In the fourth and final instalment of 2020 Vision, which has been looking at the arts world of the future, Stephen Hetherington examines the governance and funding structures that will be supporting the arts in years to come.
It didnt last long. Britains once gracious notion of artistic patronage is finally about to give up its soul to the spurious political jabbering of socio-economic political policy. That curious phrase of Lord Redliffe-Mauds that won worldwide admiration, the arms-length principle, has had its day. Subsidy, I believe, is here for a while yet, but the once independent but broken arm that gives it is finally about to be amputated. But wait! My first prediction for 2020 is that it will, in some other guise, return.
The formation of the Arts Council of Great Britain under Maynard Keyness chairmanship was, by todays standards, quite a casual arrangement (what Robert Hughes called the English genius for structured informality1 ). Jennie Lees biographer, Patricia Hollis, explained how Arnold Goodman was appointed Chairman in 1965: She phoned Arnold Goodman: would he, she asked, like to join the Arts Council? Light duties and all that. Thank you, that would be nice. A fortnight later, she phoned again: would he like to be chairman? Very light duties, etc. After some perfunctory demurral, thank you, that would be very nice2. Lord Redcliffe-Maud, one of the Arts Councils early gas and gaiters members3, looked at arts funding for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 1976. Though he duly noted that the Arts Council was accountable to government, he thought its controlling touch very light. The descriptive metaphor for this arrangement, arms-length, seems now to have become a presumed constitutional right.
Contrast this with a statement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) Annual Report last year where it clearly requires Arts Council England (ACE) to realise DCMS policy, as defined in its Public Service Agreement (PSA) with the Treasury. It even instructs ACE how to do it: The package of interventions underpinning this [PSA] objective will be delivered by Arts Council England, managed and monitored through the Funding Agreement with DCMS. Arts Council England will work through three main funding channels: regularly funded organisations, grants for the arts (open application funds) and flexible funds & .4
Subsidy subsidence
Some argue that this is the only way in which the DCMS can fulfill the Treasurys funding conditions so we must go along with it if arts subsidy is to continue. The counter-arguments to this are many, but Ill try just two:
" DCMS does not have an arts policy but rather it has a socio-economic policy which it inappropriately uses the arts to deliver, and
" the Treasury does not actually care if the PSA is met anyway.
This slipped out in 2002 when Paul Boateng, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said of the PSAs: There was never any question that: Oh if we dont meet this target, our moneys going to be cut.5 Eventually, the evidence that the arts are not the power source of prosperity and are not best suited to ameliorating national social ills will filter through. Money for the arts will still be found, but under a new rationale.
The socio-economic rationales of arts funding also point to something else quite fundamental. Art is now an entertainment commodity like never before and this, I predict, is a trend with some way to run. Under the egalitarian presumptions of the relativists world, long gone are Platonic questions of the morality of dramatic mimesis, out of sight are Kants ideas of pure art and beauty, while Matthew Arnolds proselytising for arts sweetness and light is now just risible. In the simulacra of our globalised, postmodern, consumer-is-king world, it is the market of the culture industry, so named and despised by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, that forms our arts policy.
Which organisation provides more artistic products to the world than any other? My guess would be Amazon. Art, music, poetry, literature sit alongside rock-and-roll, TV soaps and tabloid newspapers. No longer are Pierre Bourdieus imagined communities united by the status of their cultural choices, now we pick and choose without regard to intellectual, artistic, social or economic factors. We may have been this way before though. Seeking the shock of the new for our entertainment, or modern art for its status or decorative value, is hardly different from Bartolini commissioning Paola Uccello to paint the Battle of San Romano for his bedroom. The BBC, Google and Tate Modern are in the vanguard, but we must all keep up, whatever our artistic remit.
Part-time amateurs
My third and final marker for the future concerns the mish-mash of unsuitable organisations we use to run our theatres, companies, galleries and museums. Commercial companies are currently in the ascendant in theatre management. On the large scale this may persist for a while, but things could change. The relationship between cost and income is always moving against theatres. A number of economists have noted that theatre cannot increase its productivity like other industries because of its reliance on people. As general living standards rise and the comparative cost of goods declines, the poor theatre is left with ever-increasing losses. All the time expenditure exceeds gross profit, inflation will cruelly exacerbate this factor.
The corporate model used by most arts companies is the charitable trust. The basis for forming charities for arts operations hangs on notions of education and the betterment of mankind. But it does so precariously as the teleology of its legal antecedents show. It is not hard to trace charity law back to the Poor Laws of 1530 and the 1601 Statute of Elizabeth I, though a welter of reforms, repeals and case law now go into defining a charitable purpose. That theatres, concert halls and most arts organisations also engage in a considerable amount of profit-making activity must require consistent use of Nelsons right eye as the Charity Commissioners peer at their applications.
Worse is the use and abuse of trusts. Public limited companies are tied pretty tightly by the red tape of Best practice. This extends company law to define appropriate behaviour for shareholders, directors, and much else. Though many of the skilled practitioners of corporate obedience give their time generously as trustees of our arts bodies, a good number take their seats as both shareholders and directors unconcerned that they may inappropriately vote themselves into power. In effect, they are self-elected, part-time amateurs with legal responsibility for the operation of what are often multimillion-pound businesses. The skilled professional executives that run their business are held to account like council officers, taking instruction without the power of the directors vote. This has to change.
My bet for the future is the advent of the US-style not-for-profit trust, which is not a charity but is still restricted to spending any financial surplus on its objectives. Trustees will behave like shareholders, not directors, meeting infrequently, while the company is run by a board of directors made up from its senior staff and a suitable proportion of external non-executives. It will take on all manner of business interests to support its work. Not just the usually catering, publishing, and a bit of retail, but property development, broadcasting, management of public realm for local authorities, and more. There is nothing stopping this arrangement now, other than our traditional subservience to the ideas of amateurism and those who could once think of themselves as the great and good. Roll on the future.
Stephen Hetherington is Chairman of Hetherington Seelig Theatres. He was the Lowrys first CEO and Director of Birminghams bid for European Capital of Culture. He is currently working on several new galleries and theatres.
e: stephen@hetherington.biz
The 2020 Vision series has been commissioned by Robert Sanderson, Director of the consultancy Arts Portfolio, which works with clients to help them develop a more positive future.
e: robertsanderson@btinternet.com;
w: http://www.artsportfolio.co.uk
1 Hughes , R. (2004) Why do we need the Academy in the 21st Century?, R.A. Magazine, p83.
2 Hollis, P. (1997) Jennie Lee: A Life, Oxford, OUP, p259.
3 Witts, R. (1998) Artist unknown: An alternative history of the Arts Council, London, Warner Books, p120.
4 DCMS (2005) Making it happen: DCMS Annual Report 2005. DCMS, p60.
5 Crooks, E. & Blitz, J. (2002) The Times. July 23, 2002, p3.