National Theatre Wales (NTW) submitted an appeal against the Arts Council of Wales’ (ACW) decision to discontinue its funding of NTW, that decision having been made as part of the ACW’s Investment Review 2023.
At its meeting on the 13th of December, and following the full appeal hearing of the 29th November, Council considered and discussed, in detail, the report and recommendations of the Independent Panel, appointed to consider the appeal. As part of this process, Council carefully considered the recommendations of the Panel both in relation to NTW’s appeal and the Investment Review generally.
A detailed response has been sent to NTW and, in accordance with our commitment to transparency throughout the Investment Review, we provide below a summary of Council’s decision.
NTW submitted a very detailed appeal, which was shared with both the Panel and ACW Officers in accordance with our published Appeals Process. In response, ACW made an equally detailed submission, which directly addressed each of the points of appeal. This was also shared with NTW prior to the hearing. The Panel’s report noted that, in its deliberation, it had not been possible to address all elements of what it referred to as a ‘detailed and complex’ appeal, and had therefore focused its report on what it described as ‘relatively high level factors’.
In accordance with our published Appeals Process, paragraph 7.3, the Panel, whose role is advisory (and does not have the power to substitute its own decision in respect of NTW’s funding application), made a recommendation to the Chair of Council that NTW’s funding application should be reconsidered and outlined the grounds on which its recommendation was made.
As also required by the Appeals Process, Council gave due consideration to the matters raised by the Panel in its report, as well as considering other relevant information, such as ACW’s published Investment Review Guidance, which The Panel described as an ‘exemplary document’. Council agreed unanimously that there were no material factors to warrant review and reassessment of the application and therefore decided to uphold its original decision not to offer NTW multi-year funding in the Investment Review 2023. In reaching this decision, Council placed particular weight on the Investment Review Guidance and that the assessment process described had been followed in full. Our detailed response to NTW sets out Council’s specific reasons for reaching this decision.
This concludes our Appeals Process.