Third phase of Cultural Recovery Fund and Freelancer Fund to open this month

A third tranche of money will be released to support Wales’ culture and heritage sector.

Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport & Tourism announced the move in a written statement this morning.

The aim of the fund has been to help support and sustain Wales’ cultural industry in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and has been delivered via three ‘pathways’. One is delivered via Arts Council Wales to support theatres and galleries, a freelancer specific fund to help those in related sectors, and a fund to give “essential support” to music venues, heritage sites, museums, archives, libraries, events and their technical support suppliers, and independent cinemas who have all experienced a dramatic loss of revenue due to the pandemic.

Mr Elis-Thomas said today,

These are unprecedented times. There has been a very high demand for funding support across the arts and cultural sector. Today, I am announcing additional funding to help meet this demand. A further £10.7m will be made available to support organisations and individuals during the pandemic, taking the total funding package available through the Cultural Recovery Fund to £63.7m.

This additional funding will be targeted towards the large number of applications, which have already been received by the Welsh Government – supporting organisations in the cultural, creative, events and heritage sectors – to ensure this money reaches more parts of the sector as quickly as possible.

This will also enable us to open another phase of the successful Freelancer Fund, as well as targeting applications already received.

The £7m Freelancer Fund has already supported 2,800 freelancers with a grant of £2,500 each. This additional funding announced today will enable us to provide a further phase of funding worth £3.5m, supporting a further 1,400 people.

This third phase will be available nationwide across all local authority areas from 10am on Monday 23 November.