Letters: arts funding is in good hands

Culture clash

Sir: Rosie Millard doesn’t like the current Arts Council England (ACE) strategy (Arts, 18 November). She quotes the experience of two organisations, ENO and the Fitzwilliam Museum, ‘who did not get their regular grant’ and who have fallen ‘out of favour’. It is often forgotten that no arts company is guaranteed funding beyond the agreed three-year period. All trustees know this and plan for different outcomes. ACE funds a broad range of organisations across the country. A few facts may help reassure that this strand of arts funding is in good hands. DCMS negotiated an increase in funding for ACE in the last round. ACE received a record number of applications last year and funded an equally record figure, almost a thousand, around the country. Of course, some applicants were unsuccessful, but almost 300 were funded for the first time, like the Foundling Museum and Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. Some, like the outstanding Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, saw their grant increase.

Lord Mendoza

Former Commissioner of Culture, DCMS, 2020-2023

Trust them to ignore you

Sir: Trevor Standen (Letters, 18 November) expresses the hope that the National Trust will take account of the 60,000 or so members who voted to abolish the so-called Quick Vote with which the Trust gerrymanders the results of elections and motions. I wouldn’t be optimistic about this, as the Trust is in the habit of ignoring such expressions of members’ opinions, and in the aftermath of the recent AGM issued triumphalist statements celebrating its successes in the votes. Moreover, it encourages the fiction that those who vote against it are part of a right-wing conspiracy. There is absolutely no doubt that the Trust does not want anyone on its council who might dissent from its groupthink, as the rejection of the candidacy of the distinguished but free-thinking former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption amply demonstrates.