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Having fought a long and public battle opposing the Arts Council of England?s (ACE) plan to create a single national arts funding organisation, the highly-regarded Robert Hutchison has quietly and gracefully left Southern Arts (see below), following the acceptance by his Board that the fight has been lost.
After a Board meeting shortly before Christmas, the Chairman of Southern Arts, David Astor, wrote to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to report that the Board members ?remain completely unconvinced that the creation of a single organisation will be of benefit to artists, arts organisations and the general public?.

There is nothing to suggest that anything significant happened since then to change their minds, so presumably, it was the prospect of Southern Arts slowly slipping into oblivion with its funding being cut off that persuaded the Board of the merits of throwing in the towel and signing up to the new framework. At least that way it can continue to influence the shape of things to come. All 10 Regional Arts Boards have now agreed in principle to the ?transfer of their assets? to the new as yet unnamed organisation. The cost of the process so far in managerial terms has been three Chief Executives (Southern, Yorkshire and London Arts) and countless highly skilled and experienced staff who decided to jump ship rather than endure years of agonising transition with the possibility of redundancy at the end of them. Interestingly, in its merger planning process ACE anticipated the likely brain drain and associated alienation of staff as being extremely likely but of little consequence to the execution of its plans. As this brain drain continues, the pool of consultants serving it grows ever deeper. One of the joys of being self-employed is holding the future in your own hands ? no wonder it?s so tempting for anyone working in the arts funding sector at the moment.