James Mahone is a Conservative Party member, and Founder of the Horizon Centre for Public Innovation.
Arts Council England has been responsible for distributing more than £4.6 billion of British taxpayer money between 2020-2024. There has been an alarming lack of transparency and significant regional imbalance regarding funding granted. Data obtained by the Horizon Centre for Public Innovation via Freedom of Information requests raises serious questions about accountability. The British public are surely unaware of these astronomical figures and where their money is being directed. It is time for openness.
Firstly, ministers and taxpayers should be concerned about the figures citing regional imbalance. According to Arts Council England’s own internal regional classifications, during the stated period above, London received at least £166 million more funding than the entire North of England. This is not a minor error but a structural imbalance in the distribution of public cultural funding.
This is just the start of the problem.
FOI data on funding applications that were ‘Shakespeare-related’ shows that there were 393 eligible applications referencing Shakespeare during 2020-2024, but 271 were rejected. This is roughly a 69 per cent rejection rate. In classical music the figures were similarly grim, with only 959 applications being accepted and 1,332 rejected.
Arts Council England were asked why these applications were rejected and they refused to provide an answer, citing “commercial sensitivity”. We therefore have vast sums of taxpayer money being used to fund things which remain insufficiently transparent for a publicly funded institution. That presents a serious accountability concern.
All figures cited in this article are drawn directly from Freedom of Information responses provided by Arts Council England covering the period between 2020 and 2024. Aggregated or anonymised data has been used where required to comply with data protection obligations.
Regarding transparency, or lack of it in this case, it matters hugely because arms-length bodies rely on public trust. Public trust depends on transparency. We currently have billions of pounds of our money being distributed by an institution that is refusing to explain decision making patterns. The refusal also included not disclosing even coded or anonymised rejection reasoning. This makes scrutiny impossible.
As for differences in funding according to region, Arts Council England’s own “project area” classifications show that during the period reviewed, London received in the region of £1.36 billion, while the North received £1.19 billion. At the same time, there are many regional cultural institutions that are financially under pressure.
Another interesting issue is that grants are tracked by Arts Council England which are linked to keywords. Words such as “Queer” and “LGBTQIA+” had FOI data showing approximately £16.3 million in associated funding. London accounted for around 40 per cent of this. FOI data also shows that for “British Folk Theatre” and “English Folk Theatre”, not a single grant was registered, there were no results at all!
This suggests we have cultural categories which are institutionally visible, with others that are invisible, within the organisation’s administrative framework. This cannot simply be a technical oversight.
Heritage-focused categories were also examined and the same issue emerged. There is no specific classifier or funding category for “British Heritage Festivals”, as confirmed by Arts Council England.
It must be said that this does not prove malice. It does, however, point to an organisation that receives huge public money while requiring far greater scrutiny. This is not a private company but a public one, people have a right to understand how their money is spent. In this instance we have something funded by the people, exercising enormous influence over Britain’s cultural landscape while avoiding, or at least operating at a significant distance from, democratic accountability.
A serious review should be conducted and is long overdue.
The first step should focus on the transparency protocols in place, the funding methodology, and governance structures of Arts Council England. A preliminary FOI audit using publicly obtainable data has already been completed by the Horizon Centre. The current system operates with insufficient scrutiny, as evidenced.
The funding framework should then become more transparent. Rather than simply a rhetorical aspiration, regional equity must become a measurable objective. How taxpayer money is distributed across England should match clear expectations.
British cultural forms such as Shakespeare, heritage festivals, folk theatre, classical music etc should be tracked. They should not sit in administrative blind spots. Highly specific thematic funding streams are tracked by Arts Council England, so too should traditional cultural institutions. These are part of Britain’s artistic inheritance.
There also needs to be radical change regarding the issue of transparency. The decision-making process must be focussed on. Publicly funded institutions must not be allowed to hide behind “commercial sensitivity” to avoid discussing funding outcomes which they do not want to discuss. Applicants deserve clarity, taxpayers deserve accountability, and Parliament deserves oversight. Currently, they all are not receiving it.
If ministers or MPs wished to act immediately, they would not require new legislation. They could simply request publication of anonymised rejection criteria for Shakespeare and classical music applications, commission an independent regional equity assessment of the £4.6 billion distribution and require Arts Council England to clarify its use of “commercial sensitivity” in FOI responses.
None of this is radical. It is simply the minimum level of scrutiny that should apply to any organisation responsible for distributing billions of pounds of public money.
This ultimately leads to the central question Parliament should now be asking: if Arts Council England will not explain why it rejected nearly 70 per cent of Shakespeare applications, what else is happening inside Britain’s quango state that taxpayers are not permitted to see?
The Horizon Centre has conducted the preliminary audit. The data is public. Now someone in Parliament needs to act.
