Arts debate

I suspect that this question is rather missing the point: the United Kingdom is a representative democracy, not a direct one. We elect our representatives to make choices on our behalf and if we do not like those choices then we can always vote the buggers out. By shifting from that idea you create a commodified conception of the citizen as an individual economic consumer with no responsibility to anyone else or to anything other than their own personal preferences, rather than treating them as democratic actors who are part of a broader social collectivity with consequential social responsibilities for their actions and choices.

Whatever complaints there may be about the choices that are being made on our behalf about arts funding or arts expenditure at national and/or local levels we have the solution in our political hands. By passing the buck to the public as a whole there would be a total abdication of responsibility by the public sector for the choices that are being made.

If the public were involved in making expenditure decisions then all of the usual fears of the artistic world about the blandness of public taste, the lowest common denominator becoming the norm, and the failure to understand art would rear their head. Whilst these are extremely patronising views they are understandable ones but the real complaints should be levied at those who refuse to exercise their judgements on our behalf.

This debate we are currently participating in is a very healthy one. We would like a popular and well funded Arts Council and the best way towards this would be to follow this excellent debate by forging closer connections with the population and its democratically elected representatives in local authorities to widen the definition of the arts.

If it was put to a public vote I doubt whether the people as a whole would agree that Arts Council should put much of our public money into Arts which find wealthy patrons, have very high ticket prices, and are only attended by the wealthy.

Many comments have talked of `patronizing` the public. It would be good to have systems in place which defended the Arts Council from that accusation. If you are a professional performer or artist you know that the public is paramount and that most art does not exist without it. You do not patronize the audience. The audience is highly intelligent and so are the public. This emphasis would not mean an abnegation of responsibility quite the opposite it would mean new duties, new accountability and humility, and I think an enhanced popularity and success for the Arts Council.
Paul Miskin

Look: we are already into the Great Olympic Lottery funds diversion; we have a Secretary of State who drivels on in populist mode about lottery punters ticking boxes to 'choose' their good causes; arts hacks who apparently think local councillors in general are benevolently inclined to the arts (they should talk to someone who understands why the metropolitan local authorities were opposed to a statutory duty in the 1980s/90s).

This is not Switzerland. It is not the UK's custom to create policy through plebiscite. Arm's Length bodies were created (a) to be independent of government (b) to have expertise and (c)to have the courage of their convictions in making difficult choices. It was inevitable from the start of the National Lottery in 1994 that the DNH/DCMS would aspire to greater control (even before the reality of New Labour manifested itself) and that this would increasingly create a grey potential conflict zone between the Ministry and its Quangos. If ACE continues further down the line of least resistance to political fashion, then it will probably be only a matter of time before some government sees no real justification for its continuing existence.

Inviting a 'national consumer panel'to influence your policy would be just one more step along that road to oblivion. Of course there are ways in which people locally can/should be involved but local representative democracy has progressively been undermined by central government since at least 1978.

Ars longa vita brevis.

innovative art germinates in the crevices and unseen places that exist despite politics and its intentions.

Faster!

Yes O my evil one.

Experts and consultants already working in the arts, with recognised success and qualifications, including honorary qualifications for acheivement in their field, who are respected and nominated by their pears. i.e. professionals in their field.

Thanks for the pick up on the spelling mistake.

It is all bananas. This entire debate is ridiculous. Considering that the research has been going on since November 2006 and there are less than 30 comments on here, why aren't there more people commenting? Is it because of the structure of the questions? What will happen with the research? Why does the research need to be carried out? The summary of findings appears to present information that is common knowledge.

Kumquats.

Yes, the public should be involved in arts funding decisions. . . sometimes. It all depends on what the funding is intended to support. If it is a community-based initiative, then I can see the argument in favour, but I can't see a role for the public to be involved in, say, curatorial decisions of art galleries, or arts council decisions as to which artists to support.

Art is not, and should not be, demoncratic in the narrow sense. The function of art, especially contemporary art, is to challenge, to provoke, to contribute to debate in society. Such things are not amenable to gross democratic processes.

As most people, whether they had the money or not, would be unlikely to buy an original Vivienne Westwood creation, similarly most people do not like/appreciate contemporary art (especially conceptual art and other art at the leading edge). However, it is this art that feeds the future of our collective culture, just as Westwood's designs influence high-street fashion a few years down the line. Without the seed of radical and often unpopular contemporary art, our culture cannot grow and develop.

It's important that a shortlist is first drawn and then voted for, then your getting the well considered views of experts, coupled with the democracy for the public. At present thier is no or limited public consultation and this results in a lot of poor work being paid for which the majority don't like.

