Coventry City of Culture Trust calls in administrators

The trust set up to run legacy projects following Coventry's year as UK City of Culture in 2021 has gone into administration.

The board of trustees said on Tuesday the trust had failed to find solutions to its financial challenges.

The Coventry City of Culture Trust is supposed to oversee a three-year programme of projects, but had to ask the council for a £1m loan in 2022.

It said it regretted administration's impact on staff and partners.

The administrators, from Armstrong Watson, confirmed all trust staff roles had been made redundant.

Dozens of jobs are thought to have been lost as a result.

The trust said it had worked to try to protect legacy funding "for the city and its cultural organisations".

Although the trust had "come to an end earlier than anticipated", a statement added, the trustees said they believed "Coventry's year as UK City of Culture has had a huge impact on the city and its positive influence will be felt for many, many years to come".

It emerged at the start of February the trust was in discussion with administrators, having cited financial difficulty.

Last week, the BBC reported some partners had ended their links with the trust, with the £1m council bail-out said to have proved the breaking point.

Councillors have been briefed the £1m loan is unlikely to be repaid.

The University of Warwick confirmed its representative had walked away, with the institution saying: "We did not support additional public money being used to keep the charitable trust going and ended our membership of the board and the audit committee as a result."

Up to 10 people have left their positions as directors of the trust in the past 12 months, according to Companies House records. There are currently eight board members in place, with none from the council.

The trust said last week that despite the situation, it continued to work with partners on a variety of initiatives and the city's tenure as City of Culture had attracted millions of pounds in investment.

On Friday, the BBC reported watchdog the Charity Commission was probing the trust's finances.

This is an embarrassing ending to Coventry's moment in the spotlight, and an embarrassing moment for the Government's UK City of Culture project.

The trust was intended to be the vehicle for delivering the city's planned three-year legacy programme, so its demise will have far-reaching consequences.

Millions of pounds destined for the city for cultural projects is now unlikely to be received. Although efforts to divert the funding elsewhere in the city will be made, it appears that will be extremely challenging.

Questions over how the trust, which has been responsible for tens of millions of pounds of public money, got into this financial mess are unlikely to disappear.

Not least how Coventry City Council agreed to sign off £1m of public money to bail out the trust back in September - money that now looks almost certain not to be repaid.

Some, including the dozens of staff who have lost their jobs on Tuesday, will feel the impact immediately.

Inevitable hesitation over whether Coventry can be trusted to deliver major projects in the future could have further reaching, and longer lasting, implications.

Arts Council England said it was "saddened" to hear of Tuesday's announcement.

A spokesperson said: "We were aware of the financial issues facing the trust and have been monitoring closely. We have been satisfied that the public money invested has been put to good use to produce the high-quality cultural activity expected."

Sir Phil Redmond, from the UK City of Culture Independent Advisory Panel, said "at the heart" of the situation was "the unfortunate impact the [coronavirus] pandemic had on both Coventry's year and its legacy planning".

He said that was "something no one foresaw", but nevertheless "Coventry delivered an exceptional community-based year".

Dom Breadmore from city arts organisation Ludic Rooms, which had been working with the trust, said the situation left arts organisations lacking "clear steer and direction".

He said: "Whichever way you look, it has the danger to reflect badly on all sorts of people across the city. "The main thing we're feeling today is what does this mean for the arts organisations like us that were here before City of Culture and will continue to be here afterwards?"

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