitably across the cultures in Northern Ireland?

Ms McDowell: Yes, we believe so. We proceeded, as Nóirín said, on the basis of social benefit and artistic quality, and we believe that all clients have been treated equitably across divides. There was an Irish-language organisation that was cut. We have an Irish-language organisation and an Ulster-Scots organisation in last year's annual funding, one of which has been removed, but that was because it did not meet the targets that were set over the last two years. That is the reason; it has been in the public domain.

Mr Humphrey: It had nothing to do with budgetary restraints. Do the challenges that you and the arts world face, both in this city and across Northern Ireland, provide an opportunity for more streamlining of the arts?

Ms N McKinney: Absolutely, William. We are confident that we can, through some of the interventions that we have been describing and the capacity-building programme, help organisations to transition to a different way of working. That is easier for some sectors, where you can see synergies and sharing of back-office services, as Lorraine said. Increasingly, organisations will have to move to project funding and work in a leaner way — not so as to affect the artistic element, because we do not want to see a dilution of programming and output, but in the administration, and that is where we will look very carefully at the balance between core administration and programming. Very often we find ourselves in that position as key funder; that is our job.

Because of the circumstances in Northern Ireland, however, we find ourselves having to keep the door open by meeting all the core costs of an organisation, while they look to other funders for programming. So other funders will say clearly: "No overheads; projects only." If we are not putting up the tab for that, that makes it even more difficult. We are going to have to contract, and we told the sector at the outset that that will result in a smaller sector. As I said, next year the process will have to continue. There have been shock waves this year, but we will have to spend this year conditioning organisations and trying to effect that cultural shift into new ways of working.

Mr Humphrey: Finally, let me return to European moneys. I always think that, compared, for example, to the Republic of Ireland, we are bit-part players in drawing down money from Europe, not just in this area but across government. Can the Office of the Northern Ireland Executive in Brussels do more to help you? Have you been working with it, either before these cuts, or has that work increased since your budgets have been reduced?

Ms N McKinney: We have a very good relationship with the office on a number of fronts. Not least, it presented a very good showcase —

Mr Humphrey: A couple of weeks ago?

Ms N McKinney: Indeed, over the last two years we have been running a programme with it of readings, small-scale performances and trying to raise the profile of the arts for Northern Ireland. That has been remarkably successful in raising interest. We also brought over a number of small-scale theatrical productions to put into other venues in Brussels. The office is very helpful when we bring over any sort of delegation; it puts us in contact with key decision makers and has afforded us opportunities to put our case. We have been involved in a number of the Parliament's research and development programmes. It did one into interculturalism, and, on the basis of the work that we have been doing on interculturalism and the arts, we were invited over to give a paper. Indeed, our chairman, Bob Collins, is going over imminently to participate in another round-table discussion.

Moreover, as Shauna would agree, the office is helpful in trying to make connections for partners. That is one of the big challenges in getting European funding, as Shauna knows, and, in fact, we know from our own experience in the CORNERS programme where we have nine partners. We have been working together for five or six years, doing projects on a pan-European basis with our artists, sharing ideas, developing new work, and making commissions.

Our first application to the culture programme was unsuccessful. That took a lot of rethinking, reshaping, development and strengthening of our partnerships. We were delighted that our second application was successful, but it took six years to get there. It is a fantastic programme, and we have 35 or 40 artists collaborating across all the countries that Shauna mentioned. They are on the edges of Europe. We will have a major showcase in Belfast this autumn of the work that has been commissioned, not only by artists from here but by their European partners; that will be a significant offering in October. It is a fantastic programme, but it has taken a very long developmental process.

Mr Humphrey: I am pleased to hear that the office has been helpful and that there is a joined-up, collaborative approach. It is good that the arts are being used in Brussels to promote Northern Ireland plc. However, has the office been helpful practically, in delivering you money?

Ms N McKinney: No. [Laughter.]

Mr Humphrey: I welcome all that work; that is good and is exactly what should happen. However, there are people — dare I say, Laura Leonard in Belfast City Council — whom you should meet. I am not telling you how to do your job. She is the manager of the European unit in the City Hall and has drawn down hugely significant sums of money over the years for the city. She helped to set up the European unit in Londonderry and so on. You should have meetings and conversations with her. I also think that we need to see more delivery from our European office. Let me put it this way: I do not know the answer to this, and maybe I am setting myself up for a fall, but I am sure that, if we had your equivalent in the Republic of Ireland before our equivalent Committee, the answer to that question would not have been no.

