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Arts Council England responds to the publication of Marc Sidwell's report for the New Culture Forum.

The New Culture Forum has missed important opportunities – for a proper analysis of arts funding and of the challenges that lie ahead, and a proper debate about how the Arts Council can continue to change and improve its relationships with artists.

The report is hampered and its analysis called into question by some basic errors and highly misleading factual inaccuracies. For instance, the report attests that the Arts Council’s administrative costs have increased, whereas the opposite is true. After the merger with regional arts boards, Arts Council running costs were reduced from 10% to 7% of total income. Current running costs stand at 6.6% of income and following the organisational review are set to reduce to 5.5%, saving an extra £6.5m a year.

Nor have staff numbers increased. The 168 quoted in the report refers only to the National arts council body in 1994, and does not include the Regional Arts Boards. Just prior to the merger in 2003 there were 679 people working for the combined Arts Council and Regional Arts Boards. Current staff numbers for Arts Council England stand at 622 and are set to reduce to 473 by April 2010.

The report seems to suggest that cuts in government funding of the arts would be a good thing. It also creates a naïve recipe for bureaucracy by proposing:

- at least 18 new quangos – nine separate regional arts councils, Ofart, Arts Council of the Air, Arts and Business, Crafts Council and the five national companies – if they stop there. NDPB status is determined by the independent Office of National Statistics and the determining factor is a direct financial relationship with Government

- an expansion of the civil service and a move from the British to the French system of direct political control of independent bodies

- the removal of around £40m of education money from the arts to the education system

- a splintering of the Arts Council back into small regional pockets without national scale

The New Culture Forum has spectacularly missed the point. It claims to want to reduce bureaucratic burdens on artists and then proposes massively increasing them.

No organisation can deny that it can improve and Arts Council England has been very clear in its desire, and the actions it is taking, to do just that. But this report ignores what we are doing to change and instead makes a critique that is years out of date.

It is ironic that the report twice quotes Sir Simon Rattle but fails to mention it is from 2001. That quotation, from Nicholas Kenyon’s biography, refers to a pre-merger Arts Council with independent Regional Arts Boards, and goes to the heart of how the Arts Council had to change at the time and is continuing to change.

Taken in full context, Sir Simon was attempting to convince the Arts Council that ambition for the CBSO needed to go beyond the region in which it was based. He had a point. That’s why the Arts Council changed in 2002, that’s what led to the Arts Council injecting cash and expertise into all the orchestras, from the RLPO to the London Orchestras, who are now in rude health.

Today’s Arts Council will never allow artistic ambition to be smothered by a smallness of vision. We are committed to becoming a new kind of public sector organisation that ignites ambition and allows extraordinary things to happen, with a minimum amount of bureaucracy.

In order for excellence in the arts to fly, for genius and beauty to flourish, Arts Council England will always need to make hard decisions about artistic priorities and how we fund ambition. That’s our job – one for which we will never be popular, but one which we are determined to do in a sophisticated, intelligent and economical way.

Link to 'The Arts Council - Managed to Death' report - http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/548