THE ARTS: The Arts Council has begun its controversial restructuring.Belinda McKeon asks leading figures what they expect from it
As readers of the appointments pages will have noticed, the controversial increase in full-time staff at the Arts Council, from 13 to 45, has begun. And as readers of Arts Matters, the council's newsletter, will have observed, the boosted ranks are part of a restructuring drive that will transform communication between the council and the arts sector.
As Patricia Quinn, the council's director, puts it, the council "has moved away from case-by-case consideration of individual grants towards policy and priority-setting, with its eye very clearly on the public benefit".
Accordingly, the council's role as a funding body has been separated from its role as artistic policy adviser, in line with the emphasis of the Arts Plan 2002-2006 on the council's role as a development agency. The old system, whereby an arts organisation consulted the officer with responsibility for its art form, has been replaced by one under which three new departments will deal with arts development, programming and policy.
When it comes to funding, the new point of contact for an artist or arts organisation may no longer be an expert in the field; it could be one of four programme managers assigned to the broader areas of resource and service organisations, production venues, and events and festivals. In consultation with the arts-policy department, which will provide specialist advice, the programme manager will report to the arts-programme director, John O'Kane, to shape the final decision on grant-aid and other support.
Matters of policy will be directed by Seamus Crimmins, former head of Lyric FM; a third department, arts development, will work towards implementing the arts plan's strategy on public participation in and engagement with the arts, with managers dealing with local, youth, community and amateur programmes.
Although some appointments are still to be made, the system should be fully operational by next month, calling for a mammoth effort of adjustment - and acceptance - from existing Arts Council staff, with the most senior new positions being filled largely by external recruitment rather than internal promotion.
And what of the arts sector? Is it ready for the new executive? Quinn maintains that both this arts plan and its predecessor signalled these changes and that the increased professional input represents "the kind of time, attention and range of expertise that people have in fact been asking for".
But as many in the arts testify, there is concern and a good deal of confusion on the ground. Concern, for example, that the loss of one-on-one relationships with art-form officers will only exacerbate the impersonality and distance of which the council has been accused in the past. Concern that the new structure will serve bureaucracy rather than creativity. Confusion about how much influence the arts specialists will have on funding decisions. Confusion about the criteria for qualitative assessment of artistic work.
Yet there is optimism, too, and hope; even a trace of faith, which is surprising, given the recent blitz of cuts. Twelve months, says Quinn, will be a fair interval within which the restructured executive can be expected to establish itself and begin to achieve results; by then, the new council itself will be in place.
Over the next 12 months, these prominent members of the arts community will be watching with interest.
Gerry Godley, Improvised Music Company:
"It's early days yet, and this restructuring and its aspirations deserve the benefit of the doubt. But there is a cruel irony for the sector: the Arts Council is increasing its own administration and staffing with a view to serving its client organisations better at a time when client organisations are looking at curtailing their own administration and staffing. And a cruel irony for the council, too, I think. They could be looking at the situation of, a year from now, having a slick, dynamic mechanism to serve organisations, many of which will be withering on the vine because of the deteriorating economic situation.
"Since the Arts Council has clearly decided that the development-agency route is the way to go, it might become something akin to other developmental agencies in this country. But these organisations have a clear way to assess their impact, such as so many trees planted, and the critical thing is for the Arts Council to have a set of criteria with which to quantify the success of its own policies."
Natalie Weadick, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny:
"The creation of policy and strategy is very important. But the timing is awful, and policy and strategy seem very abstract terms. Most of us want an agency to support us financially and to advise us rather than for policy to be dictated down to us. If it is going to be a two-way process, then we need to be told. We get three-page letters introducing us to this new system, but there is very little about how it will benefit us, where we fit into it and when we are to contact the various people in the new structure. There is a myriad of questions. We desperately seek clarity from the council."
Alan Foley, Cork City Ballet:
"I don't have a problem with the council being a development agency, if it works. But I am concerned at the apparent lack of recruitment into the structure of people from outside, by which I mean outside the country, outside the scene, people who will be able to look objectively at the disciplines and able to make decisions which will not help their friends along the way. I am so frustrated with the Arts Council that I don't care what they do, as long as the people they put into the decision-making positions know the disciplines they are dealing with and are not just there for personal advancement."