Ms N McKinney: Just to clarify, William, that is our experience. We have a programme that we jointly fund on a small scale. On the pull-down of European funding through the Brussels office, no, not in my experience.

Mr Humphrey: Thank you very much.

Mr Cree: I have three questions; one of them is to do with Europe. I am firmly convinced that not enough has been done with the structure in Brussels. I have been there many times and we always seem to be playing catch up. William mentioned the Irish Republic, and I was very impressed by a chap who was employed full-time by the Irish Government in Brussels in agriculture, but who covered the whole ambit of money. The big problem is that if you wait until you hear of something, the chances are that you will be too late. You have to be in before that when policy is being formed.

Do you have any direct dealings with the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB)?

Ms McDowell: Yes. Our connection with SEUPB is through a funding programme that it helps to fund for us — the reimaging programme. That is really our only connection with it.

Mr Cree: More has to be done, and, as I think William said, that also applies to all Departments here. The only one that has done really well is DRD, but I would not mention that.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): For filling in potholes?

Mr Cree: They have to get it from somewhere.

Mr Humphrey: I wish it would get some to fix street lights.

Mr Cree: It will have to go back. Seriously, though, it is a big issue. They have a lot of money, and we are not getting our share of it. If we wait until something is announced, we are on the back foot. We need to be in there helping to form policy, and there are people there to do that. Unfortunately, I am not convinced that our delegation is yet up to that speed. They certainly were not. That will be increasingly important to all of us. We are still a net contributor.

On the voluntary exit scheme, Lorraine, you mentioned that you are not really part of it.

Ms McDowell: We do not know if we are part of the general scheme. It is a Civil Service scheme, and we are not civil servants.

Mr Cree: It is designed to cover arm's-length bodies as well. No one I have heard so far has been able to tell me exactly how it affects them. If you had to do it on your own, where would you get the money for redundancy payments?

Ms McDowell: We could not fund that; we would make a business case to the Department.

Mr Cree: So, the whole thing really should be joined up.

Ms McDowell: Yes.

Mr Cree: I appreciate that the Arts Council has had a difficult time and there are still a lot of unhappy people. In fact, I received a letter from Equity the other day. Was it one of the six?

Ms N McKinney: No. Equity made representations on behalf of the drama sector, which it felt had been disproportionately affected.

Mr Cree: Yes, that is right.

Ms N McKinney: It made a global representation.

Mr Cree: Who were the six then, Nóirín?

Ms N McKinney: They were Pobal, the Irish-language organisation; Blackstaff Press; Guildhall Press; Green Shoot Productions, which is a drama company — sorry, they are in the paperwork.

Ms McDowell: The others were Music Theatre 4 Youth; and the McCracken Cultural Society.

Mr Cree: My final point is on the web page. It is a pity that you could not have done that in-house. Was that considered?

Ms N McKinney: Yes. Everything was considered. As you can imagine, as we were facing into the cuts and before we knew their full extent — they could have been worse — we looked at rationalisations across the board. We looked at whether we would have the capacity to bring Arts and Business in-house and whether some of the other umbrella services could be serviced in the Arts Council. We also looked at a web listing page.

For many years, we did it the old-fashioned way and stuffed envelopes with leaflets and sent them out across Northern Ireland and provided a monthly calendar of what was on. Technology has, of course, moved on. Our problem is with our existing resources. With our 46 FTEs and having to reduce that number, we would not yet have the capacity to do that.

To pick up on your point, part of our thinking was that many arts organisations now do their own e-marketing and use social media very cleverly to promote themselves. Even though that does not replace the central listing site, where you can go to one point of information for everything, at least there is still some provision to let people know what is going on. As I said, organisations are very good at doing that themselves. That may be something that we will have to look at under the capacity-building programme, but, for now, unfortunately, we simply could not sustain it.

Mr Cree: That is a pity, because I believe that that is essential.

Mr B McCrea: Do you think that society has an obligation to support the arts?

Ms N McKinney: Yes.

Mr B McCrea: Do you think that opera deserves a higher per capita subsidy than other forms of cultural expression like, say, football?

Ms N McKinney: I have not done the comparators, so I do not know whether it does. I could not imagine that it does — certainly not in Northern Ireland.

