Tam, I understand what you wanted to do with this thread. I was simply responding to a question that was asked, which will allow the person who asked the question (and hopefully others) to make more informed responses to the consultation.

In any case, you may not think that EFDSS funding is what this thread is about, but I can assure you that it's relevant. When I spoke to the lead officer for folk within the Arts Council's central office last summer about the idea of creating a folk development agency for the East Midlands, he told me to wait a good two years before even applying - at the moment, the Arts Council's priority is in working with EFDSS as its strategic delivery partner, and any other large-scale folk-related proposals will be seen as doubling up on provision and will not be prioritised. Smaller-scale projects: fine. But anything strategic and long-term will not really be considered within the next 18 months. So the EFDSS funding is certainly relevant in any consultation process which the folk community is involved in.

This will, in my opinion, be even more the case now that ACE has re-structured, budgets have been cut and staffing has been reduced (this process finishes at the end of February). Even the lead officer for folk has now moved to one of the regional offices, which is a real concern, in my opinion. ACE does not have the staff or the resources to keep a beady eye on quite so many delivery agencies; that's one of the reasons why, instead of breaking up the RFO money previously awarded to Folk Arts England into lots of little chunks for lots of folk projects and organisations, it kept it in one pot and gave it to another single organisation who could act as a conduit. This way, the Arts Council only has to monitor one organisation's performance in responding to the strategic areas, rather than the work of all the partners whom EFDSS will work with in order to fulfil the strategy areas ACE has created.

With regard to this being "ordinary people giving their input to the Arts Council of England" - forgive me for sounding jaded, but ACE's "consultations" are somewhat notorious for their ineffectuality. As I see it, consultation is often the opiate of the people. I don't mean to suggest that it's pointless taking part, but I do absolutely think that, if we want to be taken seriously, it will help to be as informed as possible about what ACE is already doing with regard to folk provision, and their current priorities in that area.