STAFF at Worcester Arts Workshop are still uncertain about the future of their services and jobs because the Arts Council has not told them if their annual £25,000 grant is to be cut.

They face an anxious week , as the Arts Council says the 200 or so organisations across the country facing cash cuts will each receive a letter on Friday, February 1.

The regional council of the Arts Council met on Wednesday to decide whether to go ahead and slash Worcester Arts Workshop funding but John Denton, arts workshop manager, says nobody knows the outcome.

He said: "It has been the most opaque process that you could have devised. Even if we are one of the lucky ones and we get some money from the Arts Council, it has left a bad taste in our mouths. By their own rules, they should not have done it this way."

Mr Denton, who has been manager of the city-based arts organisation for 15 years, received a letter from the Arts Council just before Christmas saying it was proposing to stop its annual £25,000 grant - 20 per cent of the workshop's annual funding. This gave him just two weeks to appeal against the proposal and present arguments to persuade the council to change its mind.

He said much of the information on which the Arts Council was basing its proposal was inaccurate.

Worcester Arts Workshop was set up 34 years ago and offers classes and workshops , puts on exhibitions and performances and works with communities and schools across Worcestershire. It receives 45 per cent of its funding through grants from the Arts Council, Worcester City Council and Worcestershire County Council. It self- generates the rest.