That 79% of licensees most likely to be affected by the new Licensing Act (p1) are largely unaware of the impact this legislation will have on their business, is sadly predictable. The MORI survey hints that the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) blames this ignorance on local authorities. This ignores the fact that many small businesses are increasingly disaffected with the growth of legislation and paperwork clogging their creative arteries. Much of this stems from a level of bureaucracy which has built up over the past decade and has gone some way to obscuring the real issues and making it much trickier for managers to distinguish between the important, the urgent and the irrelevant items in their in-trays.
But it is not only burgeoning bureaucracy that switches professionals off from matters that should at least figure on their radar systems. Pseudo-consultation processes with pre-determined outcomes are also to blame, as is admirably demonstrated by the DCMS intervention in the consultation process to determine the priorities for the Big Lottery Fund (p3). The scenario being played out here bears more than a passing resemblance to a well-known phenomenon in the arts ? the feasibilty study that is commissioned, not to assess the feasibilty of a project, but rather to demonstrate its merit to funding bodies. The DCMS stamp on proceedings means that the outcome of The Big Lottery Fund consultation is, by and large, a foregone conclusion. The only real surprise is that, in this instance, Tessa Jowell has had the audacity to make the outcome clear before the consultation period has even closed. Meanwhile as the Scottish Cultural Commission spends nearly half a million pounds on its consultation (p3) we, along with Scotland?s future generations can only hope that the outcome of this exercise is not already a done deal.
Published: 06-09-2004