APPENDIX 22
Memorandum submitted by Making Music
GENERAL POINTS
As the largest umbrella group representing the
voluntary music sector, Making Music is pleased to be part of
the consultation on the Arts Council's Working together for
the arts.
We are glad that the consultation process for
Working together for the arts has taken on a more formal
process in contrast to the consultation surrounding the previous
Arts Council Paper A prospectus for change.
In our response to A prospectus for change,
Making Music cautiously welcomed the new changes pending a
more detailed understanding of what was going to happen. Whilst
it contains more detail, we remain concerned that Working together
for the arts still leaves a number of practical issues largely
unanswered.
In particular we are concerned that Working
together for the arts makes many unsubstantiated assertions,
particularly with reference to cost savings. In addition, Annex
3 makes a great many assertions about the roles and responsibilities
of the new organisation without much evidence of how this will
happen.
Making Music would have liked to have seen a
document in which all the different options for the reorganisation
of the Arts Council as mentioned on p 13 of Working together
for the Arts were worked through so that a fully thought-out
approach to the future of the arts funding system could be planned.
We regret to say that this failure to consider other possibilities
smacks of a "nanny knows best" attitude reminiscent
of the "bad old days" of the Arts Council.
Our main concern is that the excellent wok currently
being undertaken at the grass roots by some of the RABs is not
in any way compromised by having to conform to a set of nationally
decided priorities bearing no relationship to the needs of arts
practitioners on the ground. The success of the restructuring,
in our view, will almost entirely depend on the extent to which
these almost contradictory needs are properly balanced.
In our view, none of the structural changes
outlined will achieve the desired objectives without a fundamentally
new approach to the culture of the new organisation. This includes
such aspects as customer service, dealing with the grass-roots
and voluntary sector, and interaction with umbrella bodies. We
would be deeply concerned if the culture and procedures of the
existing Arts Council were perpetuated in the new organisation.
Area 1:
WILL THE
PROPOSALS MEET
THE OBJECTIVES
IDENTIFIED FOR
A NEW
ORGANISATION?
Simplifying the system for the arts community
It is probable that the new organisation proposed
in Working together will simplify the system for the larger arts
organisations who work on a national scale. However, the vast
majority of clients of the funding system both now and in the
future are smaller arts organisations and it is difficult to envisage
that they will benefit greatly from the introduction of such a
new organisation. These organisations are accustomed to dealing
directly with their local Regional Arts Board rather than with
the Arts Council. Many have now established strong working relationships
with the RABs who in turn respond on a local level to their funding
and development needs. A good example of the way in which the
RABs respond sympathetically to their regional clients is the
introduction over the past few years of the Regional Arts Lottery
Programme. This national scheme is applicable to all of England,
yet it manages to retain a subtle flexibility in terms of its
priorities for funding according to the needs of any one particular
English region.
Reducing bureaucracy and duplication
The proposals in Working together are persuasive
in pointing to ways in which this objective can be achieved through
the reorganisation. It is regrettably the experience of Making
Music and its members that the Arts Council is currently far from
being a model of freedom from bureaucracy and therefore this objective
seems unlikely to be achieved without a dramatic improvement in
the new organisation's working practices. For example, rather
than receiving one copy of the consultation prospectus Working
together for the Arts, Making Music was sent at least four
copies of the document from ACE alone as a presumed consequence
of duplication of databases within one building.
Providing greater consistency and fairness across
the system
Ostensibly the proposals would seem to offer
greater consistency and fairness if properly implemented. It would
indeed be a major advantage for the arts to have a greater amount
of consistency and fairness across the system, which experience
has shown can be extremely patchy at present. However, Working
together offers very little in the way of mechanisms which
will guarantee the sound and proper implementation of fairness,
indeed it is possible to envisage a situation in which regional
executive directors will be unable to agree on issues of consistency
when faced with the differing needs of their region.
