Arts Venues Access Audit Programme

Descriptions

Background InformationThe Arts Council of Wales is an independent charity (number 1034245), established by Royal Charter in 1994, and a Welsh Government sponsored body.Its trustees are the members appointed by the Welsh Government’s Minister for Culture and Sport.We also distribute funding from the National Lottery and raise additional money from a variety of public and private sector sources.We are Wales’s funding and development organisation for the arts.Revenue Funded OrganisationsArts Council of Wales funds 69 Revenue Funded Organisations (RFOs) across Wales on an annual basis. These companies include producing and receiving venues, galleries, producers of work in the fields of visual arts, dance, theatre, music and other art forms. Over £27m of Welsh Government funding is currently distributed across the portfolio each year.Our Capital Strategy 2012-17 contains the following priorities:1.Developing the arts infrastructure2.Completing the national infrastructure3.Maintaining the standard of the infrastructure4.Improving the viability and sustainability of key arts organisations5.Regeneration and the creative industries6.Equipping the arts to thrive7.Encouraging exemplary public arts projectsAccess to the Arts is key to this strategy and embedded across all of these priorities is the requirement for funded arts activities to be accessible to all.Approximately half of our Revenue clients have a significant element of their programme which is presented within their own building. These range from traditional theatres and art centres to galleries and community arts organisations.The Work So FarDuring November 2013 Arts Council of Wales commissioned a series of workshops for venues based around access and in particular the following key strands:1.Pre visit information2.Physical access to venues3.Auxiliary aids4.Emergency egressFeedback from these sessions suggested a real appetite to improve accessibility wherever possible but that it was not always clear what was needed in order to achieve this. In particular, there is concern from the organisations that they do not have the expertise to consider all aspects of accessibility as a whole.Aims & ObjectivesArts Council of Wales wishes to ascertain the scope of improvements that some of our Revenue Funded organisations could make in order to make their organisations more accessible.We therefore invite proposals from consultant teams to undertake a series of access audits. Your proposal should include investigation into the four key strands identified in Section 3 and will identify areas for improvement within each of these areas. The final reports will also separate the findings into three basic categories:•Essential•Recommended•DesirableIt will also provide an estimate of the cost to each of the venues to undertake the identified work. This will allow Arts Council of Wales to work with the venues involved to discuss funding options.