Platform – From arms-length to arm-lock

Alun Pugh is certainly right in one respect (p3). The arts agendas of the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Assembly Government bear a striking similarity to each other  albeit that Scotlands tactic for imposing its agenda has been rather more cleverly managed. Consequently, the responses by the arts communities of Scotland and Wales are markedly different. By sacking the well-regarded Chair at ACW (p3 and p5), the Assembly has succeeded only in releasing the pent up outrage felt by sector at the increasing politicisation of the arts and the erosion of the arms-length principle in Wales. By offering a £20m sweetener to the arts in Scotland and remaining vague about details of the implementation of its strategy (p1), the Executive seems to have silenced its potential critics, for the time-being at least.
Members of the Wales Association for the Performing Arts have been vocal critics of ACW at times, but in their letter to Mr Pugh, they fully recognise that ACW is strategically best placed to work alongside politicians, audiences and practitioners to achieve the best and most satisfactory solutions. So perhaps some fundamental questions should be addressed in Scotland before anyone starts welcoming proposals that have the potential to de-stabilise the fragile arts ecology. If SAC becomes a development agency, to what extent will it have a funding remit, and how happy will we be if the ultimate responsibility for arts funding ends up with local and national government? Who will be taking a strategic overview of the arts sector when SAC has had its wings clipped, and are we happy if this role ends up falling to the Executive? If national companies fall into deficit, whose budget (if any) will be raided to bail them out? Does anyone seriously think that governments are any lighter on their feet or better placed to make decisions about the arts than specialist agencies? When the funding sweeteners have disappeared and gripes with SAC have been long-forgotten, will direct control and funding of the arts by government still seem like such a good idea?

Liz Hill and Brian Whitehead, Co-editors