Held to account

The clients of the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) were very disappointed to read in AP221 what appeared to be a ringing endorsement of the outcome of the Investment Review, which has seen 32 of their number cut as revenue-funded organisations. Although many of these have bravely issued a statement that it is “business as usual”, it is inevitable that most will in fact cease to exist within the next few months. There will be significant parts of Wales denuded of professional arts practice.
A large number of organisations met at the Wales Association for the Performing Arts (WAPA) Annual Conference in mid Wales last week and issued a press statement that made it clear that they do not agree with the line in the ACW Review document that these decisions will allow the arts to “thrive not just survive”. Indeed, many felt that ACW had betrayed its guiding principles, namely that it should be working on behalf of the interests of the arts in Wales and not against them.
You described the process of the Review as “bold and defined”. It was also secretive and opaque. It seems clear that shortly after the Business Plans on which the whole Review rested were safely under lock and key, ACW decided to change policy in two significant areas. It was no longer going to fund service organisations or curriculum-based theatre in education delivered into schools. These ideologies permeate the final report. Had the clients known these policies were in place, then their business plans might have been written very differently. There was also a crucial silence after the plans were submitted. It was always known that there would be no dialogue, but it was anticipated that the odd point of clarification would arise. It is for clients now to find out if decisions made on their behalf were based on misreadings of the proposals they put in.
The overarching view is that it is the primary duty of ACW to act as a lead advocate for the arts. At this stage it should be inside government arguing strongly that the arts in Wales is superb value for money, is a credit on the balance sheet and not a debit, and provides a breadth and range of services, in two languages, which is unparalleled in the rest of the UK. Instead we now have division and demoralisation. We have lost over £1m of matching local authority money and hundreds of practitioners, many of whom have been working tirelessly for over 30 years, are struggling to protect their jobs and livelihoods.