‘Do you really think that British politicians don’t care about the Arts?’ and ‘What do we want?- A Wish List’.

Convenor: Amelia

Summary:

- No funding cuts

- Let the arts deliver other policies outside the arts policies- embed us in health, education, economy, employment etc.

- The Arts Council to be less wary of commercialism- it is not always a dirty word.

- More sharing of resources between arts organisations.

- Experts in each of the art forms to deliver funding. Job swaps and sabbaticals for Arts Council relationship managers.

- Job swaps between venue managers and small companies

- Funders to encourage and value risk taking.

- Funders to uphold the importance of access and inclusion.

- Encourage diversity by distributing government funding not solely through the Arts Council. Could DCMS give to trusts and foundations?

- ACE officers to train local authority funders.

- A target of number of performances that ACE officers have to see.

- National roll out of the ‘percent for arts’ scheme where building developers must set aside a certain amount of their budget for supporting arts in new communities.

- Performing Arts to be on the national curriculum at key stage 3 as a subject in its own right, not part of English.

- Extension of existing Creative Partnerships to place more artists in schools.

We then got into a bigger, ideological discussion about why every time a new government comes in we have to have to re-establish the importance of the arts. We agreed that as artists we have not made the case to the British public/government that the arts are an incontestable social good.


We discussed advertising campaigns for Theatre as a whole and confidence in speaking out in defence of theatre and the arts.


Jonathan Holmes (jon) is collecting email addresses of anyone who might be interested in joining a policy group that could work on delivering the ideas which have come out of the Arts Campaign D&Ds.

If Change Funding Where From?

Convenor: Liz Porter

Summary

I called this session as I am concerned that if the Conservatives get in, the Arts Council will become even smaller and I’m concerned we will lose disability arts and that if fear of change. Fear that there will be less support for individuals, lots of pressure to look for corporate funding.

If ACE cut there will be a lack of understanding and would local authorities understand access, how they assess expertise around disability and access issues.

Will we have to tick more boxes?

High levels of competition for small pots of funding

What kind of work is being done? How can we get ACE to tell us (collect statistics)

Convenor: David James

Summary:

1- The Tories want to push the "American" system of corporate sponsorship/patronage. How do we ensure that this is a partner (Vs a replacement) for Government funding?

2- MPs (from any party) DO want to know how/what is being funded in their patch (ACE, LA, Corporate etc). Who will tell them?
These can be used to lobby for further support- or point out areas of weakness

3- Many parliamentary 'groups' (football, beer, to cite obvious cases) are corporately funded. How can we appeal to parliamentarians to get them more actively involved and passionate about the arts?

059 ACE new Vision and Goals – Let’s make them better

Convener: dee
Participants: About 5 then second wave of 4

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
Question came out of deep misgivings about the above but no rationale to support that feeling.
Vision and goals were read out.

Comments included;

ACE re-structuring again (3rd time in last 12 years?) - they want new business models for the “industry” when they can’t even work one out for themselves.

What the hell is a “relationship manager” supposed to be?

Document is woolly and oily. Goals are not really goals.

What’s wrong with the 1967 charter where Arts Council exists to
“develop and improve knowledge understanding and practice of the arts”
“increase accessibility of the arts to the public throughout Great Britain”
“advise and co-operate with Government Dept’s, Local Authorities on any matters concerned , whether directly or indirectly, with the forgoing objectives.

ADVOCACY IS A VITAL ROLE FOR ACE (consensus around this one) who should aim with all of us to raise the arts in the prioritiy list for Government and Local Authorities. That should be a goal. Our audiences are clearer about value of the arts than ACE.

It looks like a document that is preparing for cuts.

In Ireland NGO funding has been cut and they await outcomes for arts funding.
Eastern European companies see taking state funding as colluding with the state – artists there work all the time and live frugally.

There has to be an Arts Council and it appears to have to spend money and time justifying and defending decisions – mostly to artists.

Most successful theatre culture’s support long term development of ensembles.

A suggestion was discussed: Big RFO’s (National/RSC plus???) should have ten years funding then none – they have brand and connections enough to float on their own. No organization should have more than 50% of costs funded.

Someone thought ACE corrupt.

ACE has no organizational memory – mistakes repeated and good models not shared.

OVER ALL
No particular consensus – the issues are so complicated and the ACE culture so entrenched probably best to fight with devotion to getting on with making theatre.