For a complete discussion on what is wrong with our educated conception of Art, see 'The Baumgarten Corruption', Pluto Press, London.

My worry is that if arts funding decisions were made by this same public they would allocate arts council money the same way they do their own, and diversity would suffer.

Nevertheless, it is the public who are being asked to fund the arts, and so it makes sense that they should have a say. A sensible compromise, which would avoid the trap of 'lowest common denominator' while still ensuring the public has a say, is to leave the decisions to one member of the public.

After long and careful deliberation I have decided that that person should be myself. I have been a keen member of the public for many years, and have made several decisions during that time. Furthermore I am out of a job at the end of this month, and so my appointment to the role of Public Member Arts Funding Decison Maker will resolve the matter within the fortnight.

Drop me an email and we'll discuss my contract.

Arts funding bodies have a role in not simply reflecting but also leading public opinion. I know of a community that when asked 'what arts would it like'? came up with karaoke and face-painting. Through sensitive engagement of professional arts development workers, this request was ignored and it had the chance to engage with high quality participative carnival arts. This access led to greater understanding, demand and aspiration for more challenging artistic experiences.

Of course not all communities will start from the level of face-painting in their artistic aspiration, but the temptation to stick with the known and play safe will be true for most, whatever their starting point.

As a consumer of art, I want an expert guide to challenge me and give me the chance to have new artistic experiences. I may not enjoy them all, but I would rather risk a bad but challenging experience than just access art that has been democratically chosen and is safe.

There is a place for a public voice in shaping the priorities of the Arts Council and other arts funders, but if individual funding decisions become subject to a public vote we will start along a road of conservatism that could destroy our nation's historic position as one of the most creative countries in the world.

Hugh Jenkins when Arts Minister in 1974/75 tried to introduce an elective element to Arts Council membership, but, guess what: the combined interests of the Whitehall mandarin mafia and the vested interest of the Arts Council had no difficulty in seeing their Minister off.

So, the system is imperfect - but in spite of that there's a phenonmenal around of good and interesting work around. So something is working sort of OK, in our fudged British way. We are to some extent being successfully protected from the worst excesses of the government populism which is always a risk. As Clive Gray pointed out way back in this string, it all depends WHY you'd want the public to be involved. Just because individual decisions involve public money is a ludicrously simplistic response, I think.

Others have pointed out (both positively and negatively) there are solid reasons why the electorate isn't offered referendums on defence, nuclear energy, the boring bloody Olympic festival of drugs and cheating, Northern Ireland, capital punishment... I noticed on BBC news last night that the leader of the UK Euroloony Party in banging on about the result of the French and Dutch referenda in 2005 failed once again to mention that 18 countries through due constitutional process (including referendums in some cases) did actually approve the beached European 'constitution'.

The nature and purpose of art will inevitably be questioned within a changing, popular and increasinly commercial (once again) culture. This is not a new phenomenon. So the Arts Council needs to have the courage of any convictions it may retain - over and above self-preservation - to defend its space. The danger, as Williams wittily put it, is that the Trustees can all too easily end up as 'trusties'. Rather than risking conservative Stuckist populism through notions of 'voting' for/against individual projects, what we still need is at least some substantial element of changing elected membership of the Arts Council itself. Tribunes of the People, in ancient Roman terms, if you like. Please don't tell me that the local authority nominated place persons on the re-centralised regional councils provide this. I'm talking about bona fide 'arts' champions on the national body.

I'd vote for Ben Traynor (above) whose argument is impeccable.

For funding individual artists, the process is more difficult, due to volume - but perhaps a nationally agreed breakdown between art-forms (agreed by DCMS, advised by the Arts Council) with specific decisions made by several, distinct, autonomous organisations. These would be funded based on the ratio of investment to earnings five years later of the most commercially successful 50% of those they've supported. This would mean that they are focusing on career-development and backing popular and potentially self-supporting winners, but can support a significant proportion of artists in line with their creative policy regardless of commercial earnings. It may even prove worth their while to draw in support to promote their commercial prospects. As different funding organisations developed distinct identities and priorities, they may also be able to raise money directly from members of the public who support their values.

As long as the council appoints a competent and talented artist, the art will be enjoyable - not by all, but you can't please everyone.
But you can't tell an artist specifically what to do. You may as well do it yourself.

Can ideas be posted on the Internet and debated? I have been disappointed with recent art schemes organised by the council from the lack of creativity.

Members of the public should no more be consulted about arts funding decisions than they be about which part of a brain a brain surgeon operates on.

