The Stage

Welsh assembly wants councils to have legal duty to fund arts

Published Thursday 3 February 2011 at 10:40 by Natalie Woolman

All local authorities in Wales should have a legal responsibility to support arts and culture, according to a report published today by the National Assembly for Wales.

The recommendation that the Welsh Assembly Government introduces a new measure imposing a “statutory duty” on local authorities to support culture in their areas is one of 16 published by the National Assembly for Wales’ Communities and Culture Committee, which launched an inquiry into accessibility of the arts in Wales last summer. The national assembly holds WAG to account, in the same way that select committees do in Westminster.

It states: “[We] consider that a duty on local authorities to support arts and cultural experiences would entail a requirement for all local authorities to provide a clear account of their existing expenditure on arts and cultural experiences, and the intended outcomes of such expenditure.

“We also anticipate that this would entail minimum standards for the accessibility of arts and cultural activities for people with disabilities.”

Committee member Dai Lloyd said any such statutory requirement would include a duty to fund arts and culture, although he said that would be “very much in the detail” if WAG was to take up the committee’s recommendations.

Speaking to The Stage, Lloyd added: “There would be general qualifying criteria, much like local authorities’ service agreements to provide social care – they can get it in from various charities and voluntary sector providers, provided you rise to a certain level of agreed performance, excellence and quality.

“We would be looking, then, that there would be some guarantee of funding there. Not a total guarantee of all funding, because that would be unrealistic, but this is an attempt to actually get statutory authorities in Wales to consider and to take arts and culture seriously.”

The report also recommends that WAG “continues to prioritise supporting the development of arts and cultural experiences (including those taking place within ‘community venues’) over and above the development of new ‘purpose-built’ arts venues”.

Lloyd said this recommendation was due to the “rurality” of Wales and the sparsity of its population in some areas.

Meanwhile, the Arts Council of Wales came under fire for some aspects of its recent investment review, during which it announced a new portfolio of 71 revenue-funded organisations, axing its core support to 32 organisations beyond April 2011.

The report states that the arts council’s feedback to some of the organisations that had their funding stopped “was not robust or clear”. It adds that “the evidence of our inquiry suggests that there was insufficient consideration of the geographic implications of the investment review”.

The National Assembly for Wales’ Petitions Committee is currently considering cases submitted by Theatre in Education companies – including Gwent Theatre – whose funding has been axed.

In response to the loss of these TIE companies, the new report recommends “ACW continues to prioritise the development of a strategy for children, young people and the arts as urgent”.