Tory taskforce advocates government replaces ACE in arts funding control

Published Thursday 8 November 2007 at 13:30 by Alistair Smith

The Conservative Party’s Arts Taskforce has recommended the responsibility for funding England’s national performing arts companies be taken away from Arts Council England and transferred to central government.

The report, which has been headed by former Barbican Centre managing director John Tusa, also calls for longer term funding of arts organisations, with demands for ACE’s three-year funding cycle to be extended to a five-year period. It also recommends the findings of the Goodison Review into philanthropy be implemented to help increase the amount of private giving to the arts.

The most radical suggestion from the taskforce is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport should consider taking companies such as the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House away from the arts council.

This has already happened in Scotland, where organisations such as the National Theatre of Scotland are financed directly from the Scottish Executive. Similar moves in England have previously been resisted.

ACE chair Christopher Frayling said: “There are four reasons why direct government funding of the big arts organisations will not help them. They will be subject to more bureaucracy. They will find it more difficult to attract private and philanthropic support. Their programming will always be liable to government interference. Also they will lose their networks and artistic connections with the rest of the arts council funded arts community.

“It’ll be interesting to see if the Conservative Party accepts the recommendations. On the face of it, greater control by government would appear to be against Conservative philosophy.”

Both the NT and the RSC say they were not consulted as part of the Tory taskforce and the National’s artistic director Nicholas Hytner said he felt the concept of direct funding was “bad news”, adding he was not convinced there was a case for the flagship venue to be funded straight from government. Both he and RSC executive director Vikki Heywood stressed they were committed to the principle of arms-length funding for the arts.

Hytner told The Stage: “I have worked for continental opera companies whose funding comes direct from government. Bluntly, it comes with far more political interference and baggage than ours does. The arts council adds value to the national companies. There’s a productive two-way dialogue between us. Splitting us off would cause more bureaucracy and would waste time.

“I believe that the national organisations should be subject to the same criteria that are applied to others. If the arts council wants to discuss or develop a strategy - say, the development of new work - then it needs to look across the board, from BAC to the National. The splitting off of the national companies would achieve little but the weakening of the arts council - and that would be bad news for all of us.”

The Conservatives will now consider the report’s findings and decide which ones to take forward into the party’s manifesto and arts strategy. They have stressed not all suggestions will be adopted, for example they are not in favour of removing sport from the DCMS to create a Department of Culture.

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “John Tusa and the arts taskforce have put together a comprehensive and ambitious document and have brought a wealth of expertise and fresh thinking to arts policy. We’re very grateful for all their work putting this report together. In it there are many proposals that would reform the arts, some we support, some are aspirational, and some, such as the plans to move sport out of the DCMS, are not something we would support.

“However, as the first Party since the last election to undertake such a wide-ranging, independent review of the arts, this document will set the agenda for a wide debate about future Arts policy.”