Local Partnerships Program
Arts Victoria is rolling out its new Local Partnerships Program to local councils in regional Victoria. The Program streamlines and consolidates existing recurrent funding arrangements for regional performing arts centres and public galleries and delivers new funds to support council initiatives in that sector.
Key features of the new arrangements are:
• Multi year agreements (up to four years) to provide for long term planning between Local and State Government with the capacity to include other cultural initiatives including one-off projects
• Elimination of bureaucratic procedures and document preparation through a streamlined process that is initiated through face to face negotiation between the parties and optimises existing corporate and business planning documents for accountability and reporting outcomes.
• Regular round table meetings between Arts Victoria staff and key stakeholders in each local area that will form part of the qualitative reporting and accountability requirements and assist in generating ideas, networking and information exchange.
• Capacity to tailor each agreement to the particular strategies, needs and circumstances of the participating council and to accommodate programming across municipal boundaries.
Elisabeth Jones has been at Arts Victoria for 7 years during which time she has managed a number of funding programs including the Regional Arts Fund (now managed by Regional Arts Victoria), Artists in Communities and the Public Galleries Program. She also played a major role in the development of the Indigenous arts program, Deadly Arts Business. Prior to joining Arts Victoria, Elisabeth completed the post graduate in Arts Management at Deakin University and freelanced in arts administration for over 10 years working in the small to medium sector with a range of companies including; Theatreworks, Gasworks, Next Wave Festival, Victorian College of the Arts Drama Department and Circus Oz. Last year Elisabeth took a year’s sabbatical to work with the Mornington Island Dancers (based in the Gulf of Carpentaria) who performed at the Commonwealth Games cultural festival.
Ian Rogers has 40 years experience in the public sector and has been with Arts Victoria (and the former Ministry for the Arts) since 1989. Since 1999, he has managed the capital works funding program under the Regional Arts Infrastructure Fund as well as the “Creating Place and Space” funding for the metropolitan area. He played a key role in the development of the Local Partnerships Program. His public sector career spans a diverse range of experience in areas outside the arts. This includes ten years as a Municipal councillor in regional Victoria including three terms as mayor, twelve years as a president of a Secondary School council, membership of a local water authority, river management board and, as is typical of active members of a regional community, on the committees of many volunteer and community organisations. He was for a number of years also a member of the Public Sector Union’s state executive and served as a union representative on several industrial tribunals and union peak councils.