Mr B McCrea: Your presentation mentioned opera and how successful it is. I suspect that there are plenty of people who want to put this argument to you: why are we spending money on the arts when we could be spending it, say, on hospital admissions? However, let us just keep it in the arts family. People ask about social deprivation and things. What argument can you make to say that arts deserve funding?

Ms N McKinney: As you will be aware, there is a long tradition — a post-war tradition — of public subsidy for the arts in the UK, and that is a very important principle. To use the old adage: not everything that counts can be counted. Of course, we believe that access to arts and culture is a fundamental human right. It is always invidious to compare, of course, but I am going to compare now with sport. In Northern Ireland, we receive similar levels of subsidy through voted funds, and voted support for arts and sport is hugely important; otherwise people do not have access that is affordable and, indeed, sometimes free.

Mr B McCrea: One of the arguments that you put forward when you talked about the Millennium Theatre was that we have to have 'Mamma Mia' because that provides funding so that we can do other, higher, artistic issues. Why are we trying to push water uphill? If people do not want to go and see it, why are we funding it?

Ms N McKinney: We are funding it because it is important, and people do want to see it. However, if we had to charge the ticket prices that we would have to charge without public subsidy, you would take that access away completely. For example, if there was no public subsidy going into even a more commercial organisation like the Opera House or the Millennium Forum, their ticket prices would soar, so that subsidy is helping them to keep their tickets at an affordable level that are not London levels. Obviously —

Mr B McCrea: I want to run through a few questions, because I think that these are arguments that you have to make and make repeatedly, because I do not think that they have been made yet. Why do we need an Arts Council for Northern Ireland?

Ms N McKinney: It is not just we who need it; however, you would expect us to say that. Both the sector and the ALB review that was conducted by DCAL into the role of all its arm's-length bodies, including the Arts Council, clearly demonstrated the need for an independent body that can take decisions on behalf of the sector.

Mr B McCrea: You could have an Arts Council for the United Kingdom.

Ms N McKinney: In the United Kingdom, it is quite a different model because of the sheer scale. You have England, Scotland, Wales, as you know, and Northern Ireland, but even in England, given its size, there are several regional arts boards. If you looked at our scale, we are more like a regional arts board. We have the name of an Arts Council —

Mr B McCrea: But if your purpose is just to do the fair administration of grants against agreed published criteria, which you have, you do not need to have one on the Malone Road or Belfast; you could have just one in Manchester.

Ms N McKinney: We would say that the essential role that the Arts Council performs is that we bring highly specialised knowledge on the art forms as well, so we are not like career civil servants, in that we bring a specialism in each art form area. I think that that is highly important. We have some admin staff, of course, but the specialism is hugely important, as is the local knowledge.

Mr B McCrea: The term that you used in your presentation that shocked me was "shock waves". You said that the sector will have to get used to taking an 11·2% cut this year and that next year will be even worse. I think that we need a body that argues why that should not be the case. You get to a certain level beyond which it is not possible to sustain things. I will say this to you before I ask you questions: the Arts Council needs to step up to the mark in that regard.

Ms N McKinney: Sorry to interrupt, but may I respond to that? Would you prefer if I waited? I do not want to miss the point. We are hugely concerned about that. We ran a very robust advocacy campaign, in which we said — apologies if you missed this at the start, Basil — that 23,000 —

Mr B McCrea: I saw the 23,000; I also noted the response: the impact was zero.

Ms N McKinney: Indeed.

Mr B McCrea: It was not the best campaign for outcomes.

If 23,000 people who are really concerned about the arts were to donate £10 per annum, would £230,000 make any difference?

Ms N McKinney: Not to core voted funds.

Mr B McCrea: What about if they were to put in £100?

Ms N McKinney: We would make the argument that arts and culture are a fundamental right, along with all the other government priorities, such as the economy, education and health, because they bring so much to —

Mr B McCrea: But you have said to me already that there will be huge shock waves; that it is bad and that it will get worse. You said that you were not sure about the money coming from Europe. I admire that honesty. At the last Budget, the Chancellor gave touring theatres 25% tax breaks. What impact has that had on profitability? That is a subsidy that we have not seen.

Ms N McKinney: It does not apply in Northern Ireland as yet.

Mr B McCrea: Why not?

