At first glance, the Arts Council of Wales doesn’t seem so different from any of the other three national arts councils operating in the UK. It is a government-sponsored body (in this case, sponsored by the National Assembly for Wales), and it is responsible for distributing the National Lottery funds, allocated to it by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DMCS). Like the other councils, it is also responsible for the development of the arts. It advises the Assembly on arts issues and works across the country with a wide range of partners. Not so different at all.
All this, however, is going to change. Late last year, the Welsh Assembly announced that they were having a QUANGO bonfire. Wales had become inundated with inefficient, costly and gargantuan arms-length bureaucracies, and First Minister Rhodri Morgan wanted to see all of them go, including the Arts Council of Wales.
Morgan originally proposed to do away with the Council altogether – along with sixteen others – but found the Assembly’s powers did not in fact extend that far. So the Arts Council of Wales has lived to fight another day, but in what form? Morgan could not demolish the funding body, but he has proposed extensive changes. What, exactly, all these changes are is still not entirely known – nor is what their effect will be, nor when they will actually happen.
But we do know a few a things. The changes will most likely occur in April 2006, around the same time that the Welsh Development Agency goes through a similar process. The Arts Council of Wales will continue to distribute lottery funding to applicants all over Wales, mainly because lottery funding is a Westminster responsibility and therefore largely immune to the decisions of the assembly. But there will be some major changes.
The Arts Council’s original Royal Charter, written in 1994, set its aims down as the following: to develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and practise of the arts, to increase the accessibility of the arts to the public, to advise and co-operate with other public bodies and to work through the medium of Welsh and English.
Obviously, some of these aims can be realised through the funding of lottery grants, however there is an implicit element of policy here. On its inauguration, it was clear that Council was to take a hand – if not the hand – in Welsh Arts Policy, providing strategic direction for the sector – just like all the other Arts Councils in the UK do. This is without a doubt the most major change that the Arts Council of Wales will experience. Under Morgan’s “bonfire”, the Council will cease to be a policy body, reduced instead to a largely administrative one.
This curtailing of the Council’s powers has been consolidated even in its last bastion, funding. Whilst the Council will still hand out the smaller lottery and assembly grants, the biggest will be entirely under the provenance of the Assembly. The Welsh National Opera, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, literary body Welsh Academi, dance group Diversions, Clwyd Theatr Cymru and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru – all in receipt of entirely Welsh remits – will get their funding directly from the government, without Council input.
From a policy perspective, this obviously hampers the influence of the Council. Six of the most largely funded Arts bodies in Wales will now deal with the Assembly. It, and what they perceive it wants will shape the direction they take, and the direction they take will be the direction for much of the Welsh arts industry. The Council’s role as policy-maker will be diminished. From a financial perspective, this is also a blow. Funds that go towards those bodies make up roughly £8.2m of the Arts Council’s £23.5m grants budget – a huge proportion by any estimation.
So, if the Council isn’t going to be making Arts Policy, who will be? For the Assembly itself to take such an active role would require a fairly major investment of time, and they have already acknowledged the wasted skill-base that would result in an Arts Council diaspora. To combat this, a new Culture Board will be established. The board will be chaired by the minister, with members from the arts council, National Library, National Museums and Galleries, local government and the Welsh Books Council. The Culture board will advise the Assembly on Arts policy and direction, leaving the arts council is a predominantly administrative body.
So this is the probable face of the Welsh Arts Council and industry in the next few years. How have these changes been greeted? The response has been definitely mixed, though growing in opposition. Whilst acknowledging problems with the QUANGO structure and within the Council itself, people are worried that the abolition of an arms-length body will effectively politicise the arts in Wales.
The Conservative culture spokeswoman, Lisa Francis, said, ‘The distribution of grants to arts and artists should not be subjected to political interference. This principle is important for the public, for the arts and actually for proper government as well.’ Interestingly, though, her rhetoric was not really in evidence when the idea was raised in the Assembly. Little dissent was heard at the time, and this begs the question of how committed either party are to the council’s current structure.
Within the industry, however, there is a lot of trepidation. Chris Ryde, the national organiser for Equity said:
‘The arms length principle needs to be protected. That is the long and short of the argument. To anyone who has any doubts I would ask the question: What is going to happen when the first play deeply critical of the ruling Welsh Government appears and is taken off after the Culture Minister threatens to withhold the grant?’
Magnus Linklater, writing in The Times, said: ‘This reform is as damaging as it is insidious. It means that political expediency will take the place of independent decision-making in the arts.’
Kevin Morgan, a professor of Cardiff University wrote a damning piece on the proposed moves, with the politicisation of the arts as its lynch-pin. Morgan’s argument was that the biggest problem with the QUANGOs as they stood was the secretive and possibly bias public appointment processes, and inefficient regulation. His opinion is that bringing the bodies closer to government will only exacerbate these problems.
Either way, the entire relationship between the arts and the government in Wales is set to change. What these changes will mean is still open to debate, but it is a debate we should participate in, and observe most keenly.
What happens in Wales in the near future could be a sign of things to come. Scotland’s cultural commission is yet to report back on their examination of the future of arts funding in the country, and the Art Council of England has just undergone a very public funding freeze. The success or not of the Welsh model could have ramifications that go beyond the country’s borders. How the Welsh Arts Council will fare with these changes may be a portent for the arts industry all over the UK.
