Arts Victoria - Operations Program Review— 09.02.2012

Arts Victoria recently announced a review of the Operations Program, which is around $23 million to multi-year funded organisations, and around $1 million to annually funded organisations.

TNV wants to ensure that the theatre sector is well looked after during the review process, and will be participating in the consultation process throughout this year.

All the details of the review are on the Arts Vic website: http://www.arts.vic.gov.au/Funding_Programs/Organisations/Organisations_Program_Review

TNV is pleased that Arts Victoria is reviewing this program – we have called for such as review, as the program is what Arts Vic is calling ‘locked up’, with 95% of the funded orgs in the multi-year program having been funded for up to 30 years. This has also been a frustration for Arts Victoria, as there is little room for them to fund new organisations coming along.

Essentially, the review will mean a reshuffle of the program, with new categories, new criteria, and new processes. It is not being done to cut any funding, and indeed Arts Victoria would love new funding for the program (but warns that this is a tight budget year, so that is highly unlikely).

For the theatre sector, the opportunity for the many emerging companies to have a fair process to be assessed within, is great news, and for currently funded companies, the new processes and categories may offer smoother and clearer application (and reporting) processes.

The timeline is that the review will be done during this year, Expressions of Interest requested this year, with the new application process done next year, for funding rolling out from January 2014 (so NOT next year).

A discussion paper will be developed by Arts Victoria soon, and TNV will be able to respond to that on your behalf. We will also work with and talk to other service organisations, including the Arts Industry Council (Vic), to ensure that the arts sector has real opportunities to be heard.

Arts Victoria are very open to hearing from the industry, both about the consultation process and about the review itself, but they do urge people to read the website and to read the discussion paper when it is developed.

In the next little while, we hope to develop some clear messages that the sector agrees on, so that we have a shared ambition for what might come out of this review for the theatre sector, so please be in touch with us to offer your thoughts and ideas.