Saturday’s Times reveals the full list of West Midlands arts cuts, giving us 18 cuts whereas the Arts Council West Midlands press release had said only “11 organisations in the West Midlands will not have their funding renewed”. So, if we can trust the Times to have the full list, the cuts seem to be as follows…

artSites Birmingham £45,186
[ grassroots arts on Birmingham's housing estates ]

Kajans Women’s Enterprise £105,576
[ a planned arts centre in Aston, Birmingham ]

Worcester Arts Workshop £25,717
[ the arts and performance hub for Worcester ]

Bare Bones £77,063
[ the resident dance company of Birmingham's DanceXchange. Also runs Bare Bones For Children ]

Border Dance £32,465
[ dance and touring in Shropshire ]

Festival At The Edge £43,286
[ the UK's annual storytelling festival, Shropshire ]

Moving Finger £38,324
[ publisher of books and Raw Edge magazine, new writing magazine for the West Midlands ]

Federation Of Worker Writers & Community Publishers £68,624
[ socialist writers group and festival organisers in Stoke-on-Trent ]

Orchestra Of The Swan £32,465
[ Stratford-upon-Avon ]

Surdhwani £31,057
[ Birmingham, an Indian Classical Music org, 'bringing the great masters of Indian classical music and dance' to the region ]

Aliss £96,460
[ Artists & Learning Information & Support Service for the West Midlands ]

Arts & Media Training £97,170
[ provides short arts & media training courses in Coventry - 'phasing out' funding, being cut in 2010/11 ]

Centre for Music & Arts Technology £102,750
[ home of, and owned by, Handsworth's Black Voices singing group - 'phasing out' funding, being cut in 2010/11 ]

playtrain £37,057
[ Birmingham, a leading and excellent provider of arts to very young children ]

West Midlands Disability Arts Forum £?
[ Custard Factory -based agency promoting disability arts and the work of disabled artists in Birmingham and the West Midlands ]

Lichfield Garrick theatre £33,276
[ Lichfield's main theatre ]

Script £44,800
[ formerly Stagecoach, West Midlands agency for drama writers ]

Midwest £62,064
[ supposedly a support organisation for artists in the West Midlands, which never really took off — but somehow hung on to funding for about five years ]

So that’s roughly £900,000+ of cuts to the arts in the West Midlands, with all but two of them either already having taken place or starting in April 08. It’ll be interesting to eventually see if the above-inflation increases, and the three new funded organisations, cancel out this figure, or not. It seems possible that there may, after all, have possibly been a slight increase in overall regular funding. But what a botched and bloody road it took to get us there.

Cuts to Midwest were widely expected among artists. Playtrain was perhaps the most unexpected cut, although it seems unlikely that it’ll cease as a result. Worcester Arts Workshop had been heard about previously from the local Worcester press. The Lichfield Garrick theatre had been spoken about in the House of Commons. The fate of the Birmingham Opera Company still hangs in the balance.

The Federation Of Worker Writers & Community Publishers cut might potentially cause knock-on damage to the fragile regeneration of Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent, by potentially removing an anchor tenant from the Burslem School of Art. The excellent School of Art runs without a jot of public money, but needs its key tenants in order to balance the books.

Cuts to organisations elsewhere, which could have a knock-on effect in the West Midlands, are:

Association For Contemporary Jewellery

Business In The Arts [ the old name for Arts & Business ]

Chester Gateway Theatre

Derby Playhouse

National Disability Arts Forum

Centre For International Street Theatre

Early Music Network

National Network for the Arts in Health

Independent Theatre Council

Filmwaves and Vertigo magazines

Portfolio

Arts Training Central (East Midlands)

…and the loss of eleven Literature Development Officers across the East Midlands.