McMaster appeals for greater funding review involvement from arts groups

Published Tuesday 29 April 2008 at 15:50 by Lalayn Baluch

Former Edinburgh International Festival chief Brian McMaster has called for arts organisations to have more say about how they are reviewed for funding and who they are assessed by.

He also insisted that companies receiving public support needed to be evaluated for the sake of the taxpayer, but added it was up to the Treasury to decide how often this happened and to ensure that it did not stifle the arts.

Speaking at a debate about the peer review process at Sadler’s Wells, McMaster reiterated the importance of the role of the practitioner - a point which he initially raised in his government-commissioned review into excellence in the arts, earlier this year.

McMaster said: “Self-assessment is absolutely crucial, because you will express what you are setting out to achieve. The artist is ultimately the best person to communicate about the work.”

He added he believes that peers should be individually selected for the particular organisation they are assessing, in agreement with arts organisations. This point was echoed by Phoenix Dance Theatre artistic director Javier de Frutos, who said reviewers must have a solid understanding of the company, its work and history, when deciding if it should receive funding.

McMaster also admitted that the most difficult aspect of the assessment process is practitioners having to tell one another that they are “crap”.

Siobhan Davies, artistic director and choreographer of Siobhan Davies Dance, added that funders should make a contribution to the arts, rather than exist to simply “ratify” the position of the artist to the taxpayer and government.