Dafydd Elis-Thomas, Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport & Tourism
This was published under the 2016 to 2021 administration of the Welsh Government
The Welsh Government announced a £53m Cultural Recovery Fund in July to provide essential support to the sector. Last month, I provided an update about the three parts of the fund, highlighting the progress, which has been made to support organisations during the pandemic, including the outcome of the Arts Council of Wales-led process.
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.