Channelling administrative savings to support
the arts (with a target of £8-10 million per annum)
It is extremely difficult to tell whether the
proposals for the new organisation will meet this financial objective.
It is unclear from Working together exactly where in the
new organisation the savings will materialise in comparison with
the current situation. Furthermore, it seems to us that in large-scale
reorganisations such as that proposed in Working together significant
savings rarely materialise after the initial activity of reorganisation
has died down.
For example, it is difficult to see how the
maintenance of 9 or 10 regional offices will create savings for
the new organisation. If staff salaries for the regional offices
are inflated in line with the current salary structure of the
Arts Council then this will cost the new organisation substantially
more in staff expenditure. In theory, it is possible that the
judicious use of information technology would allow savings, eg
in handling personnel issues and IT activities across the new
organisation. However, the outsourcing of these areas of work
to a satellite office will not mitigate against the need for some
local support staff within each regional office such as a facilities/office
manager and personnel manager. It is also possible that centralised
accounting for the new organisation and its regional councils
will also present an economy of scale.
Even were the savings to be realised in the
short term, we are not convinced that the enormous upheaval of
the reorganisation is justifiable, particularly bearing in mind
the inevitably substantial transition costs. It should be noted
that savings of £8-10 million represent less than 2 per cent
of the overall grant-in-aid system (including Lottery funding).
This is a substantial figure but could almost certainly be achieved
within the current structure through streamlining and proper consideration
to economies of scale. Furthermore, if and when these savings
are achieved it should be transparently seen to be for the benefit
of grass-roots arts activity.
Increased devolution of funding and decision-making
to the regions
It may be true that these proposals would create
increase decision-making in the regions. However, if the Arts
Council really wants to achieve this, why not simply make a centralised
decision to do it? It is surely in the gift of the current organisation
to achieve this without the enormous disruption represented by
the proposals.
In addition, the proposals of Working together
mean that the Arts Council is building a structure which would
allow it to withdraw the decision making at a regional level more
easily rather than increasing its devolution. If this objective
were to be achieved in the manner in which it is stated then there
would have to be a safeguard in the new organisation to ensure
that the centre would not be able or willing to withdraw this
devolved decision-making in the regions.
We are also concerned that the work of the regions
has not been properly evaluated by the Arts Council and would
be keen to see that the new structure was created in light of
what really takes place on the ground rather than a London-centric
view of regional activity.
Providing greater financial flexibility and capacity
It is possible that the proposals will achieve
this objective. However, it is probable that severe delays can
be foreseen in the system. It is likely that there will be a great
tension between the regional offices of the new Arts Council for
which the Executive Directors might have to enter into extended
discussion and argument about the funds set aside for their regions.
Delivering significant cost benefit over future
years
This has already been covered in the comments
under the objective "to channel administrative savings to
support the arts"—see above.
Area 2:
ARE THE
PROPOSALS LIKELY
TO DELIVER
WELL ACROSS
THE FULL
RANGE OF
REQUIREMENTS FOR
AN ARTS
FUNDING AND
DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION?
Before commenting on each of the specific requirements
identified under this question, we would like to express our grave
concern that there is only one reference in Working together to
development bodies that have a national infrastructure such as
Making Music. Although such organisations are less numerous than
other more regionalised arts organisations, they offer enormous
opportunities to add value, to create economies of scale and to
provide additional resource to the funding system. It is surely
essential that the needs of these bodies be taken into account
when the Arts Council is proposing to reorganise its activities
and we trust that further consideration will be given to recognise
the contributions made by these bodies. We welcome the proposal
in Annex 3 to adopt sensible principles of onward delegations
of small grant giving towards agencies and other bodies where
appropriate.
