Welsh Assembly announce Draft budget cuts

[Carol Jones]

The Draft Budget and ACW's response can be found here: http://www.artswales.org.uk/5743.

Basically a 4% cut over 3 years for its budget for arts programme plus a 12% cut over 3 years on ACW running costs.

Direct support will continue to be given by WAG to Wales Millennium Centre.

So a sigh of relief from many and a definite vote of confidence from WAG for ACW's Investment Review process - plus the success, one suspects, of the behind the scenes work of ACW's Chair and Chief Executive, Dai Smith and Nick Capaldi.

We await to see how the cuts pan out but as ACW have avoided the salami slicing approach of its counterparts across the bridge it seems increasingly likely that, even in the current climate, some clients will see funding uplifts following through Investment Review proposals.

ACW officers are currently beetling through clients' supplementary information before funding decisions for 2011/12 will be made later this year.