Encyclopaedia
ARTS COUNCIL OF WALES, The
An autonomous body responsible for the distribution of public funds to the arts and practising artists, the Arts Council of Wales was established in its present form in 1994. It was formerly known as the Welsh Arts Council, having begun life in 1967 as a committee of the British Arts Council. Since 1999, it has received its funds from the National Assembly; in 2003/4, the Council received total funding from the National Assembly of £22.8m, in addition to £11.7m of Lottery money. The Council never has enough money to satisfy all the demands made upon it, and so attracts its full share of criticism - a perennial complaint being the proportion of its funding that is spent on the Welsh National Opera (£3.8m in 2003/5, or over 16% of the Council’s National Assembly allocation). Dissatisfaction has been expressed about the Council’s lack of accountability to the public, and some believe that it was a mistake, in 1997, to disband the specialist departments responsible for the various arts. However, without the Arts Council’s work, the cultural life of Wales would be much the poorer, with many arts practitioners and projects unable to operate.
