I see this as a useful document which raises important issues. One could either look at this in a radical way or as a document that would improve the status quo. I would choose to look at it in a radical way. I have never been an enthusiast for the Arts Council's way of administering the arts, believing as I do that the arts should be an integral part of society.

I do not subscribe to the view that arts administration should be at "arm's length" from government, unless you believe art is something totally different from every aspect of society. If that was such a good way to run departments why not have an agricultural council running agriculture or a school's council running education? Interestingly, the only countries that have an Arts Council are either former colonies of Britain or Britain itself.

I think the Arts Council can be patronising. I believe it sees itself, or its members see themselves, philosophically, as art patrons and that they have a tendency to spend their money, taxpayers' money, on their own tastes. To say that a Ministry of Culture, well-staffed and well-resourced would be more open to corruption and being run with an amount of string-pulling, than a closed council, separate from government, would be naive in the extreme.

On the idea of a separate council for the traditional arts, I think it would be none too sensible to have a separate body. Would the Department of Agriculture set up a separate department for pigs? There would be nothing to stop a Minister establishing an advisory committee on traditional arts.