ACE faces heavy criticism from Select Committee

[Jack J Hutchinson]

Arts Council heavily criticised and arts community accused of ’scaremongering’ during heated inquiry into funding of arts and heritage by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.

Alan Davey, Chief Executive of Arts Council England (ACE), has been told he should be 'embarrassed' by his answers after criticism of the organisation's handling of public money.

At the first oral session of the inquiry Davey faced interrogation on a range of issues, including the Arts Council's recent restructure, administration costs and the level of subsidy given to frontline services. He also faced accusations that the ACE is a 'politically correct' institution obsessed with bureaucracy at the expense of their regularly funded organisations.

Making a marked reference to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's statement that cuts must be handled 'intelligently', Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East cited examples of the ACE's purported wastefulness. This included £20,000 on a Christmas party, £10,000 on drinks at parliamentary conferences and thousands of pounds spent storing their own art collection.

If this was an attempt by the ACE to convince the government of the evidential value and subsequent return of investing in the arts, it did not work. In fact the committee even accused the arts community of 'scaremongering', citing the example of Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota's claims the coalition's 'blitzkrieg' on the arts will be 'the greatest crisis in arts and heritage since government funding began.'

In addition to Davey, Arts and Business Chief Executive Colin Tweedy and Louise de Winter, Director of the National Campaign for the Arts, gave evidence. Winter made a strong point for the importance of local authorities to arts funding, questioning whether their relationship with the ACE needs re-evaluating. Davey responded by saying "I want to achieve some instance of monitoring arrangements with local authorities." It was hardly ground breaking stuff.

Davey also refused to give any assurances on funding for specific organisations. When asked whether some of the Arts Council's regularly funded bodies would lose 100% of their funding he simply reiterated his commitment to plans already laid out for the coming year - nothing beyond. When pushed on the matter he admitted some organisations could lose 100% of their subsidy within 18 months.

Colin Tweedy also admitted he fears for the future of Arts and Business, criticising their label as a quango. He said: "We are a private body, not a quango. Yet whenever we ask the private sector for money they have said no. Alan has not given us assurances we will continue to receive our grant. Without public money we would cease to exist in our current format. So yes, we are in danger."

In almost two hours of debate there was not a single mention of the impact cuts will have on individual artists. Tweedy suggested the need to adopt the 'can-do' ethos of many American organisations. Yet this mind-set is already evidenced closer to home, where thousands of artists adopt a multifaceted, nomadic approach to survival every day of their lives.

The report submitted to government by the committee will undoubtedly fail to communicate the economic and social returns our sector offers, with many of the criticisms made of Davey and the ACE taking centre-stage. What little positives that can be drawn from the inquiry come in the form of facts and figures we have heard a hundred times before. Once again, here was a missed opportunity.

http://www.air-artists.org

[Nick Sherrard]

This is a great write-up of proceedings - based on the sections I saw at least it was a pretty uncomfortable day for ACE.

I am a little worried by the blurred lines between the discussion of the effectiveness of the Arts Council and the discussion of arts funding. The various campaigns need to keep a focus on 'the frontline' (i.e. artists and organisations making work) else the sector will end up getting punished for the sins of the funding process.

How can we do this?

There was an article in the FT this week that had some ideas about arts funding I disagreed with in it. It did though back public arts funding and introduced its ideas with the line..

"Subsidy would be more defensible if it conformed to this [the original Keynes view of the Arts Council] original vision. The system cannot be dismantled overnight but incremental reform is possible. "

The reply from ACE takes a really quite aggressive tone;
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e52e9da-d65c-11df-81f0-00144feabdc0.html

I feel that we need to be making allies where we can as a sector and this isn't that helpful. At least we need to be getting the message out that what matters is the effect changes have on artists, projects and the wider prositive impacts the organisations have. Whether we do that through letters pages and local campaigns or can use the big campaigns too I think this is a really crucial point - we are campaigning for the arts, not the arts council (however unfair some of the coverage of them is)

[Alex Morrison]

Completely agree with your final paragraph. The whole thing made very depressing viewing.

Louise Bagshawe had fun putting the boot into Nick Serota and the Tate accusing them of 'scare-mongering' for talking about needing to close two days a week. But if you are threatened with 40% cuts and you operate seven days a week then on the face of it you would expect to close for three days a week.

The committee of MPs came across as a having no appreciation of the value of the arts. I'd like to think that was a misleading impression. Here's hoping.

[Alice Angus]

Thanks for the coverage, I agree the comments - the message risks being lost in criticisms of ACE so in whatever way we can its important to keep stressing that its about the arts, or the way the arts affect out lives that is in danger, not the council, and its not just about the economic importance of the arts. Reform in the Arts Council is a separate issue to the impact of 30% cuts on the arts, though obviously a reform of some kind will be forced by the cuts. I hear too often about (and am tempted too often to talk about ) those facts and figures of the economic impact of the arts and its immediate returns. Though those are very relevant and important there is also the the contribution to culture, to art, to civilisation, to peoples quality of life, their sense of belonging, and to all those other disciplines, fields of endeavour and industries that are influenced by art - education, research, science, technology, design, and the list goes on and on. I'm sorry that people might not see the breadth and depth of the impact of the arts or its importance till long after its gone.