Letter: A year of policy confusion at the Arts Council
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Among those institutions for which this has been an annus horribilis, the Arts Council of Great Britain must rank very high. Most of the damage to its credibility and national standing has been self-inflicted. The Government and the arts world do not often share opinions, but on this there is no dissension. The Arts Council has mishandled almost every job it could have mishandled.
The latest fiasco - the decision to cut altogether two London orchestras and the subsequent bizarre compromise - has left musicians and audiences united in their fury. The council must have assumed that the orchestras would grumble a bit and then proceed to cut each other's throats in customary fashion. That did not happen, thanks to the common sense of managers, players and the Association of British Orchestras. Instead, three members of the council's own music panel resigned and Sir Leonard Hoffmann, called in to do the dirty work, all but washed his hands of the whole affair.
However, the Arts Council's record was already disastrous. In the summer the drama panel revolted after its chairman, Lord Rix, had resigned over the scheme to scrap grants to several major regional theatres. Gyndebourne Touring Opera and the Poetry Society still languish under threat for no good reason. The National Arts Strategy, published after an absurdly expensive process, was dismissed as fatuous by everyone except local authorities.
The Department of National Heritage and the Arts Council themselves identified pounds 1.3m in the course of the year that could have been used for grants but instead was used for unnecessary administration. Yet they have completely failed to control the bureaucratic profligacy of the Regional Arts Boards, set up so recently in the name of integration and increased efficiency.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Arts Council meets in a special session to decide on its policy towards the orchestras. If its members do not wish to be made laughing- stocks for the rest of their careers, it should abandon the orchestral contest. It should review the performance of its officers over the last year. And it should agree that its job in future is to help the arts, not to run them - pounds 186m, its reduced grant for next year, is not enough to muck around with.
Yours faithfully,
SIMON MUNDY
Gladestry, Powys
7 December
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