Contact: Janet Mein ext: 5468 e-mail: [email protected]

1. Introduction

1.1 Hampshire County Council runs a scheme for supporting young people through their training and schooling at a registered dance school where they partake in an intensive programme of ballet training on top of their curriculum work.

2. Background

2.1 The Dance Bursaries scheme was passed to the Recreation and Heritage Department from the Education Department in 2000 with a budget of £46,200, which was believed to be sufficient to run the scheme with one child going to Dance School each year. The auditions for the bursary are organised by the Hampshire Dance Trust and the bursary is open to any child aged between 11 and 16 living in Hampshire. The award is for the payment of tuition fees, boarding and examinations at one of two dance schools, Elmshurst Ballet School, Birmingham and The Arts Educational School in Tring, Hertfordshire. The value of the bursary is determined by an assessment of parental income, but it could cost up to £20,400 a year per student.

2.2 The Dance Bursaries Scheme is run by the Student Support Unit of the County Council.

3. Current Situation

i) In January 2005 the scheme was suspended as it had begun to cost considerably more than the budget allocated. This situation has now been rectified as only two students now remain on the scheme.

ii) As part of the development of a new Arts Strategy for Hampshire County Council, consideration of the Dance Bursary scheme has taken place. Dance is the only art form training that is supported by the County Council in this way. The Arts Strategy proposes that, with appropriate partners, the development of a new strategy for the support of professional development and training, to replace the dance bursary scheme and to include other areas of practice, is made.

4. Other Issues

4.1 There is no doubt that the students who have benefited from the Dance Bursaries Scheme greatly appreciate having been on it. Currently there is no formal monitoring mechanism apart from receiving copies of student reports from the school. The County Council therefore does not know what the students go on to do when they leave. The Arts Service is currently undertaking a retrospective tracking exercise to enable an analysis of the success of the bursary scheme in terms of continuing dance training, post 16, and further employment. Currently there is no requirement for students to `put back' into the community as recognition of support during training and so no estimate of `put back' is currently available.

5. Impact Assessment

5.1 No adverse impact on current students on the scheme will occur from the proposed continuation of the suspension.

6. Conclusion

6.1 It is recommended that the decision is made now to continue the suspension the Dance Bursaries Scheme in 2006/07 pending the development of the new scheme.

Recommendation

That the Dance Bursary Scheme is suspended for 2006/07 and a report on the way forward under the new proposal comes back to the Executive Member later on in 2006.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B. the list excludes:

1. Published works.

2. Documents that disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

TITLE LOCATION

Notes of meeting Arts Service filing

Spreadsheet of expenditure Arts Service filing