I've already been in correspondence with Arts Council England regarding another organisation (LMC) they'll be cutting all funding to, and my three e-mails to them have received form responses which didn't address the questions I was asking. The problem is that the priority of ACE these days is not to support artistic activity but to find ways of implementing the cuts which central government is imposing on them. Therefore they have to dream up criteria which are either irrelevant to cutting-edge arts organisations (small audiences), so undefined as to be completely spurious ("degree of public benefit") or, for the reasons I outlined, oriented towards finding reasons to cut rather than reasons to support ("strategic significance"). Therefore I strongly suspect that CoMA, LMC and all those other organisations are being presented with a fait accompli which no amount of reasoned argument is going to dislodge.

However, I would like it to be clear that I regard CoMA as a unique organisation and a valuable part of musical life in the UK. When I've spoken to colleagues on the continent about CoMA and what it is doing they generally express astonishment that such a thing is possible and that it functions on a nationwide basis, and they generally go on to say that they reckon organisations like CoMA should exist everywhere. Yet again, then, a UK-based initiative is the envy of those in other countries and has in its home country to struggle to justify its existence. I find this appalling, as I do the other cuts ACE will be carrying out this year.

The Government would not want them simply to fund the same organisations year after year, at the same levels.