Exeter Northcott’s shake-up plans to include redundancies

Published Tuesday 7 October 2008 at 15:55 by Alistair Smith

Management at the Exeter Northcott Theatre has unveiled plans for a radical shake-up of the organisation which it believes will “revitalise” the venue and safeguard its future, but also lead to several staff redundancies.

The proposals, which have been put to employees this month and will be consulted on throughout October, will see 15 posts “discontinued”. While there will be 10 new roles open to existing staff who lose their jobs, there is no guarantee they will fill the posts and the total number of workers at the venue will be reduced from 59 to 54.

This means that, under the proposals, there will be - in effect - at least five redundancies and possibly more.

Chief executive Kate Tyrell, who was appointed earlier this year with a specific brief to reorganise the Northcott, stressed that the proposals were not a response to the funding crisis which the theatre faced at the end of last year, when it was threatened with the loss of its regular funding from Arts Council England. Subsidy was later restored.

She explained: “It’s not a response to the arts council’s decision. I think that just laid bare to the wider world that change was needed at the Northcott. The balance between how much work we produce and receive has changed. Like a great many other theatres who did a lot more producing ten years ago, the Northcott had to change the combination of what it does, but it hasn’t changed its staff structure to keep up with that. The structure has to catch up with what we’re doing now.

“There will be savings in terms of our fixed costs - between £70,000 and £100,000. The money we save will go into broadening our programme and creating more work.”

According to Tyrell, during the current transitional period the venue is producing around 30% of its work in house, although she hopes this will increase to 50% when the new staffing system is in place early next year.

Under the proposed structure, the company will not replace artistic director Ben Crocker, who left in August after more than ten years in charge. Instead, a creative director will be appointed.

“We don’t need an artistic director in the way that we have before,” added Tyrell, who joined the Northcott from the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, where she served as executive director “The post we’re going to appoint is a creative who will programme visiting companies , produce incoming companies and work with associate directors, who will direct the work.”

Bectu supervisory official Willy Donaghy, who is representing staff at the venue, said employees at the Northcott recognised that change was necessary and, while redundancies would be necessary, it was important to minimise the loss of jobs.

He said: “A little bit of hurt is better than closure. While the people who lose their jobs might not see it that way, we’ve got to look at the bigger picture. It’s about getting a staffing structure and a direction which safeguards everybody’s jobs going forward.”

But he said he was concerned at proposals to close down the venue’s wardrobe department. He added: “Hopefully we’ll be able to do something about that, because if it closes, that’s it. We want to try to keep that facility in house in some way, because if not, it certainly sounds a death knell for a producing theatre.”