James Mahone is a Conservative Party member, and Founder of the Horizon Centre for Public Innovation.
Arts Council England has been responsible for distributing more than £4.6 billion of British taxpayer money between 2020-2024. There has been an alarming lack of transparency and significant regional imbalance regarding funding granted. Data obtained by the Horizon Centre for Public Innovation via Freedom of Information requests raises serious questions about accountability. The British public are surely unaware of these astronomical figures and where their money is being directed. It is time for openness.
Firstly, ministers and taxpayers should be concerned about the figures citing regional imbalance. According to Arts Council England’s own internal regional classifications, during the stated period above, London received at least £166 million more funding than the entire North of England. This is not a minor error but a structural imbalance in the distribution of public cultural funding.
This is just the start of the problem.
FOI data on funding applications that were ‘Shakespeare-related’ shows that there were 393 eligible applications referencing Shakespeare during 2020-2024, but 271 were rejected. This is roughly a 69 per cent rejection rate. In classical music the figures were similarly grim, with only 959 applications being accepted and 1,332 rejected.
Arts Council England were asked why these applications were rejected and they refused to provide an answer, citing “commercial sensitivity”. We therefore have vast sums of taxpayer money being used to fund things which remain insufficiently transparent for a publicly funded institution. That presents a serious accountability concern.
All figures cited in this article are drawn directly from Freedom of Information responses provided by Arts Council England covering the period between 2020 and 2024. Aggregated or anonymised data has been used where required to comply with data protection obligations.
Regarding transparency, or lack of it in this case, it matters hugely because arms-length bodies rely on public trust. Public trust depends on transparency. We currently have billions of pounds of our money being distributed by an institution that is refusing to explain decision making patterns. The refusal also included not disclosing even coded or anonymised rejection reasoning. This makes scrutiny impossible.
As for differences in funding according to region, Arts Council England’s own “project area” classifications show that during the period reviewed, London received in the region of £1.36 billion, while the North received £1.19 billion. At the same time, there are many regional cultural institutions that are financially under pressure.
Another interesting issue is that grants are tracked by Arts Council England which are linked to keywords. Words such as “Queer” and “LGBTQIA+” had FOI data showing approximately £16.3 million in associated funding. London accounted for around 40 per cent of this. FOI data also shows that for “British Folk Theatre” and “English Folk Theatre”, not a single grant was registered, there were no results at all!
This suggests we have cultural categories which are institutionally visible, with others that are invisible, within the organisation’s administrative framework. This cannot simply be a technical oversight.
Heritage-focused categories were also examined and the same issue emerged. There is no specific classifier or funding category for “British Heritage Festivals”, as confirmed by Arts Council England.
It must be said that this does not prove malice. It does, however, point to an organisation that receives huge public money while requiring far greater scrutiny. This is not a private company but a public one, people have a right to understand how their money is spent. In this instance we have something funded by the people, exercising enormous influence over Britain’s cultural landscape while avoiding, or at least operating at a significant distance from, democratic accountability.
A serious review should be conducted and is long overdue.
The first step should focus on the transparency protocols in place, the funding methodology, and governance structures of Arts Council England. A preliminary FOI audit using publicly obtainable data has already been completed by the Horizon Centre. The current system operates with insufficient scrutiny, as evidenced.
The funding framework should then become more transparent. Rather than simply a rhetorical aspiration, regional equity must become a measurable objective. How taxpayer money is distributed across England should match clear expectations.
British cultural forms such as Shakespeare, heritage festivals, folk theatre, classical music etc should be tracked. They should not sit in administrative blind spots. Highly specific thematic funding streams are tracked by Arts Council England, so too should traditional cultural institutions. These are part of Britain’s artistic inheritance.
There also needs to be radical change regarding the issue of transparency. The decision-making process must be focussed on. Publicly funded institutions must not be allowed to hide behind “commercial sensitivity” to avoid discussing funding outcomes which they do not want to discuss. Applicants deserve clarity, taxpayers deserve accountability, and Parliament deserves oversight. Currently, they all are not receiving it.
If ministers or MPs wished to act immediately, they would not require new legislation. They could simply request publication of anonymised rejection criteria for Shakespeare and classical music applications, commission an independent regional equity assessment of the £4.6 billion distribution and require Arts Council England to clarify its use of “commercial sensitivity” in FOI responses.
None of this is radical. It is simply the minimum level of scrutiny that should apply to any organisation responsible for distributing billions of pounds of public money.
This ultimately leads to the central question Parliament should now be asking: if Arts Council England will not explain why it rejected nearly 70 per cent of Shakespeare applications, what else is happening inside Britain’s quango state that taxpayers are not permitted to see?
The Horizon Centre has conducted the preliminary audit. The data is public. Now someone in Parliament needs to act.