“Human error” led to ACE editing out the questions relating to Yorkshire ‘Artists Taking the Lead’ from its Live Chat blog.
Two questions about Arts Council England’s (ACE) grant-making processes were expunged from a blog recording the Live Chat hosted by ACE Chair Dame Liz Forgan yesterday – only to reappear in the transcript of the event some hours later. The only questions to have disappeared from the blog were posed in relation to ongoing efforts by a member of the public, Carol Lee, to shine a light on ACE’s selection processes for the Artists Taking the Lead programme in Yorkshire. An ACE spokesperson told AP: “This was an issue of human error” related to “trialling a new system [which] meant that there were a couple of problems with keeping track of the content and updating the blog”.
Online chats were launched by ACE earlier this year as part of its “ongoing drive to become a more open, transparent and accountable public body”. A non-interactive version of “all the questions and answers from the chat” with Dame Liz Forgan on 20 September was presented alongside the live chat itself, so that those who wanted to follow the conversation as observers could view the debate and ask their own questions on social media if they wanted. At 12.30pm chatroom participant ‘brezhnev’ said to Dame Forgan: “would be good to get an answer to the question tabled [on Facebook by Carol Lee] about Yorkshire Artists Taking the Lead award”, and she replied: “we’ve answered that question in a number of other places and you can see our answer in full in a letter from the Arts Council on the Arts Professional website. I don’t want to take up this space by answering it again here”. But neither brezhnev’s request nor Forgan’s answer to it appeared in the version presented to observers.Another question, this time by Carol Lee herself at 12.51pm, was similarly struck from the record. Lee said: “the Regional Director of ACE Yorkshire accused me, via the ArtsProfessional article of making “unfounded but serious allegations of corruption and bias against a volunteer selection panel” rather than answer the questions. WHY is ACE avoiding the issue.” To this, Forgan replied: “Carol, as you well know, we’re not avoiding this issue in any way, shape or form. We’ve corresponded with you by letter, we’ve made a full disclosure to you under FOI and there is a very public debate taking place on this issue on the ArtsProfessional website. We’re simply not allowing it to dominate this live chat, which is for everyone.”
Lee is still keen to get to the bottom of why ACE permitted apparently ineligible applications to the Yorkshire ATTL scheme to be shortlisted, and whether ACE considers it acceptable for panel members not to reveal their direct trading and board relationships in their declarations of interests (see AP257 ). She is calling for a full investigation, but has so far been stonewalled by ACE.
In response to Forgan’s comments Lee told AP: “The Freedom of Information requests I submitted have revealed what went on, but not why. ACE justified its processes and decisions as having had to pass scrutiny by the Arts Council's national Executive Board and also by a project board comprising representatives from the Arts Council and from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, saying that this process was “sufficiently robust to ensure that decisions were made appropriately and fairly.” Is it too difficult for ACE now to say ‘yes, something went wrong, but we will fix it’ – or at least to hold an independent investigation into the matter and to publish the findings? ACE has rules and regulations: if it can’t abide by them, then it should change them, but at least be honest about it.”
The debate Forgan refers to on the AP website consists of a letter from ACE in response to AP’s original article about the ATTL process, and an open letter by Managing Editor Liz Hill in response to ACE’s accusations that the material published was “unfounded”. No further explanations have been forthcoming from ACE.