How Will Those Cuts Affect ACE?
In September 2000, Jo Weston, then chief executive of Arts Council Wales, resigned, following uproar in the Welsh arts world over a string of proposals which showed that the organisation was totally out of touch with the sector it was supposed to serve. In a feature article at that time, the BTG said, “The organisation has so badly misjudged the mood of the arts community in Wales and has acted with such arrogance that its position and that of Weston have become almost untenable. Hence … Weston’s resignation.”
Some six years later the Welsh Assembly Government - and, in particular, the then Culture Minister Alun Pugh - made the same mistake, in the process sacking the very popular Geraint Talfan Davies as chair of the Arts Council of Wales. The proposals were defeated in the Assembly and, after a “decent” interval, Alun Pugh lost his job.
If we don’t learn from history, then we are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past, as Arts Council England is in the process of finding out at the moment. Chief exec Peter Hewitt won’t be forced to resign because he’s going anyway after ten years at the helm, but the organisation is bound to suffer.
Enough press releases to destroy a small forest, protesting websites springing up all over the place, a petition of no confidence on the government’s e-petitions website, a threat of legal action because of the allegation that ACE is not following its own procedures, a hastily-arranged public meeting between Hewitt and members of Equity, and that’s probably the tip of the iceberg, as I suspect there’s an awful lot more going on behind the scenes.
ACE officers I have spoken to (not for publication) are very much on the defensive, stressing that these are just proposals and they may not be implemented. “They have the right to put their case and be listened to,” one told me. Tell that to the staff of the Drill Hall who have already lost their jobs!
Now I am willing to admit that probably a few of the organisations which are to be cut are not really delivering as they should, but have they been told this and given the help they need to put things right, which is what ACE’s own guidelines say should happen?
What is obvious, however, is that this is a PR disaster of major proportions which suggests that ACE, like ACW in 2000 and WAG two years ago, is totally out of touch with its constituency and the major fall-out will be, as the e-petition suggests, a loss of confidence in ACE.
In that Power to the People! article mentioned above, we wrote, “In 1997, this site carried five feature articles which were intensely critical of ACE. There were three in 1998, one last year and none so far in 2000. Why? Have I stopped writing critical pieces because I have become softer? No. It’s because ACE has changed radically, become more responsive and in touch with the reality of the arts world, and that change was forced upon it by pressure from the English arts community.”
It’s drifted away again, though, and one of the reasons is that the influence of practitioners has declined and that of administrators has increased. ACE has adopted the management ethos and quality has been replaced by quantity (of the number of “priority” boxes ticked) as the major yardstick in making funding decisions.
Since this was written a few hours ago, we have received news of the meeting between Equity members and Peter Hewitt at the Young Vic at which the 500 or so members present passed a vote of no confidence in ACE. Peter Hewitt responded by saying, “”We do not feel they (those present) are representative of the theatre community as a whole and most certainly not the wider arts community.” He went on to say that it must be remembered that 75% of RFOs are getting an inflation or above increase.
Oh dear! Another gigantic PR error! Does he really think that everyone else will adopt an “I’m all right, Jack” attitude? Surely he can’t be that dumb? Almost 200 organisations have been cut without warning, without adequate explanation and given only a few weeks to respond: the rest are more likely to think “It could be us next time” than to dismiss the cuts as irrelevant to them. And this has happened at a time when ACE has actually got more money than expected from central government!
This kind of comment only illustrates how divorced from the reality of the arts world ACE has become. It’s as well that Hewitt is going, for if he were staying the chances of ACE recovering the trust of the theatre world, at any rate, would be nil.
One hopes that the furore which has erupted over what has been called the most bloody cull in Arts Council history will teach ACE a much needed lesson and that new chief exec Alan Davey will be able to get the arts world behind him and his organisation again so they can work together for the good of the arts in England rather than being at each others’ throats.