Ms N McKinney: The legislation would have to come for —

Mr B McCrea: You should be arguing for that. When I went to the Science Museum in London, they would not let me through the door unless I signed a tax covenant. They said, "We'll take the money, but you're not getting in until you claim back the tax". Does such an opportunity exist for cultural activity in Northern Ireland?

Ms N McKinney: Some venues have such initiatives, but it is not across the board. However, some of the larger venues will be looking at those interventions.

Mr B McCrea: I will finish on this point. There are a lot of issues that have been brought up. When I hear about a lot of the cultural activity, it strikes me that the biggest problem is empty seats. I think that the Lyric declared only 50%. The Ulster Orchestra also had a lot of capacity. We need to get people to make long-term commitments to the arts that take advantage of tax breaks and give them guaranteed seats at reduced prices. A body — I do not know which one — has to take that forward. You keep talking to me about new models of business, but I have yet to hear what those new models of business might look like.

Ms McDowell: You have touched on one of the issues that we have touched on with SIB in conversations about how we move forward; the level of patronage and all the other mechanisms for fundraising. Some of the things that you mentioned will come into that equation. How do we move forward and get sustainable income in the longer term that is not necessarily reliant on public funding?

Mr B McCrea: I want to ask one question on Europe. You were quite honest, Shauna, on the matter. Eight organisations get funding. It seems to be the usual suspects getting involved in the usual programmes, such as Ulster University doing something.

What can you do to go beyond the usual people turning up and say that we will get real additional money out? What can you add to this funding issue?

Ms McNeilly: Of the eight organisations in the previous programme up until 2013, we have had a number of applications. We are getting out into the sector. Since the beginning of this year, in the first quarter, we have delivered eight public-facing events with the sector across the MEDIA sub-programme and the Culture sub-programme. Last year, because the desk and the programme were running only from April, we engaged with about 450 people across the sector. We have already met about 300 people at our public-facing events in the first quarter of this year, and we are delivering those events in Belfast and Newry.

Mr B McCrea: One year from now, what will the figure be if it is not eight?

Ms McNeilly: I hope that it will be greater than that, but the key thing to remember is that Creative Europe is a slow burner. It is a new programme. The challenge for organisations is that they need to find partners across Europe and partnerships that will be long-standing. You have to be very careful about who you will partner with over a four-year project. These partnerships take time to develop, so I imagine that it will take time to build this programme. Organisations have to work collaboratively on the programmes, because it is a holistic project in the sense that you will have a lead partner and associated partners. In a cooperation project, you need at least three partners — for example, a Northern Ireland organisation and at least two others — because, over the development of the project, someone might fall off the course. You need at least two partners. There is a challenge in identifying who the partners might be and then identifying the European issue that your project might address, so it will take some time to develop the partnerships, the project proposals and the applications. Once they get to the stage of application, it is hugely competitive because you are competing against the rest of Europe.

Mr McMullan: When you looked at your funding, did you rural proof it in any way?

Ms N McKinney: We look at geographical spread very seriously, Oliver. However, it has to be said that, as you will be aware, there is a large concentration of arts organisations in Belfast and Londonderry. There is not a huge number across the rest of Northern Ireland, but there are receiving venues that do brilliant work, and there is an arts centre within a 20-mile radius of every citizen. It is really important that the organisations that we are funding are touring those venues and bringing the work to where there is not already an arts organisation or an infrastructure on the ground. There are, however, a number of very good community-based organisations that are doing great work in rural communities. In our draft community arts strategy, we have a proposal to do a number of rural pilot projects. We are very conscious of that, but, again, if you look at the totality of our funding beyond the annual funding programme, that is where we commit most of our grant-in-aid. However, we get a better spread across all Northern Ireland, so we have to look at it in the totality.

Mr McMullan: Did we cut any of the money going to disability or special needs?

Ms N McKinney: A tiny percentage, I think.

Ms McDowell: I think that the only thing that came off that area was the voluntary arts network, which, as Nóirín said, falls into our category of health and disability. One arts-and-disability organisation, the Arts and Disability Forum, received an uplift in its grant of £15,000. Again, that was because, for a number of years, it has been dependent on monitoring round funding, if you like, to deliver the Bounce! festival, which is an extremely successful disability arts festival. We took this opportunity to amalgamate that with its funding grant, so it got an increase.