Meeting the needs of arts organisations and individual
artists
It is imperative that any reorganisation of
the Arts Council, the RABs and their activities takes account
of the regional flavours of arts organisations and individual
artists. It is the vibrant differences and traditions in the arts
from region to region that keep them of interest to their own
constituencies. It is completely unclear how the proposals will
affect individual arts organisations and in particular voluntary
ones. As stated on p 7 of Working together such organisations
require a number of things in addition to funding and the proposals,
though well intentioned, seem to offer little additional resource
to achieve these objectives. Perhaps the Arts Council should listen
to the 70-80 per cent of respondents from arts organisations who
apparently gave negative views of their first prospectus.
Strengthening services to the arts community,
locally, regionally and natonally
It is difficult to know how services offered
by the Arts Council can be strengthened until it is made clear
exactly what these services are to be.
For example, at present the Arts Council offers
very few services of relevance to the voluntary arts sector. Therefore,
it would be extremely detrimental to the welfare of Making Music's
member societies, all of which are voluntary, if the new organisation
more greatly resembled the approach to the sector as represented
by the present Arts Council rather than that adopted by the ten
RABs. Although it is by no means consistent across the whole country,
it is true to say that some of the RABs engage regularly and enthusiastically
with the voluntary arts and take a special interest in the provision
of services for them. However, any worsening in this level of
engagement will, in our opinion, be a significant failure in the
Arts Council's commitment of care.
Furthermore, it is not clear how a national
infrastructure organisation can be effectively served by a Regional
Arts Board. Making Music, for example, is a national organisation
with its central administration based in London. Contrast this
with for example the professional "national" London
orchestras which are based squarely in the capital and undertake
touring activities elsewhere. It could seriously affect and limit
the scope of activities and development of a national organisation
such as Making Music if, as a client, it were able to deal with
only one of the new organisation's regional offices rather than
the central office itself.
We note that the proposals of Working together
acknowledge the existence and difficult situation of this type
of organisation in the second paragraph of Annex 2. However, it
is completely unclear what incentives a regional executive office
would have to look after a national body properly when it would
be subject to the majority demands of its regional clients.
It is also interesting that the last sentence
of the third paragraph of Annex 2 states that if national infrastructure
arts organisations are delegated to the regional councils then
"The national office will then be able to concentrate on
genuinely strategic issues". Rather than reflecting the true
needs of the strategically important national arts organisations,
this merely highlights how this will benefit the Arts Council
itself and not the arts umbrella organisations such as Making
Music. Surely this is not reflective of the general approach that
Working together propounds in the new organisation of its
care for the arts and regional strategies.
Making best use of the funding and resources available
Since the proposals of Working together
are at a preliminary stage, it is too early to tell whether they
will make best use of the funding and resources available. For
a national infrastructure organisation like Making Music it certainly
seems more than logical and beneficial to deal with a single new
body rather than with 10 individual and autonomous Regional Arts
boards in order to get decisions on potential funding.
Furthermore, in our opinion, a national and
central fund made available for organisations such as Making Music
would make much better use of the resources. At the time of writing,
for example, we are having to co-ordinate a series of individual
applications across the Regional Arts Boards to source funding
from the Regional Arts Lottery Programme. It would have been more
helpful to have approached a single central organisation to access
these funds across the whole of England rather than expending
a great deal of time and energy in approaching 10 different organisations.
Providing development services to increase resources
for the arts
The Arts Council has done reasonably well to
increase the amount of central government expenditure on the arts
in recent years. However, in its wider role of advocacy it appears
to us to have a less successful track record.
Over the past decade the Arts Council has not
been particularly strong in convincing the public and the media
of the benefits of the arts in terms of the quality of life and
contribution to the economy. The proposed reorganisation would
help this process somewhat by allowing the central office the
time and the freedom to undertake substantial activity in this
area. However, we have to say that one of the least helpful activities
that can be undertaken in this context is for an organisation
to restructure itself, presenting a chaotic and less than unified
approach to the public and media. At a time when the arts are
in their usual fire-fighting mode, the last thing that is needed
is a public argument about who is driving the fire engine.
