The funding rounds in England and Wales, and the Northern Ireland settlement, have finally been made. Although we’re still waiting to hear more about Creative Scotland, it’s not too soon to reflect on how decisions about funding are being made across the UK. Funding doesn’t just mean cash from your national arts council: it means status. An organisation losing its funding could be seen as having failed in some important way, which may in turn affect the way other funders view its work.
RFO status is also the key to a lot of other doors: for example, funding streams for which only RFOs are invited to apply. How do the powers-that-be decide which companies should be recognised? ACE argues that it has been transparent about its decision-making process, but in fact it was asked by government to consider the recommendations of the McMaster Report before it had been published: we didn’t know what was in it, while ACE did. McMaster has started to change thinking in England, but the new ‘beacon status’ system in Wales is also a symptom of the need for change. AP has asked a number of people in the sector to comment on McMaster and his recommendations (see p8–9), and readers can join the debate on our website, but there’s a wider debate to be had about how the UK nations are developing different approaches to assessing merit and excellence. How will peer review be organised, and what effect will it have on what types of work are recognised? Can arts councils be open-minded enough to give cash to projects which don’t, for example, have social or educational aims, purely on the grounds that they produce excellent artistic work? Will the instrumentalism of English arts funding in the past ten years continue, simply applying ‘excellence’ to projects which continue to fulfil political aims? Are those aims changing? Northern Ireland’s Minister for Finance has noted that the arts are important for the contribution they make “to our tourist sector and to wider economic growth” – which suggests that political recognition may be about to come in exchange for political interference. It may be appropriate that the four nations should differ in their approach, but it’s going to provide an interesting challenge for any arts organisation working UK-wide.
Catherine Rose, Editor