Arts Council of Great Britain: records, 1928-1997

Series description

Context

The Regional Arts Boards acted as arts development agencies for their various geographical locations. They were accountable to national funding bodies, such as the Arts Council, for their government funding. In addition to dealing with funding issues, the Boards offered advice, information and consultancy in order to help plan for the arts.

The Policy and Planning Unit inherited responsiblity for managing the Regional Arts Boards from the preceding regional and planning departments of the Arts Council.

Scope and content

The files mainly consist of the RABs' meeting agendas, minutes, and related reports / papers that were circulated to board members. Since the earlier files cover the period when the RABs were developing, they contain a considerable amount of material on individual RAB policies re matters such as Client Appraisal, Employment Proceedures, and Dismissal / Disciplinary Proceedures. Most files contain reports from ACGB observers who attended RAB meetings, and some files also contain detailed reports on individual clients who applied for RAB funding.

Included in this series is a certain amount of information on the RABs' Development / Corporate Plans, for further details on these see ACGB/109.

Arrangement

These files are arranged alphabetically by Regional Arts Board name and then chronologically within each group; files dealing solely with Development / Corporate Plans are at the end of each RAB section. The final five files of this series are ones which contain correspondence / information from all ten RABs.

Access

General information on access to archives at the V&A is available on the archive pages of the V&A website.

Restrictions on access

Access to some unpublished material may be restricted and requests for access can take up to 20 working days to be processed. When applying for access, it is helpful if you can quote the reference number, title and covering dates of the file(s) in question. For very large requests you are advised to contact us to discuss your requirements. All requests should be sent to archive@vam.ac.uk or Victoria and Albert Museum Archives (ref. ACGB), Blythe House, 23 Blythe Road, London W14 0QX.

Detailed catalogue