Oliver Dowden has released details of how the £1.57 billion allocated by the government to help prop up the arts community across the UK and how to apply.

Oliver Dowden MP - Culture Secretary

Oliver Dowden has started to lay out how the governments funds will be allocated and how to apply.  Arts Council England have advised that approx 75% of the overall budget will be allocated in the first round of funding.

This grants programme is part of the Government’s £1.57 billion package to protect the UK’s culture and heritage sectors from the economic impacts of Covid-19. This fund will support cultural organisations

This fund is to enable cultural organisations that have been affected by the Covid-19 crisis to stay afloat, providing them with support over a 6-month period to ensure that by 31 March 2021 they can reopen, either fully or partially, or operating on a sustainable, cost-efficient basis until they are able to reopen at a later date.

In the first round £622m will be distributed as follows:-

£500million to museums, galleries, theatres, music and comedy organisations

£92million to heritage sites

Arts organisations will need to show how they will innovate to be sustainable with funding.

With the additional announcement that the government will not be making any decision about re-opening venues until November, we are beginning to wonder if this will be enough considering the enormous losses that will be lost with the possible (and unfortunately likely) cancellation of Christmas programming in theatres across the UK.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT APPLYING FOR FUNDING HERE