The Stage

Wales’ arts bypass

Published Friday 3 December 2004 at 11:10 by Cathryn Scott

The news that the Welsh Assembly is poised to take over the Arts Council of Wales signals the demise of arm’s length funding and could strike a blow at the independence of the UK’s funding bodies. Cathryn Scott discovers why many are worried that government taking back power from arts councils may affect which projects reach the stage

When Rhodri Morgan, first minister of the Welsh Assembly Government, announced that all Assembly sponsored public bodies - or quangos - would be dissolved and their duties absorbed by WAG, it signalled a welcome end to the bureaucracy that has surrounded organisations such as the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Tourist Board.

But the news that this could extend to include the Arts Council of Wales, National Museums and Galleries of Wales and The National Libraries of Wales came as a great shock, with virtually all arts organisations in the principality opposed to the proposals.

An arts council has existed in Wales since 1950, firstly as part of the Arts Council of Great Britain and latterly as the independent Arts Council of Wales since 1994. As well as increasing the awareness and accessibility of arts in the region, ACW finances organisations with both grant-in-aid money from the Assembly and Lottery funding from the UK government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

But that could all change when the Assembly announces later this month whether it will dissolve the ACW and take over its duties. Unsurprisingly, the ACW has great doubts about the proposals. Top of the list, according to Iestyn Davies, ACW’s head of communications, is the impact this would have on freedom of expression. If the Assembly took over the ACW it would effectively be a form of arts patronage but without the arm’s length principle the council has always worked under.

“The only way you can have direct government sponsorship of the arts is if you have direct government support for arts legislation,” he says. “But that would need to be an act of primary legislation and the Assembly [which only has secondary legislation powers] wouldn’t be able to pass that law.” He also thinks it unlikely that the UK government would introduce such a bill.

Peter Doran, artistic director of Torch Theatre, Milford Haven, adds: “If a young playwright, for example, applied to the arts council for a grant he would be judged on the quality of his work. If his last play had been anti-establishment, would the Assembly feel it could give that person a grant?”

Val Hill, administrative director of the Cardiff based Hijinx Theatre, worries the move would affect the type of projects staged.

“Will we all find ourselves generating theatre to get funding, trying to make projects to fit the funding that is there depending on the priorities of ministers?” she asks.

Long term planning, she says, would be impossible. “We commission new plays, so we’re already thinking about 2006 and 2007. Where does that leave us if there is an election half way through and priorities change?”

There are also concerns about Lottery funding. As a government body the assembly could not administer this money.

“Torch is a good example of the benefits of a one stop shop,” says Doran. “We had a lottery grant of £3 million to redevelop the theatre but this was a decision made in line with what we were doing work-wise. If two separate bodies are making different decisions you could end up with money for theatres but not have any for the shows.”

Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre is one of two Welsh organisations, along with Rubicon Dance, that has charitable status with the ACW as trustee. This is another duty the assembly would be unable to adopt. “I’m not sure how it would work under these proposals,” says artistic director Phil Clark, adding that the theatre would have to find a new trustee.

There could also be a serious impact on staff, warns Davies, as ACW salaries are currently paid for with a combination of lottery and grant-in-aid money. “If the assembly wanted to take on board our senior officer for music because of his expertise, for example, they would need to find grant-in-aid to make up the Lottery part of the salary,” he explains. “This role would also need to be duplicated for the body that administers lottery money.”

The assembly will not comment on the proposals until the final announcement is made. However, in its favour it has shown an increased commitment to the arts - last month’s draft budget showed an extra £35 million available to arts, sports and the Welsh language, on top of a £2 million package to fund arts projects outside Cardiff, although this money is administered by the ACW, to complement the money it has given to Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre.

Doran thinks it could also put pressure on local governments to better fund arts. “The arts council can’t put pressure on councils to match its funding, but the Assembly could say ‘that’s your allocation and that’s how you will spend it’ now it is discretionary,” he says.

Janek Alexander, director of Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff, said: “If politicians understood more what things cost they might agree higher public subsidy of the arts.”

Above all, there is a fear that the progress the Arts Council of Wales has made since 1994 could be undone.

“For so long there was never a period of calm where we could get on with it,” says Doran. “Things have changed since 2000’s Assembly-commissioned report into ACW, which recommended more transparency and accountability.

“To disband now, when we’ve finally got something we, the arts, are happy with, would be a very expensive, lengthy process with no guarantee we would end up with anything better.

“And if things change again in four years time, I don’t think the arts have the stamina to cope.”