Shoulder to shoulder?

The balance between policy-making, influencing policy and carrying out policy is an ever-changing kaleidoscope in arts council life across the UK. Wales has apparently been able to reach a kind of stability for the time being – that may all change when the funding review comes around next year. Compared with its past difficulties, the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) seems now to have a quiet confidence – and if this is a mistaken impression, readers will no doubt put us right. Scotland is still feeling its way towards that happy state, as the recently launched business model for Creative Scotland (CS) shows (p2). There is a sense of rush and tear about the proceedings, though, which is manifested in the unkempt prose. It gives the impression that it hasn’t had time to dress properly, and its petticoat is showing. (The contrast with the rather beautifully-produced ACW regional plans is stark.) But let us turn to substance rather than presentation. The Scottish Government is currently pro-arts, pro-cultural industries, and, as we have pointed out before, alive to the possibilities of tourism and international profile. So the fact that the business model shows CS standing shoulder to shoulder with the Government is not surprising. However, there is a conspicuous lack of reference in the business plan to a lobbying role for CS – even a suggestion that they’re beyond all that. While this might feel like a comfortable and indeed positive relationship, warning bells are tinkling far off in the glens. What happens if a less sympathetic administration takes over? CS won’t want to find itself toothless in the fight.

The Tories are also keen to develop a new kind of relationship with Arts Council England (ACE), should they find themselves forming a government next year. Ed Vaizey, the energetic Shadow Arts Minister, is already working with his colleagues to explore the relationship between ACE and the DCMS. They clearly think that the DCMS should make policy and ACE should be one of the agencies that carries it out – albeit at arm’s length. ACE has been trying to reinvent itself as a policy and development agency ever since the regional arts boards were subsumed into a single organisation. It remains to be seen whether the Tories’ plans would provoke a battle royal over the available turf, or a reordering of priorities backstage.

Pay up
The National Skills Academy (NSA) should be preening itself on gaining a very big feather in its cap. Bagging an 8% share of the latest Department for Business, Innovation and Skills funding is a measure of recognition of the potential and importance of the cultural and creative industries. However, the NSA’s keenness for employers to pay the National Minimum Wage rather than the lower Apprentices’ Minimum may prevent some organisations from taking up the scheme, particularly in a recession. Certainly, the scheme should not be cheap labour, but large numbers of people running small arts organisations – some of them at quite senior levels – would probably already classify themselves as such.