Witnesses at the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry into the funding of the arts and heritage (see AP228) are being pressed for their opinions of Arts Council England (ACE) and asked to offer alternative models for the funding of the arts. Verbal evidence has been collected at two recent sessions – one attended by Danny Moar from the Theatre Royal Bath, Mhora Samuel of the Theatres Trust and Mark Pemberton representing the Association of British Orchestras, and the other by writer and commentator Norman Lebrecht, David Lee, Editor of visual arts newsletter The Jackdaw, and Dr Tiffany Jenkins, Arts and Society Director at the Institute of Ideas.
All have faced provocative questions by the committee, including questions such as “What is so bad about the Arts Council?” and “Would you accept that the Arts Council do waste money on an industrial scale?” Pemberton refused to be drawn on his opinion of ACE, while Lebrecht condemned the extent to which it has moved away from its original purpose and described it as being “quite removed from the process of stimulating, sustaining and encouraging the arts in this country”. Lee said: “if we were starting a system of funding the visual arts with public money, we’d look at the way we do it now as an example of how not to do it.”
However, Jenkins has defended ACE’s record, saying that it should not be “scapegoated for a number of problems within the arts sector” that stem from political pressures to deliver “some sort of economic output [under the Tories] and under Labour, social outputs.” She described ACE as having become “disorientated” leading to “the emergence of all sorts of projects that are about participation, not about art.” Moar said: “It would be very hard for anyone who is very dependent on the Arts Council to be truly critical because they’re worried that they will somehow be seen as disloyal and their funding will be cut. That is absolutely an occupational hazard of being funded by the Arts Council. You don’t challenge.” Asked whether arts organisations have become too reliant on public subsidy, he pointed to the financial pressures posed by short run theatre productions “…the basic model of producing theatres in this country is you rehearse for four to five weeks, maybe play for four or five weeks and then the physical production – the set, the props, the costumes and things that really cost the money – go into a skip at the end of the run… there are some theatres that are co-producing more, some theatres that are touring more, but…far too many plays are produced for too short a run, given the upfront initial investment.”
Other issues explored with the witnesses included whether ACE or the Government should be building their own art collections; the role of public subsidy in stimulating grass-roots artists; the American model of philanthropy; the idea that popular work is somehow not worthy; the influence of private funding on artistic decisions; whether the funded arts portfolio is too London-centric; and whether London needs four big orchestras. Discussion around the question “why [do] you need an Arts Council if the same organisations are going to get the overwhelming majority of the money every year?” prompted diverse views on the potential for major arts organisations to be funded directly by the DCMS.
The committee has requested from some witnesses specific examples of Arts Council activity that “is a concrete obvious waste of public money”. Damian Collins, Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, took issue with the role of theatre in promoting climate change: “…that sounds like a political role for theatres and gets away from their core purpose. …[artists] must do that in their own time. I am not sure the role of public subsidy of theatre should be to promote awareness of climate change, worthy though that may be.”