I'm not aiming to 'pit them against each other'. I'm pointing out that, in a context where funding is (or is claimed to be) scarce and is only given to those who meet stringent criteria, it's worth taking a bit of trouble to establish exactly what those criteria are and what logic underlies them. Saying 'it's outreach, therefore it deserves the money' won't do, any more than saying 'it's great art, therefore it deserves the money (even if played only to rich ladies in the Wigmore Hall)' will do.

But your situation is almost too hypothetical.  I think an actual case study or two would be needed (and we can't get any of those directly from the council until the final decisions have been made).

Anyway, in a situation with not much money and a lot of competition for it, one should be able to ask for BOTH, should one not?

Actually, given this situation, what I would think would be the reasonable thing to do would be to emphasize the importance of (or, indeed, mandate) outreach activities.  If the wigmore hall chamber group still did not have any interest whatsoever in doing outreach activities, then I'd chose the outreach group (I think: once again, the situation is really too hypothetical and up in the air).  Is this unreasonable?

Wasn't this whole issue done to death on a previous thread?

I don't have the comparative figures but I don't think there is any doubt at all that the amount of the schools budget that went on music education took a massive hit when the nationally imposed 'core curriculum' came in and music came way down the list of priorities. And it's got progressively tougher ever since. The "outreach (being on the receiving end of)" element of that hit was, I imagine, among the least of School Music Departments' worries.

I really don't know, I'm afraid, but I'd be very surprised if the amount of 'outreach stuff' going on in schools had stayed at the same level, let alone increased, as the schools' own music budgets decreased. Just the opposite I would guess but maybe A or others involved in music teaching in schools can throw light on this?

In a typical bit of 'outreach', in any event, both parties would normally be making a financial contribution. The professional orchestra (or whatever) would have to put some of their resources into it in order for it to happen at all, while the receiving school would pay something to partly offset those costs. I don't think it is often, if ever, straightforwardly one or the other. What Arts Council England have been looking for, as I understand it, is for arts organisations to be prepared to do this sort of work: or, more precisely, I suppose, frowning on those that aren't.

My initial point back in Reply 78 was simply that nothing much would be gained (except possibly additional overheads) from the suggestion of transferring responsibility for a particular bit of expenditure from one Government Department to another.

On whether aggregate expenditure on school music education (in-house and incoming 'outreach') has gone up or down, my guess would be the same as yours: almost certainly down.

I don't know whether it is contentious or not. I suppose you could equally say 'geography' or 'algebra' aren't about education either. But education about them is. 

As for spin, it's all beyond me, but I would have thought most governments would prefer to be caught spending taxpayers' money on education (hurrah!) than on 'art' (boo!) wouldn't they? I can't quite see the point, from the long-legged spinners' point of view, of re-branding education expenditure as 'arts' expenditure.

Doesn't this take us back to the erstwhile culture minister's (Purnell's) pronouncements on new funding criteria which, on the face of it, seemed to address Ian's points, albeit in a wishy-washy way? I think what Ian's getting at is that, once the outreach/ communities boxes have been ticked, there are no transparent mechanisms to evaluate the value of the art qua art. Is that right? And I use the word 'transparent' advisedly, for surely someone is choosing between applications, all other boxes ticked and all other things being equal?
I haven't ever been involved in ACE decision making, but have been with the outcomes of those decisions, notably the bmic/spnm merger business. Although that case was not very much about educational work etc. as distinct from artistic product, since most of the organisations had 'educational' remits, already incorporated into the merger proposals. More relevant would be decisions made by ACE about funding commissions, say a choice between composer 'A' (radical, experimental, poor record of bumming seats) and composer 'B' (lots of bums, eclectic (= perhaps ethnic diversity box ticked) etc.). Now, that's where the rub is I think. And all such cases have to be costed by the applicant, so 'separation' of funds to service different parts of a project - the commission, the outreach, the touring costs - need to be explicit from the word go. And where an application is successful, ACE will check up on how the outcome matches the projected breakdown of the proposed budget.

That's certainly what I meant. Thanks for putting it better than I managed to, mart.