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Peter Stark believes that the Arts Council of England?s restructuring proposals place at risk the most effective elements of the arts funding system to achieve hypothetical efficiency gains, and sees ACE?s plans as a smokescreen for its inability over the years to transform itself and strengthen under-performing RABs.

During the 45 year history of regional structures in the arts a succession of enquiries have ? somewhat contrary to their initial instincts - found in favour of a national structure composed of a centre and regions with a substantial degree of autonomy. Parliamentary Select Committees, Jennie Lee, Lord Redcliffe Maud, William Rees Mogg and Richard Pulford, Richard Luce and Richard Wilding ? as well as a succession of foreign commentators - have all studied the structure and its internal balances and concluded that its basis was sound. Peter Hewitt, has concluded to the contrary and persuaded his chairman, his Council and our incoming Secretary of State to his position. This is a remarkable achievement but, I believe, one that deserves further consideration before the final acceptance of the new ?single organisation?.

Efficiency over effectiveness

The change to a centralised model appears to be driven by the felt need ? even a passion - to ?manage the system better?. This is a worthy ambition but it has inherent weaknesses.

First, such a narrowly managerial motivation can lead to an inward looking process in which the fact that an outcome is a good one for artists and the public can be seen to be less important than the difficulty - even unpleasantness for the managers - of the processes of achieving it. Secondly, major structural changes of this kind would normally only be introduced as a response to an analysis of the changing patterns of, for example, the activity of artists, demography and demand in the population and the political and operational context. We have no evidence that this was the case here.

Serving two masters

I am concerned by the apparent supposition that all conflicts in the funding system need to be resolved. It seems clear to me that some conflicts are structural, will always and properly be there and need to be managed without the expectation of resolution. An obvious example would be where a national ?art form? critical judgement meets a ?civic / regional? service maintenance argument on a large performing arts client. In the past this conflict has been moderated by the funding system?s ability to be honourably and publicly on both sides of it.

In the new system, the Arts Council could not tolerate public dissent between its regional and art form perspectives. Any threatened client would recruit regional and local authority interests in opposition to the Council. Where does mediation come from? Where does the Arts Council look for a friend when next it needs something from the Region and locality? Partnerships ? often achieved and maintained with great skill and difficulty over many years ? will be threatened by this structure.

The single organisation will also have problems with experimentation and evolution. It is a truism that, in any structure, innovation happens at the margins. Almost all of the improvements in the operation of the system and the expansion of the arts influence on other budgets in the last twenty years were developed and piloted in the regions not at the centre.

London at heart

Most damagingly, the new structure proposed removes checks and balances that have been of major importance in the past. If the mixed economy of a centre and quasi-autonomous regions has occasionally frustrated ?reform and efficiency?, it has also provided critical protection for artists, arts organisations and service to the public when an element of the centre ? in government department or the Arts Council ? has been inadequately, ignorantly or incompetently led. It is a sad fact that looking back at the centre over forty five years, periods of overall knowledge and competence have been the exception rather than the rule.

The nature of English society produces an in-built tendency towards a national arts policy based on the priorities of the largest arts institutions (mostly though not exclusively London based) working in an alliance with broad-sheet media commentators and art form interests in the Arts Council and government (all London based).It has been the English Regions ? working together and often in partnership with local government organisations - that have been able to produce a countervailing force to the interests of this lobby. They have been able to speak powerfully for a far broader constituency of artists and arts organisations and for a more general public ? including non-metropolitan London.

The big lie

Both Arts Council prospectus documents appear to believe that the new single organisation will be structurally immune from these metropolitan tendencies. They also propound the apple pie virtues of simplifying administration and cutting wasteful bureaucracy. At the heart of the second prospectus ? slick and sophisticated compared to its blunter and clumsier predecessor - however, is the big lie. The suggestion that £8-10m can be saved without very substantial loss of service.

It is difficult not to see this irresistible offer to a new Secretary of State as deeply cynical. Either there is no vision of what the future staff structure of the single organisation will look like (and therefore no basis for the calculation) or there is one but we are not being shown it because if we were, it would be neither credible nor deliverable. To achieve the saving the new Regional Arts Councils will need to be very different indeed from the RABs and the centre will determine their form.

Baby with bath water

All of this may suggest that I do not believe reform and cost savings to be necessary and possible. The opposite is the case. There are two fundamental reforms to the present system that have been necessary for at least the last fifteen years. First, the need to create ? once and for all - a very different national Arts Council at the centre; and secondly, the need to substantially strengthen under-performing RABs. The prospectus addresses the first but instead of addressing the second directly it has visited trauma on the whole system ? including the parts that are acknowledged to be working well. The creation of an ?everything changes? review is obviously attractive as it provides cover for change inside the Arts Council. The obverse of that need for a smaller strategic centre is the requirement that all RABs function at broadly comparable ? and high ? levels of competence, sensitivity and effectiveness. In fact there has been a totally unacceptable differential in the performance of the RABs for many years. Contrary to public statements there has been a clear ?private? consensus for twenty years between government department, Arts Council, and many of the senior staff in the regions, as to which were performing well or poorly in any given period.

At the end of the day, the need to strengthen some regions cannot be a sufficient justification for dismantling strong structures elsewhere, that are on the verge of - or are already - delivering the next step change in the position of the arts within regional economic, social and cultural strategies.


Peter Stark is Director of the Centre for Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Northumbria. His earlier career included roles as Director of Northern Arts, Development Director of VAN, Founding Director of South Hill Park Arts Centre, and Administrator of CoRAA, Welfare State and Birmingham Arts Laboratory e: peterstark@dogbank.fsnet.co.uk