It?s tempting to think that the very public dispute between the ?Centre? and the ?Regions? in the Great English Funding Debate (p 5-9) is nothing more than a lot of hot air being blown about by those seeking power and those in danger of losing it; but the sad story of the demise of Midlands Arts Marketing (p1) proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that organisational structure really does matter.
And it matters a lot. The tragedy for MAM is not so much that it has financial troubles, because most arts organisations will have been in that position at some stage in their lives. Rather, it was the initial folly a decade ago of floating off East Midlands Arts? fledgling marketing function to fend for itself as an independent company. It can be little comfort to MAM staff that, had they been a department of EMA facing closure rather than become an independent trading subsidiary, they might now be choosing between a nice redundancy cheque and redeployment, rather than the prospect of sitting in a queue with other creditors to extract their final paycheques. Solicitors such as Sean Egan (p9) are only too well aware of the importance of setting up organisational structures right. And anyone who thinks they can wing it and avoid paying for legal advice when they get started will undoubtedly end up paying lawyers twice as much when their structures collapse and they have to clear up the mess left behind.
Published: 27-08-2001