Arts Council England (ACE) has released new guidance confirming it will not penalise organisations for working with artists who make political statements, after earlier advice suggested “overtly political or activist” work could break funding agreements.
The guidance, released on Wednesday, says: “The Arts Council will not remove or refuse funding to an organisation or an individual purely because they make work that is political.”
It also states that the funder expects national portfolio organisations to “support freedom of expression”, which it says is “essential for a thriving cultural sector in this country”.
ACE has been under intense pressure to revise guidance it released in January that focused on the issue of “reputational risk” and warned that “political statements” could breach agreements.
That guidance led to an outcry led by artists including Matt Haig, Robert Macfarlane, Feargal Sharkey and Nikita Gill as well as Equity, the performing arts and entertainment trade union, which said the effects of ACE’s new guidance would be to censor work and “silence artists … especially those working in the activist or political space”.
The arts funding body made a clarifying statement the day after the guidance came to light, saying it was “in no way meant to limit artistic expression,” before admitting that the language used in it meant “our update was open to misinterpretation”.
The ACE deputy chief executive, Laura Dyer, went on BBC radio to emphasise the council’s belief “in the freedom of expression of all artists”, while the ACE chief executive, Darren Henley, came under pressure to immediately withdraw the guidance.
The original advice stated: “Reputational risk can be generated not just by the organisation and its decision but also by staff and other individuals associated with the organisation acting in a personal capacity.”
The writer Robert Macfarlane wrote on X: “Could we please see a full paper trail for the reasons behind this ‘updating (of) policies’ concerning political statements by, uh, artists?”
In a list of examples that might increase reputational risk, ACE originally included “activity that might be considered overtly political and activist and goes beyond your company’s core purpose and partnerships with organisations that might be perceived as being in conflict with the purposes of public funding of culture”.
The revised guidance now confirms that ACE would support organisations that receive “negative reactions” to work they back as long as ACE is “confident that you have a good risk management strategy in place”.
The row came in the same week that a full-scale review of ACE was announced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which will determine the future of the arts funding body.
Some perceived ACE’s updates as part of a wider trend to silence political dissent. The Belfast rap group Kneecap plan to take legal action after they were stopped from receiving a grant under the music export growth scheme because the Conservative government objected to them, a decision the group says contravenes the Windsor framework.
