New Comment

At last, after a series of stops and starts over a number of years, the Arts Council of Wales’ (ACW) participation strategy, ‘Taking Part’, is finally out for consultation in draft form (AP210). Voluntary Arts Wales and many others have campaigned for the need to create such a strategy, as a tool both to enshrine participation across all ACW policy and to ensure the profile of arts participation is raised. Voluntary Arts Wales, with a small number of other organisations, has been involved in a working group to help ACW bring the strategy together. Despite our input, we do have some concerns about the current consultation document, which we have raised and will continue to feed into the consultation process. 

Our main concern is the apparent deprioritisation of the amateur/voluntary part of the sector, which is also apparent in ACW’s new vision document ‘Imagine’. Both documents state: “Amateurs and volunteers are as much part of the cultural DNA of Wales as our award-winning artists and national companies.... By and large this won’t be an area of Arts Council priority.” We believe the emphasis is wrong here – the amateurs and volunteers are the cultural DNA and always have been. Voluntary and community arts activities are not only a breeding ground for the professional arts and creative industries, but actually create employment opportunities that support professional artists.
Would actor Ioan Gruffydd have appeared above the radar, if it weren’t for the wealth of voluntary sector youth theatres and eisteddfodau that developed him? In some people’s eyes, the whole of the participatory arts sector consists only of the groups and projects that are funded by ACW – those that are on the radar. This is a great misunderstanding. In terms of arts participation this is only the tip of the iceberg. It is therefore worrying that the draft strategy appears to focus mainly on community arts practice, which in our opinion, is just a part of the whole picture of arts participation in Wales.
In view of the above we, together with a number of partners (including local authorities), believe that mapping all participatory arts activity is extremely important in bringing groups onto the radar, enabling partnership work and enhancing advocacy for participation. Mapping of the whole sector is something we feel should be included as a fundamental action in the participation strategy, to ensure that grass roots activity is given the recognition and support it deserves. Without these roots there would be no trees.