The Stage

Defiant ACW backs sacked chairman

Published Tuesday 28 March 2006 at 10:10 by Nuala Calvi

Arts Council of Wales board members have delivered a message of defiance to the country’s culture minister by voting for sacked chairman Geraint Talfan Davies to remain in his post until the review of arts funding in the country is completed.

At a meeting last week, ACW decided unanimously that Davies should stay on as interim chairman despite his opposition to minister Alun Pugh’s plans to take Wales’ six largest arts organisations out of the control of the arts council.

The appointment is however the decision of the minister, who is expected to announce by the end of the week who the interim chair will be. The permanent post has not yet been advertised publicly.

A statement from ACW said: “The Arts Council of Wales unanimously decided that the person best placed to lead the council through the current review as interim chair is the current chairman, Geraint Talfan Davies. The council also expressed a wish that the public appointments procedure be properly followed in appointing a new chair.

“The council will also be writing to the Commissioner for Public Appointments, the Charity Commissioners and the Wales Audit Office to seek further advice and to express its deep concern about the management of the appointment process to date.”

All three opposition parties’ culture spokesmen have signed a letter to the Commissioner for Public Appointments voicing their concern about the way the process was being handled, after reports that Pugh had approached ACW members directly to stand as the organisation’s vice chair.

Plaid Cymru’s shadow culture minister Owen John Thomas told The Stage: “After announcing that he was going to advertise the job of chair and that I would be involved in the recruitment process, he hasn’t done it. It’s legally binding under the royal charter that a chair must be appointed on April 1 when the present term of the chair comes to an end.”

In a statement, Minister Alun Pugh confirmed that he would be appointing an interim chair for ACW and that he or she would be in place by April 1.

“The appointment will be an interim arrangement - it needs to be an interim arrangement because of the review into the Arts Council of Wales,” he said. “It would not be sensible to make a permanent appointment while the review is ongoing. The interim arrangements will be made within the terms of the National Assembly for Wales Code of Practice for Ministerial Appointments to Public Bodies.”