Enabling effective partnerships with others in
support of the arts
We feel that the proposals of Working together
are likely to present a grave danger to enabling effective partnerships
with others in support of the arts. The reason for this can be
found on a regional rather than a national level. In general,
we are of the opinion that local authorities and other development
agencies prefer to wok with independent regional offices such
as the RABs. They respect the autonomy of the RABs in their support
of the arts at a local level and would prefer to deal with administrators
who understand this unique perspective.
Furthermore, the proposals raise one very difficult
question. How could regional partnerships which differ so widely
from one area of England to another be taken account of in national
strategies?
Area 3:
WILL THE
PROPOSALS ADDRESS
ISSUES RAISED
IN THE
INITIAL CONSULTATION
CONCERNING REGIONAL
INFLUENCE AND
DECISION-MAKING?
The role for local and regional government on
the new regional councils and in relation to the national governing
body
It makes good sense for local government to
be included on the regional councils of the new organisation.
In addition, in our view, each regional council should include
at least one representative from the voluntary sector. Furthermore,
if the national governing body is made up of representatives from
the new regional councils, then at least one of these at a national
level should be a representative from the voluntary sector.
The decision-making role for the regions in relation
to regularly funded organisations and flexible funds
It is not clear how this position would be affected
by the proposals of Working Together. There are, however,
many unsubstantiated assertions in the proposals about approaches
such as "light touches", "simplified processes"
and so on. It would seem difficult to adopt these approaches and
maintain them across the new organisation and also to give proper
flexibility to the regions in their decision making.
The appointment of regionally nominated chairs
of the new regional councils to the national governing body of
the new organisation
This proposal makes good sense for a new organisation
and will help to maintain a dialogue with the regional councils
at the highest level. However, we would envisage that the role
undertaken by the regional nominated (volunteer) chairs would
be over demanding, particularly since they would be central to
both the regionally and central councils. Having a role so onerous
that it can only be undertaken by people with an enormous amount
of free time surely mitigates against equal opportunities—it
is difficult to envisage how anyone who is not either very rich
or retired will be able to participate.
Bringing regional and national considerations
together at the heart of decision-making for the national body
as a whole
It is not clear how the proposals of Working
Together will necessarily achieve this. Making Music feels
that what would bring together regional and national considerations
to make this happen is the will to do it, rather than a need to
change the current system to form a new organisation.
OTHER POINTS
"Three principal constituencies" (p
6)
There is a fourth constituency, namely those
people currently working within the funding system, which remains
unconsidered by this chapter. If these proposals result in a loss
of expertise and morale within the existing organisations, the
new organisation will suffer greatly and so will its many clients.
"The Arts Council provides the central focus
for effective negotiation and liaison with government, with other
national and international agencies and with representative local
government bodies. It also acts as an advocate for the arts as
a whole in a manner that commands national media attention"
(p 9)
Making Music sadly disagrees that the Arts Council
in its present form acts as an effective advocate for the arts.
In recent years, national media attention focused on the Arts
Council has not been beneficial but has associated the arts with
major difficulties that it will take many years to overcome in
the consciousness of the general public. Indeed, it is not clear
exactly what the Arts Council advocates on behalf of the arts
to the public. If the general public is one of the chief beneficiaries
of the Arts Council work then it would be helpful to have a strategy
in place to demonstrate what this activity is to achieve and why.
"Many of the problems spring directly from
the fact that the system has eleven independent constituent parts.
Among the ten RABs themselves, achieving unanimity on any particular
question which may arise for them as a group can be a time-consuming
process . . ." (p 10)
Making Music feels that it may be difficult
to achieve unanimity between the RABs but this is not as a consequence
of their independence. The fact that it is time-consuming to achieve
consensus on any particular question is not a reason for the abolition
of the participants. An alternative method of achieving unanimity
could be to identify stricter lines of responsibility and autonomy.
The need for reform (chapter X, pp 10-12)
This is an accurate description of the system
at present. However, it is an indictment of the people employed
by the Arts Council and RABs and their overall performance rather
than the system itself. It is disappointing that the issues described
in this chapter can be raised about the arts funding system without
many voices being raised in opposition.
