Draft guidelines released for National Program for Excellence in the Arts; Arts Minister to approve all funding

Friday, 3 July 2015 Books+Publishing

The Ministry for the Arts has released the draft guidelines for the National Program for Excellence in the Arts, which indicates that all funding proposals will need to be approved by the Minister for the Arts.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the program was announced in the 2015-16 federal budget and will receive $104.8m over four years from funds previously allocated to the Australia Council.

The guidelines outline three funding streams: an endowment incentives stream to support organisations’ medium- to long-term projects, with funding ‘conditional on organisations leveraging funds from other sources’; an international and cultural diplomacy stream, to help organisations expand audiences through ‘international tours, exhibitions, partnerships and exchanges’, as well as bring ‘internationally significant art and artists to Australia’; and a strategic initiatives stream to assist organisations ‘to respond to new opportunities, challenges and issues’.

The government will provide ‘approximately $20 million’ per year for the program, with funding to be divided between the streams according to demand. It is unclear how the remaining $24.7m allocated to the program will be used.

The funding will be assessed by the Ministry for the Arts and ‘independent assessors’, and recommendations will be made to the Minister for the Arts.

The Ministry for the Arts is inviting feedback on the draft guidelines, which are due by 31 July. To view the guidelines, visit the website here.

The federal senate will hold an inquiry into the impact of the funding cuts to the Australia Council in the 2015/16 federal budget, which will consider ‘the suitability and appropriateness of the establishment of a National Program for Excellence in the Arts’. Submissions to the inquiry are are due by 17 July.

Category: Local news