I can understand AP giving a cautious welcome to the Arts Council of Wales (ACW) Investment Review in AP221, and ACW’s Chief Executive Nick Capaldi arguing passionately for a positive future in AP222. But, without heralding it, ACW has dropped a policy commitment of considerable significance.
In my experience (as ex-Drama Director of ACW), Wales has always shown considerable sensitivity to the simple fact that people pay taxes on the same basis wherever they live. Local authorities, and, more recently, Assembly Members, have been concerned about the equity of arts distribution to their communities. For reasons I have never managed to identify, this has largely been ignored for English regional arts provision; I found it was felt strongly when working on a cultural strategy for Caithness for the Highlands Council in Scotland.
ACW had a policy for largely rural Wales of achieving access to the arts within about 30 miles of most communities. To that end it had led the development of a national network of purpose-built venues as well as supporting community theatres and county theatre in education companies. By deciding that such provision is unaffordable, withdrawing funding from centres such as Theatr Ardudwy in Harlech and Wyeside in Builth Wells, which it encouraged into existence, ending support for Theatr Powys and Gwent Theatre, which it helped create, it breaks a compact between the taxpayer and the arts, and effectively withdraws funding from large geographical areas.
Like England, and almost similarly Scotland, Wales has its capital in the bottom right-hand corner, which means most national and larger scale provision is furthest away from everybody else. Bit difficult, too, in a bilingual country where the greatest density of Welsh speakers is in the top left-hand corner. My fear is that unequal distribution and access undermines any prospect of securing long-term support for the arts from the public as individuals. And it is the biggest threat to the continuation of quango responsibility for arts funding, when there are other bodies established to manage equitable distribution of government funding.
Back in the 80s, the late director of Cwmni Theatr Cymru, Wilbert Lloyd Roberts, and I said that you should not describe a place as a cultural desert in the usual sense, if ‘desert’ was the description of what happened when the water was turned off in the oasis. It is very painful if there is not enough money to go round (I know, I had to administer it and see the consequences), but isn’t public funding from universal taxation supposed to support the have-nots as well as the haves?