Making Music feels that it might have been more
beneficial to have examined a range of options for restructuring
the system (eg the options put forward by the Chief Executives
of the RABs following the publication of A prospectus for change),
instead of the Arts Council determinedly pursuing its own solution
against all others.
Similarly, the fact that the RABs are not accountable
to parliament could be fixed fairly simply: make them accountable
to parliament!
"However, the Arts Council is firmly of the
view that, as long as legal separation continues, the system is
unlikely either to satisfy the requirement for greater integration
of policy, planning and process or to provide a basis for effective
leadership of the whole . . ." (p 13)
Why? There is little or no evidence for this
assertion. It is not clear that merely creating one new legal
structure will necessarily deliver the integration of policy,
planning and process and indeed effective leadership that are
laudable enough aims of this document. A large-scale cultural
and procedural shift will be necessary.
"The Arts Council is absolutely determined
that the new organisation should remain devoted to serving the
interests of all arts organisations whatever their scale and wherever
they may be based" (p 14)
Making Music wholeheartedly welcomes this statement.
However, it is not our experience, unfortunately, that the Arts
Council is especially good at "serving the interests of all
arts organisations", particularly voluntary ones. The culture
of the new organisation must be able to reflect the best practice
espoused by the stronger RABs, particularly with respect to the
voluntary arts, and from the outlined proposals it is not clear
exactly what form the "absolute determination" will
take.
The executive directors . . . (p 16)
It is our opinion that such a complex matrix
management structure as described on this page would be very difficult
to implement. What is needed here, as in other areas, are clearer
lines of responsibility between the centre and the regions, whatever
the legal structure. Furthermore, it is our experience that good
regional players do not necessarily make for good national strategists
and at the very least, there is potential for major regional/national
conflict within the proposed structure.
National/regional roles (p 18)
Whilst welcoming the principle of subsidiarity
which this section appears to endorse, it must be said that there
is a danger of compromising any potential cost savings by having
such duplication.
Decisions of the organisation (p 19)
However can this be achieved within the context
of guaranteeing autonomy for the regions?
Regional partnerships (p 20)
We welcome the fact that the new organisation
will preserve the regions' existing ability to develop partnerships,
although see our comments on p 7 above.
Clearly benefits are to be had from making the
current English regions co-terminous with the other regional development
agencies. Also, this would work well in the event of the government
continuing in its programme of setting up devolved government
within England.
We agree that there would need to be at least
two offices in a new Southern region to cover the vast geographic
area and also to serve the large population. Also Making Music
is quite concerned about the absorption of Cumbria into a new
North West region. Apart from the danger that all of the funding
for the arts would be swallowed up by the metropolitan south of
the new region, the extremely rural areas in Cumbria would probably
be better served by remaining part of the more rural Northern
region.
The final sentence of this section hardly presages
an organisation keen to listen to comments from the key constituents
it has so readily espoused earlier in the document.
Enhanced capacity and simplified process (chapter
X, pp 22-24)
Many of the ideas in this section are completely
unsubstantiated. We agree that "enhanced capacity and simplified
process" cannot be achieved through structural change alone.
What form will the additional changes take and what is to stop
them being taken within the current structure?
A national pool of specialist advisers (p 24)
There is no reason that we can see why regional
advisers should be abolished. How would a national pool be able
to reflect regional and cultural differences and in what way would
a national advisory system offer improvements over the current
position?
Some aspects of transition (p 27)
To suggest that the total restructuring of a
£500 million business can be achieved in a matter of months
seems to us to be ambitious. A company of this size—even
one run by Gerry Robinson—would typically take two or three
years to integrate all the functions effectively and that ignores
the need for consultation and consensus that the Arts Council
has rather late in the day acknowledged.
Furthermore, in order to effect the required
cultural change for the new organisation, great care should be
given to personnel changes, with a plan of open recruitment for
the regional executive directors in particular.
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