Excellence! How So?
Feature Article || Monday, 14 January, 2008
By Michelle Lefevre
Reports are curious things. In government terms they are sometimes put together by appropriately skilled people for virtuous reasons and then promptly ignored by the powers that be for about ten years. The politicians will usually agree with what's in the report but in politics words speak far louder than action.
After spending many years overseeing the Edinburgh Festival, Brian McMaster, Sir Brian to his friends, was commissioned to write a report by the Department of Culture Media and Sport about supporting excellence in the arts. We know this because the report is called 'Supporting Excellence in the Arts'. Full marks for brevity and accuracy there 'Sir Brian'. So what if anything does this report say and what, if anything, will it do to help the arts?
The entire report is only 27 pages long (not counting blank pages and the contents page) so a hefty read it is not. We can, for the sake of space and readability, only quote short passages here for analysis but the full report is available as a PDF from the link at the bottom of the page.
"Funding bodies must move to a new assessment method based on self- assessment and peer review that focuses on objective judgements about excellence, innovation and risk-taking and is made up of people with the confidence and authority to take tough decisions. Funding bodies must also have, as the quid pro quo for removing ‘top-down’ targets, the ability to intervene strategically when an organisation is failing." - Executive Summary Page 6
This is an interesting statement insofar as it appears to suggest that artists themselves should be deciding what excellence is via self assessment and peer review. It's certainly a brave concept but we're dealing with people here and people have egos, they have issues with other artists and they have varying tastes.
Peer review works well in science because in science there are absolutes but in the arts there is no clear distinction between high quality art and the other stuff and I doubt there are two people in the world who completely agree about what "good art" is.
Many people will also have a problem with the idea that Arts Council England (ACE) should step in and take over arts organsiations that are perceived to be "failing". What makes Mr McMaster* or the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) think that ACE can run these organisations any better than those currently in charge?
You only have to look at the current uproar over ACE's funding cuts to 194 organisations to see the level of confidence the arts community has in the funding monolith.
"Artists, practitioners, organisations and funders must have diversity at the core of their work. Out of the society in which we live today the greatest culture could grow, but this will only happen if the cultural sector is truly relevant to 21st century Britain and its audiences." - Executive Summary Page 6
Whenever you hear government reports talking about "cultural diversity" they are usually referring to skin colour, irrespective of what it says in the report. If the UK is really a cultural gold mine then such talent will naturally find its way and integration, in the arts at least, will happen of its own accord.
Artists tend to be more intelligent, liberal and progressive in their thinking, at least the ones I know are, and the very last thing they need to be told by the government or ACE is to be more "culturally diverse". When making choices for collaborators, dancers, or anything else it should be about relevant skills and experience, not ethnicity and quotas.
Funding bodies are also treading a very fine line because positive discrimination and quotas are against the law in the UK.
It's Innovation Stupid!
"I recommend that innovation and risk-taking be at the centre of the funding and assessment framework for every organisation, large or small." - page 10
In dance the level of risk taken by ACE can be measured in how much money they give to classical ballet companies (very low risk) which adds up to tens of millions and the amount of money they put into contemporary dance (probably what they consider high risk) which amounts to just a few million, if that!
It's laudable that the report suggests that should change but just exactly how is that going to be achieved? To correct the balance, across all of the art forms, would require either a massive injection of funding, which isn't going to happen any time soon, or the privatisation of the biggest companies to free up their public subsidy. Hands up how many of you think that's going to happen?
"I recommend that funding bodies and arts organisations act as the guardians of artists’ freedom of expression, and provide the appropriate support to deal with what can be a hostile reaction to their work." - Page 11
Ok, stop giggling at the back! Again, this sounds very noble but I think the Human Rights Act of 1998 has our backs on this one along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those of you paying attention will know that Article19 is named for Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"I recommend the setting up of a Knowledge Bank which could be called upon by boards to feed into and support the appointment process and to advise on potential candidates." - Page 13"I recommend that all funding bodies have and take up the right to be involved in
the appointment processes of the organisations they fund." - Page 13
The overall theme of this section of the report is about finding employees for arts organisations. It all sounds an awful lot like Monster.com (the job search/personnel search website) which, as you would expect, already exists and anybody can use it for free. The rest of the world might also get a little bit annoyed about a custom database for UK arts organisations that helps them poach staff for their own purposes.
"Those that give out and those that receive public subsidy have a responsibility to ensure that from every penny spent, the greatest value is extracted. Distributors of public funds should not spend money on what is not, or does not have the potential to be, excellent" - page 16
Perhaps the most non-sensical statement in the entire report. ACE has been on the road to "value" in the arts for years now with little or no understanding of what that actually means. As for not spending money on anything that either isn't or doesn't have the potential to be "excellent!" What does that mean?
Look at it this way. Let's say you're a film producer and you spend £100Million, from ACE, on 'Transformers'. The critics pan the movie because it's awful but it takes £500million at the global box office. Clearly it's not excellent because the critics (essentially the peer review group) thought it was rubbish but it was good value because the public spent hundreds of millions going to see it and the producer made a profit.
What criteria would win in this situation, excellence or value?
"Cultural organisations are waking up to the potential of new technology and particularly the internet, but this is still happening in a haphazard way..." - page 18
Oh really? Please do point out those organisations if you please!
"The potential of Web 2.0 (the second generation of web-based communities and hosted services - such as social-networking sites, wikis and collaborative tagging), 3G mobile and wi-fi technology should allow unprecedented interaction." - Page 18
I'll bet this guy has never used Facebook in his life and as for "collaborative tagging", I have no idea what that is and I've been heavily involved in the internet for many years now.
The whole section on new technology takes up a couple of paragraphs and illustrates the authors complete lack of knowledge about the internet and new technology in general. Dance companies can have all the sophisticated technology they could ever want the only problem is paying for it.
If you want a great website with lots of video, notification facilities, images and other exciting content, broadcast quality DVD production, HD film production then you're going to need designers, video producers, photographers, editors and someone to keep it all up to date. It's easy if you know how to do it and you have all the equipment but if you don't you need someone to do it for you and that costs money.
The UK's NDA network have to work with crippled, business orientated, computer systems. ACE can't even use its initiative to improve that situation which makes the whole technological revolution section of this report nothing more than a bad joke.
Signing Off
It's my sad duty to inform you that this report while noble in its intent is not really offering anything new to the arts. It's long on recommendations but short on details about how they can be implemented, or how they are going to be paid for. The overarching them, the one about "excellence" in the arts is impossible to define. How can you implement plans to achieve something that you can't define?
It's also interesting to note that of the 90 contributors listed for this report more that 70% of them are based in London.
[ Read The Full Report (PDF) ]
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