Jerome Hynes, Wexford Festival Opera:
"I think there is an awful lot of centring on the Arts Council structure rather than on the funding required by individual artists or companies. I worry that a great degree of time and energy and talk has gone into structure rather than facilitating the arts. That said, I don't think that we should not analyse structure. The council has to put together a system that works internally for them and also facilitates the production of art. So potentially it is a positive thing. The question is, will it bear fruit, will it facilitate artists and facilitate the relationship between artists and audience members rather than just serving administrative effect?
Jim Culleton, Fishamble Theatre Company:
"The structure looks impressive, but we are waiting to see how it works in actuality. It looks impressive but is potentially confusing. I am surprised by the ambitious nature of it. There is a worry all right, looking at the diagram in Arts Matters, that things, as the arrows suggest, could go around and around. And there is a question about how the work will be assessed qualitatively.
"It is very reassuring to see that the council is going to be providing arts- development services to the Government and the arts sector. With the help and support of the Arts Council, we have developed successfully as an organisation. But we fundamentally need the financial support to allow the art to happen."
Karen Fricker, Irish Theatre Magazine:
"It is clear that there is a lot of excitement within the Arts Council that this restructuring will solve many problems and is the only way forward. But there is a feeling abroad in the arts community, which I would share, that too much energy is going into promoting the council and feeding its internal structure and not enough into what is, after all, the agency's raison d'être: to fund the arts.
"Five years after multi-annual funding was introduced, we still have no understood and agreed-on artistic criteria for why grants are given to some artists, projects and companies and not others, and that the council continues to do business under such conditions is a public scandal.
"My feeling would be that for anyone who goes to work at the council, it would be necessary to acknowledge that there is a profound breakdown of communication and understanding between the council and its client base and that huge work has to be done to rebuild trust."
Mark Mulqueen, Film Institute of Ireland:
"I think I know exactly what they've done; you get used to the language. It is potentially an improvement. But I think these movements were what the Arts Council needed four years ago, when it was trying to bring in multi-annual funding, but they were delayed. And the shortcomings which have been felt on both sides are a consequence of that. These new people are justified; it was just bad luck that the staff increases came in at the same time as a retraction in public funding. If these changes were not made, we would not even be getting what we are getting. But people will only be happy with the mechanism as long as they get the end result."
Mary Moynihan, Smashing Times Theatre Company:
"I can't even say if it is a good thing, because I haven't been told enough about it, which is a constant thing with the Arts Council. People will understand more if the council communicates its decision-making process to them.
"I feel that there has grown a huge gap. The arts plan promised some good things, like access, yet we did not get revenue funding because we were extending access so far as to include the community in our work.
"Having more people is a good thing if there are more people to come out and see the work and the process of making the work. They should sit down with the community and show us that they are for us, at a local level, not against us."
Mike Diskin, Town Hall Theatre, Galway:
"I had a good laugh at the letter which told me where my new 'point of advice' was in the Arts Council. It has been a very long time since I rang the council for advice. There is no perception on our part that they are experts.
"My own feeling is that the people in there at the moment don't like the grubby work of dealing with grants and of making us work harder and better for our grant. They seem to think they are about coming up with fancy new policies, so they push the grubby work into a new department and go back to doing what they want to do. But if they can't do their basic job, they should not move on to other areas."
Michael O'Brien, O'Brien Press:
"It's a bit like the Holy Ghost: you don't get to see it or understand it. It would be good to put faces on these job descriptions. And the big thing is that the people in the council must understand exactly what the people they are dealing with do - by coming into publishing houses, in our case, and meeting publishers. I would like to meet Patricia Quinn, to share the knowledge of what I do. I know, though, that they are understaffed; I have witnessed people vastly overworked. I think it deserves a fair chance."
Toby Dennett, Sculptors' Society of Ireland:
"I was asking here if anyone remembered being consulted about this, but no one does. It's the nature of these things, though; it is probably contained in some report and is only happening now.
"What I do find a little strange is that anyone who has responsibility for artistic decisions seems no longer to be an Arts Council employee but a consultant. The decision-making in terms of policy is thus one step removed from the client.
"Perhaps this means more independence for the arts specialists, but does it mean that the Arts Council is not wanting to take an artistic stance itself?
"I just hope this is more of an administrative change than a change in direction."
