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Tightfisted Arts Council Sitting on Pile of Cash

by Zoe Strimpel
Thu, 17 Apr 2008

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For the third time in as many months, the Arts Council is in deep water. It emerged today that the funding body is sitting on £150 million ($298 million) in lottery money, after slicing funds for approximately 200 arts organizations just last month. The lotto cash is marked out for projects that need financial help, only exacerbating the question of how the council can justify such a substantial surplus when it killed off so many grants this year.

A spokeswoman for the Arts Council told the Times of London that the money was still intended for a worthy cause, and that the surplus was the fault of delayed payments. "A lottery cash balance is not spare cash sitting in the bank. It represents committed funds not yet paid out," she hedged. "We have already made significant reductions to our balance — down from £224 million in March 2004 to £152 million at March 2008."

The Arts Council is one of 13 charitable distributors of national lottery money. Let's hope they get on with the distributing. It's the only way this once vital and august organization is going to regain any respectability in British culture.

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