Mr McMullan: I want the arts to go back out into rural areas more, because I do take on board what you are saying. Most of your money goes into urban areas such as Derry and Belfast — there is an argument for that — but, at the same time, I think that you have to get out into rural areas. You have a great chance now with the amalgamation of the councils. I want you to feed into the councils' community plans, and I am sure that you are doing that.

There has to be more money for the arts in rural areas. If areas do not have venues, we cannot rely on touring companies. Touring companies have been cut and cannot come out, so you are left with the status quo in the countryside. We are not getting the arts, and we cannot expect people to travel 40 miles to venues in large towns. If you have an input to the new councils, that could generate something. The councils will now have dedicated European officers working with the Arts Council to help them to draw down European funding to help the arts. You need to talk to the councils. That would be a great step forward in drawing up community plans.

Mr Hilditch: When you were before the Committee before Christmas — I think that some of today's delegation were here — we looked at the general population survey. I think that Lorraine and Nóirín spoke about it. Are you still focused on the outcomes of that survey and working on where the arts can go in relation to what the populace wants?

Ms N McKinney: Yes, very much so. I will say something that will partly address that and also some of Basil's points. I am sure that you are aware that the Minister has established a ministerial arts advisory forum. That is made up of sector organisations, and the Arts Council is represented on it. She has tasked us with developing a 10-year strategy for the arts, which, I have to say, is quite a challenge. We have commenced work on that. There is also a ministerial reference group that is made up of all the Departments and other relevant arm's-length bodies. It is a touchstone group, and the strategy will be brought back to it to try to gain buy-in across the Executive. A lot of the issues that Mr McCrea raised will be addressed through that longer-term developmental plan of how we will undertake the journey from A to B. As I said, that is a challenge.

It will be helpful to try to corral a lot of the needs of the sector, the central importance of the arts and why public subsidy is important. That case will be set out very strongly with evidence from case studies, facts and figures and, of course, the general population survey. There is a high level of buy-in from over 75% of the people who attend the arts. Surveys like that and our annually funded organisation survey give some very rich data. We will use that to help to inform the strategy as to why the arts is of central importance, why it deserves subsidy, why it needs to be subsidised and how we can move forward. Without being too negative, if we cast forward 10 years, we will, hopefully, be in a better position by then. However, how do we manage the transition in the interim? When that strategy is completed, hopefully with Executive buy-in, it will set out some of those issues and give you confidence.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I have two quick questions. First, a small capital equipment fund used to exist. Does it still exist, and does it come from lottery money or DCAL?

Ms McDowell: We do not have an equipment fund at all at the moment.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): There is no equipment fund any more.

Ms McDowell: The only money that we have had in recent years was a small amount of capital that came from DCAL two years ago. We have not had an equipment fund since then.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): That existed for quite a number of years.

Ms McDowell: It did. With the move to project funding and other types of funding, it, unfortunately, fell off the list.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Secondly, you said that you were moving to a new model for supporting literature. Will you give me a flavour of that in two sentences?

Ms N McKinney: It is a very simple model, Chairman. Literary organisations apply for their titles. When we open our lottery project scheme this month, we will expect applications from Blackstaff Press and Guildhall Press to set out the publications that they want to produce this year and what they need per title. With that, we will be able to identify the titles that we might be able to support.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Is that done on an annual basis? Could another publisher come in six months into the year?

Ms N McKinney: Other publishers come in all the time. In fact, we support —

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Is it a rolling programme?

Ms McDowell: It is project funding, which is open on an annual basis, but publishers also come in under our small grants programme, which is a rolling programme.

Ms N McKinney: We fund much more than Blackstaff Press and Guildhall Press. Under small grants and lottery project funding, for example, we fund the Gallery Press, which is the premier poetry press in Ireland. We fund it to publish our titles and our poets from Northern Ireland. There is a really impressive suite, from Michael Longley, Paul Durcan and so on to Seamus Heaney, who was a close associate. All our great poets from Northern Ireland are within that press.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Thank you very much indeed. It has been a wide-ranging session. I use that term loosely: it has been extremely wide-ranging. It has been useful in that it has helped us to get a better understanding of where we are, the current challenges, the challenges going forward to next year and maybe some opportunities in the midst of it all with some reconfiguration. Thank you; I appreciate it.

Ms N McKinney: Thank you, Chairman.