The Arts Council is preparing a new strategy for the arts, and we intend to publish the document in early autumn. A new strategy will herald changes in our priorities and in the way we work, so we can already regard 2016 as a year of transition. For this reason, and for efficiency, the funding period for organisations in our three main grants programmes will revert to the calendar year from 2017.

Since 2011, those funded as ‘Regularly Funded Organisations’, in receipt of ‘Annual Funding’ or an ‘Annual Programming Grant’ have been funded from April to the following March. We introduced this change – from the traditional ‘calendar year’ -- at a time of financial uncertainty as a way to help organisations plan better. Since then, the annual Budget, when the Arts Council’s grant from Government is announced, has been brought forward from December to October, and the financial crisis has eased.

For many organisations this means that, as we transition to our new strategy, 2016 will be a ‘short financial year’. When we open the window for applications in September, our organisations will be proposing programmes from April to December 2016.

In this month’s Newsletter you can also read about how to experience the Arts Council Collection in digital form, with more than 1,000 visual arts works now accessible to all online.

We are also proud of the role the Arts Council played in brokering the new Arts In Education web portal, which launched jointly by the Minister for Education & Skills Jan O’Sullivan and the Minister for Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys.

Yours sincerely,



Orlaith McBride