How we're funded

Our activities are funded from a variety of sources, the main ones are:

Instrumental tuition fees from schools

The overwhelming majority of our income comes from schools in the county, who pay us to provide tutors for one-to-one or small group instrumental and vocal tuition. For 2009/10 the income from county schools amounted to approximately £1.8 million. These fees are used to pay our tutors - we don't make any profit, and in most cases we subsidise the actual tutors' fees, through money we receive from the government’s Standards Fund (further information on this is provided below).

Instrumental hire fees from students

We have a current stock of approximately 13,000 instruments which are hired at a very competitive rate to students throughout the county regardless if they are receiving tuition directly from us. For 2009/10 the income from instrumental hire was approximately £180,000.

The total income generated from instrumental hire covers all the costs of the workshop technicians to repair and replace instruments, and the cost of transporting all instruments to schools in the county.

Standards Fund

All Local Authority Music Services currently receive funding from Central Government in the form of a Standards Fund. For Gloucestershire Music this funding will be £714,961 for 2010/11.

The aim of the fund is to increase participation and raise standards of pupil achievement by:

• funding opportunities for Key stage 2 (KS2) pupils to learn a musical instrument and/or receive specialist vocal tuition
• maintaining and extending the broadest possible access to music education.

We use the Standards Fund to support the cost of our teaching in schools and as far as possible allow lessons to be affordable for all (see above). The fund is used to provide bursaries for those children whose families are in receipt of income support that meet the agreed income threshold. The bursaries can be for the hire of the instrument, a contribution to the cost of lessons (deducted at source form the school bill), support for membership of the county music groups or indeed all of these.  

County music group membership fees

We run approximately 22 groups for children and adults, and five music centres. These groups and centres require an annual subscription for membership to cover the costs of venue hire, tutors and concerts. For 2009/10 the income from county music groups was approximately £100,000. 

Gloucestershire County Council

We will cease to receive any direct funding from Gloucestershire County Council in 2010/11 (the actual funding for 2009/10 was £12,178). However, we will continue to receive non-financial support in the form of premises, human resources and IT support.