Arts policy pundits who were impressed by the length, if not the quality, of the conclusions drawn by the Scottish Cultural Commission are now bracing themselves for another deluge of recommendations from the Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland (RPA). A team of bureaucrats has been working on the Review since June 2002. Back then, Britain was yet to go to war in Iraq, and, crucially, the Northern Ireland Assembly was still functioning. Since its suspension in October of that year, much in Northern Irish political life has been frustratingly, grindingly slow: and Westminster MPs have been taking policy decisions for Northern Ireland on a kind of permanently temporary basis that has clearly undermined arts funding. At the same time, the RPA has pottered along in the background collecting responses and drawing conclusions. Despite the Arts Council of Northern Ireland?s (ACNI) attempts to defend against a ?balkanisation? of arts funding and policy, the omens don?t look good.
The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure?s submission to the RPA called for the scrapping of ACNI and suggested its grant-giving responsibility should be devolved to local authorities. The Minister responsible for the RPA, Jeff Rooker, has prefaced the report saying, ?These reforms will be ambitious... They will disrupt power bases and the vested interests of politicians. They will lead to a radical shift in resources from the backroom to the frontline.? Given that ACNI?s past protests at funding cuts (p1) have been largely ignored, and that the arts don?t appear to have been identified as a ?front line? issue, it all looks pretty bleak.
And arts professionals across Britain and further afield will be forced to consider the effect this will have on arts policy and funding in their own patch. The Scottish Arts Council awaits political judgement on its future and the Arts Council of Wales stands wary of political intervention in the aftermath of the so-called ?bonfire of the quangos? (AP issue 88). Meanwhile, a shower of Government edicts about the use of Lottery funding sluices into the arts funding system, and arts managers get an increasing sense of the weather turning. There is a chill wind blowing from across the Irish Sea.
Liz Hill and Brian Whitehead, Co-editors