The federal Arts Ministry has announced nearly $12 million in funding from its Catalyst fund, just minutes before caretaker provisions kicked in.

The funding, which mysteriously appeared on the Arts Ministry’s website last Friday, appears to overspend the Catalyst fund’s 2016 budget by $12 million.

According to Fairfax arts writer John Bailey, “the caretaker banner went up on the Catalyst website literally while we were asking questions”.

The Catalyst program is the replacement for the Coalition’s hugely controversial National Program for Excellence in the Arts. Its appropriation is $12 million a year from 2016-2020, for a total of $48 million. The new spending means that Catalyst has spent $23 million, or around half of its four-year budget, in just six months.

The new funding announcement also raised eyebrows given its timing: straight after Senate estimates. The funding was made public the day after Senate estimates hearings, in which the Department of Communications and the Arts’ deputy secretary Nerida O’Loughlin told the Senate Environment and Communications committee that $11.9 million (not $23 million) had been allocated.

Senator BILYK: I am going to ask questions about my favourite topic — Catalyst. So far $11.4 million has been allocated from Catalyst. Does this all come out of the 2015-16 financial year allocation?

Ms O’LOUGHLIN: So far there has been an allocation of $11.9 million. That is for arts and cultural projects in this financial year. We have also committed funding for multi-year programs right out to 2019-20.

Senator BILYK: Are you able to give me a breakdown of how much and where out of that $11.9 million?

Ms O’LOUGHLIN: In terms of?

Senator BILYK: The multi-year and this financial year.

Ms O’LOUGLIN: I think that is probably the only piece of data I do not have, in fact.

Senator BILYK: That is okay. Is there anything left to allocate before 1 July this year?

Ms O’LOUGHLIN: No.

It’s interesting, to say the least, that the department chose not to disclose that a further $12 million had in fact been allocated and would be announced the very next day. Crikey understands that some recipients of Catalyst funding had been told of their success more than a month ago, but were asked not to publicly reveal it.

Federal Arts Minister Mitch Fifield has so far said little about the $12 million over-spend, but the Greens and Labor have been scathing. “If we needed any more evidence that the Catalyst Arts and Culture Fund was nothing more than a political plaything of this Government, this was it,” Labor’s Mark Dreyfus wrote in a media release. “It is disturbing that on the eve of the election the government has spent almost half of Catalyst’s four-year funding in its very first year,” the Greens’ Adam Bandt told Fairfax.

The new funding announcement contains some decisions that have raised eyebrows in the sector. A significant amount of the Catalyst fund appears to have been awarded to major performing arts companies, despite the fact they already receive the majority of Australia Council funding.

For instance, a $1 million grant has been given to the Australian Ballet for the Primrose Potter Ballet Centre, “to support over two years the redevelopment of The Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre to upgrade facilities”. The Australian Ballet has been a favoured recipient of arts funding under the Coalition, with then-arts minister George Brandis giving the dance company $1 million in 2014 to help buy a mansion in Melbourne’s leafy Parkville for the company’s Ballet School.

As with the recent $1 million grant to the Hans Heysen Foundation in South Australia, the Ballet Centre grant appears to directly contradict Catalyst’s guidelines ruling out funding for “built or natural heritage projects”. The department explains this away by claiming the funding is allowed via the fund’s “partnerships and collaborations” stream.

The surprise dump of Catalyst money comes at a nervous time for the perennially insecure small-to-medium arts sector. The sector is anxiously awaiting the announcement of the Australia Council’s four-year organisational grants, which will determine the future of many of Australia’s most innovative smaller arts companies. This was originally a six-year funding round, but the Australia Council had to throw out more than 400 applications after Brandis cut the council’s funding in 2015.

The announcement of the Australia Council four-year grants has been delayed by a week by the agency, for reasons that are not completely clear. Crikey understands that phone calls to winners and losers were being made Tuesday. With several hundred organisations applying, but only 120 or so expected to be funded, there are bound to be tears.

Highlighting the confusion, many of the companies that applied to the Australia Council also applied to Catalyst. Some will receive no funding, while others have hit the jackpot with dual grants.

The result will be a wholesale reshuffle of the Australian cultural scene, with a lucky few smaller companies vaulting into a new future. Industry sources predict that some of the losers will fold.