APPENDIX 35
Memorandum submitted by South East Arts
THE REFORM OF THE ARTS COUNCIL
On 15 March 2001 the Arts Council of England
unexpectedly announced its intention to initiate a major re-organisation
of the arts funding structures. These proposals were published
in the document Prospectus for Change and followed up in
Working Together for the Arts. At the heart of the Prospectus
proposals is the creation of a single, new national arts development
organisation. The change would be achieved by amalgamating the
existing eleven organisations—ACE plus the 10 Regional Arts
Boards. This would create a new single organisation to support
the arts.
It is the intention to replace the currently
independent RABs by nine regional offices of the national body.
These would be based on the Government Office regions in line
with cabinet office directive. In southern England, this change
would result in the existing Southern Arts area being divided
between the South East and South West regions.
South East Arts recognise that the initial announcements
and developments demonstrated a far from perfect process. However
it is the duty of the Board to fully investigate such opportunities
to ascertain whether they are in the best interest of the company.
South East Arts is not averse to change. We have not been substantial
beneficiaries of the status quo, despite recent improvements,
and we are therefore more than willing to consider alternatives.
This view has been echoed by our regional colleagues, artists
and arts organisations who also recognise the potential benefits
of the Arts Council's proposals to the region.
The south east is a creative region, but it
is not a region with the traditional portfolio of resources. It
is a region of small companies and creative individuals, or unconventional
approaches and unexpected interventions. The fact that its profile
is so different from other regions is both a strength and a weakness.
The artistic context of the region is thriving in many ways, but
it is thriving against the odds. The current funding climate works
against the region, leading to "institutionalised arrested
development" in many cases. We are doing so much, but there
is so much more we could do.
This under investment in the creative infrastructure
of the south east has been recognised by government and more recently
by the Arts Council of England. The Secretary of State for Culture,
Media and Sport acknowledged the following at the opening of South
East Arts' offices in November 1998:
"There has been an historic under proportion
of funding going to the South East region . . . We are putting
more money into the arts over the course of the next three years
and insisting that a considerable proportion goes to the regions,
and the south east gets at least its fair share."
Yet as we approach 2002-03, despite attempts
to shift the balance, SEA remains more than £3.2 million
poorer, in cash terms, than the next-worst funded RAB. We acknowledge
that regional allocations have been built up historically, and
that regional funding is not amenable to straight division by
10. However, attempts in the current system to address the situation
in relation to core funding have not yet made a real impact on
the differentials. We believe that a new arts funding system,
with increased regional delegation and refigured boundaries, will
enable the southeast to positively address regional inequalities
with greater authority.
Independent research has been commissioned by
Southern Arts, South West Arts and South East Arts to look at
the proposition of making arts development agencies boundaries
coterminous with the standard Government office boundaries. This
research, undertaken by the Institute of Local Government Studies
(INLOGOV) at Birmingham University, in association with Professor
John Mawson, Warwick Business School and David Gregory, supported
the Arts Council's proposals in regard to the making the arts
regions coterminous with the government planning regions, and
further recommended one regional council within the south east.
The Government office of the South East boundary (with the land-mass
of Kuwait and the population size, and GDP, of Austria) is indeed
a large region, but one with tremendous opportunities for development.
The research reported that realignment of the regional council
to this boundary would be enormously beneficial. For the first
time the south east would have a strong voice on regional strategy,
a far more authoritative national voice, much improved co-ordination
and authority with Government regional offices, the Regional Development
Agency and other regional partners, and the potential for greater
specialist expertise and quality of service.
A further impetus for change is the need for
the arts to relate effectively to the wider social agenda. Though
regional arts boards have for many years been successful in supporting
projects which have tackled social and cultural inequalities,
the record of the funding system as a whole has not been as coherent
or effective as it might have been. Though the new system is
still untested, we are optimistic that within a single organisation,
cultural diversity can be better celebrated and social inequities
more effectively tackled. New projects such as Creative Partnerships
(supporting the arts in education) and the Diversity Project will
be early tests of the effectiveness of the new organisation in
this regard.
At the time of writing South East Arts Board
has not taken a formal decision on the proposed merger. However,
since the announcements last year South East Arts has been constructively
working with the Arts Council and its regional and national colleagues
in order to have as much input as possible into what has come
to be known by the working title of "FutureOrg". It
seems apparent that were the current system working effectively
to the benefit of the Boards, their artists, arts organisations
and audiences, then neither the Arts Council nor any of the Regional
Arts Boards would have invested so much time and energy into developing
a alternative system—irrespective of how this initially
came about.
16 January 2001
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