Home | Front Page
In a fairly unambiguous ruling The Honourable Mr Justice Langstaff has returned the matter to court for review. Watermans has always claimed that it had successfully refuted the rationale for the decision to withdraw funding, only to find that these answers had been ignored and different reasons had been presented to the Arts Council Board.
In the Notification, Mr Justice Langstaff observed specifically that Watermans "was told of the rationale for the proposed decision so it could comment on it and arguably having answered this, found that the decision had been taken on different grounds which it had no proper opportunity to address"
As a result of the Freedom of Information Act, Watermans has also discovered that the advice of two separate departments within the Arts Council had been ignored in the final recommendation to remove the funding. Departments within the Arts Council clearly recognised the huge potential damage that a cut of this magnitude would have on Watermans and the provision of BME Arts in West London and recommended that its funding should be retained. We have learnt that neither of these issues were presented by the executives responsible for making this destructive recommendation to the Arts Council London board.
However the argument is not over. Recognising that a full judicial review is not in their interests, the Arts Council have offered to reconsider their original recommendation and to look at it objectively this time if we withdraw our request for a review. (So what did they do last time?)
Watermans has asked the Arts Council to guarantee a resumption of full funding as a condition of withdrawing the request for a judicial review. Watch this space to be one of the first people to know how this drama unfolds.
Without a settlement from the Arts Council we have to tighten our belts and look for ways to become more efficient. We've made it easier to support Watermans. If you join our e-mail list you will be the first to hear about what's on, cut your carbon footprint and save us a bit of money. Just click on 'Contact' and follow the instructions where it says Mailing List.
To help recoup some of our lost grant we have added an optional £1 charitable donation to the price of all Cinema tickets. This is the most cost effective option for both us and our customers. It will help even more if you complete the GIFT AID form at the bottom of this page so we can reclaim tax on the donation.
If you don't like the idea of paying a bit more, why not become a Friend? Our Friends receive generous discounts on the price of all of our tickets as well as many other benefits.
