Question NW986 to the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture

Reply:

According to the information received from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture

a) The National Arts Council received 654 applications from arts practitioners in the various disciplines by the 9th of January 2023, which was the closing date. A total of 339 applications were served at panel for review after passing the compliance stage. On 06 March 2023, the Panel of Chairpersons Committee (POCC) received recommendations from the Panel and raised the following concerns:

1. It did not seem that this exercise was done for the intended purpose of the call. A concern was raised that the panel approached this call similarly to project funding.
2. The amounts recommended by the panel were minuscule and not justifiable for a three-year arts organisation support funding.
3. The provincial spread guidelines were adhered to by the panel. The guidelines also detail that marginalised groups require funding in the interest of redress and transformation and to ensure provincial equity in allocations.
4. The panel elected to consider applications receiving the highest scores over redress imperatives.

The Panel has been requested to review their allocations to be in line with the intensions of the three-year arts organisation support funding.

(b) Arts Organisations Support Funding (AOSF) aims to support arts organisations’ operations and artistic programmes to ensure the sustainability of these organisations for a period of three (3) years.

Organisations were required to apply within the 3 different phases under AOSF and they were to demonstrate the capacity to utilise the funding with integrity and comply with principles and practices of sound governance.

To ensure that arts creatives are assisted during application phases, the NAC published AOSF guidelines detailing all the required information. The assessment criteria for AOSF are attached for ease of reference.