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Arts chiefs were paid bonus as grants axed
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent6 Apr 2009
ARTS Council England is facing demands for an investigation into more than a quarter of a million pound of bonuses paid to staff at the same time as it was axing grants.
London MP Simon Hughes, the new chairman of Bubble, a Bermondsey-based theatre company whose £420,000 funding was cut, condemned the decision to reward employees who were making the cuts.
The bonuses, worth £280,675, were also branded "disgusting" by former staff of the London Disability Arts Forum which closed down when its £131,000 grant was stopped.
Nearly all - 699 out of 745 - Arts Council staff received either a cash bonus of several hundred pounds or £150 in gift vouchers.
The employees' work was rewarded for the year 2007/2008 when about 50 organisations in London had their funding reduced or withdrawn.
Mr Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey, said: "Arts organisations will be very angry to hear they had their funding cut last year when Arts Council employees were given bonuses. I am sure that others as well as me will want to quiz the Arts Council as to whether these payments were justified."
David Watson, who edited the disability arts forum magazine, said: "I'm disgusted by it. It's indicative of the Arts Council. At the time we were trying to save ourselves it was impossible to get anyone to give a straight answer about anything."
But an Arts Council spokeswoman defended the bonuses, saying the organisation's most important resource in ensuring public money was invested wisely was its employees. She said: "It is their skills and knowledge that allow us to fulfil those duties and we need to make sure our staff are motivated and rewarded commensurately with the skills we wish to retain in the organisation.
"This was in acknowledgement of the hard work and dedication of staff across the organisation during a challenging year.
"While we understand that any organisation whose funding is reduced or not renewed is going to be unhappy, it is the Arts Council's role to make difficult decisions and to invest its funding in the most effective way in order for the arts in England to develop and flourish."
More money was invested as a result of the grants review than ever before with 880 organisations across England, including 81 first-time recipients, getting £336million.
Reader views (1)
Bonus culture. Everybody who in a position of charge is at it and they get their bonuses even for lack of performance or at the expense of others. Criminal behaviour!
- Peter Noterfed, Paris, France, 06/04/2009 11:48
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