The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has announced it will be launching a new public consultation process to harvest comments that will feed into the development of its future Strategic Plan that will outline proposed Council activities for the period 2006 – 2011. The consultation process will include a series of meetings with focus groups and key stakeholders throughout October. Invitations for the meetings have already been issued for the meetings, which are not open to the public. The aim of these consultations and focus groups is to discuss Council performance against its 2001-2006 plan - The Arts: Inspiring the Imagination, Building the Future. Through the scheduled meetings and written responses to the consultation, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland hopes to be in a better position to develop an improved future strategy. In moving forward the Council ‘wishes to move forward in developing its future strategy in a way that draws on the strengths and lessons learned from the implementation of its 2001-2006 plan.’ A two stage approach has been adopted for development of the Council’s future strategy:

Stage 1 – a review of performance against the 2001-2006 plan; and

Stage 2 – preparation of future strategy for the Council drawing on lessons learned. The Council is now seeking views from anyone with an interest in the arts in Northern Ireland on the key impacts and achievements made by the Council over the period of its 2001-2006 plan. The key aim at this stage (Stage 1) is to evaluate to what extent the Council has delivered the strategic objectives set out in the 2001-2006 plan - The Arts: Inspiring the Imagination, Building the Future. To make it easier for as many respondents as possible to provide information that will be of use to the Council, a Comments Form is available electronically from the Arts Council website. For further information and to download the Comments Form, CLICK HERE