Artists are professional and understand what they are doing. Woe betide the general Sun and Daily Mail reading population deciding what constitutes art.

It makes no logical sense to ask the public and morally it is hardly their money. It is not tax it is lottery money. Artists should not suffer to soothe the neurosis of those who havent won the lottery yet.

Public complaints about lottery arts funding, where they exist, are about as valid as me complaining about how tackily lottery winners spend their money.

Artists need more support from organisations such as the arts council. Artists are professional people who suffer at the expense of the ignorant not understanding what an artist actually does.

If all the artists suddenly stopped practising the world would grind to a halt. What would anyone do?

Funders should make sure that they have a mechanism for the public to comment on work and make suggestions about the funding process.

Having the public involved in individual descision making would probably lead to extra admin and training costs and less money for the arts, as well as ensuring that only those who shouted loudest would be heard. under the current system employees have a clear remit to seek out and listen to a wide variety of voices. this is not always successful, but the will is there.

Again, the question has to be asked of why public involvement should be sought in this area of public policy, and whether 'the arts' differ in any significant way from any other area of public policy. Both of these can be answered in a number of ways - many of which flatly contradict others - but this is not quite the point. If choices have to be made about the allocation of resources within society then the how and the why need to be addressed. Unless it is proposed that major changes be made to the existing system of representative democracy then all other proposals are of secondary importance.

Again, dissatisfaction with the existing systems for managing the allocation of the national arts budget can be dealt with through political activity - although given the oligarchic nature of the arts funding system at the national and regional levels the chances of successful change (rather than outright revolution) are rather low.

The major question of 'why involve the public' still needs to be addressed, however. It is clear from many of the contributions that have been made to this topic that the 'how' has been exercising far more minds than the 'why'. At least with representative democracy there is a clearly identifable target for criticism and complaint as well as mechanisms for redress of grievance and the exercise of accountability and control. Unless there is a clearly separate argument advanced to indicate that a move towards some sort of plebiscitary democracy is required for the arts, and that the arts are such a different matter of public policy to any other that this move is justifiable, then the argument is simply about replacing camels with other forms of mis-designed horse.

A moderate way that avoids the two extremes seems best to me. Decisions on arts funding should be made by those we deem best qualified to make such decisions, but moderated by some public consultation, especially when it comes to local, public art that is too often imposed upon people, to prevent elitist, unpopular decisions.

so the public should be consulted, but the decision shouldn't rest on their opinion, there should be other factors taken into account by professionals as well, so that the best of both worlds is reached.

Since its ill-considered abandonment of the panel system, the Arts Council has suffered from a damaging isolation in its decision-making processes and experiments in how they can be opened up again would be healthy. It would be useful to reverse the crass centralisation of the last power shift in arts politics, but it’s hard not to suspect window dressing from a question like this. Or, worse still, focus groups.

The public make the most important decisions. There are many ways in which members of this slippery public are excluded from the arts funding process, from local groups being unfairly decided upon by public art piolot-mjors and commissars on cushy numbers, oxbdridge commissions, troughing in the trench of well fed bureaucracy, filling wages for thinking art, Mandy Rodin one more time, uplight darling be mine tonight, mandy motion two more times can it be the national budget panel advising on policy at the highest level is a loada squares and media slappers backhanding the bunce to their pals in "Greater Publica," bringing arts whole fundament closer to the need and expectation of blagger society?

1: Should the public take a key role in decision making about individual grants?

2: Should the public take a role in deciding if the overall decision-making process is satisfactory?

Frankly why do either of these questions even need to be asked? It is indicative of ACE's deep underlying problems that such public involvement was not introduced at both these levels years ago ;-)

This could be done through totally revamping the criteria for selecting committee members and trustees (less of the great and the good and more community arts practitioners and individual representatives), along with more consultation targeted at both successful and NON-SUCCESSFUL applicants (who I think funding bodies could learn an awful lot from, but seem to be ignored once they get their rejection letter).

But I would take it one step further. I believe arts individuals should have an opportunity to be able to watch the decision making process first hand and have a forum to raise concerns and make changes. I also believe that communuity based arts groups should be able to shape policy decisions AT THE IDEA STAGE rather than after the framework has been set, which is often the case. But in doing this, funders need to recognise that these groups and individuals are operating on little or no resources, and ensure that they receive the appropriate financial support to ensure that their involvement does not negatively impact on their art or their organisation.

My experience of working on both sides of the fence (fundering bodies, committes and community organisation) has made me realise how the interpretation of funding criteria can be of detriment to smaller community based organisations - and, I'm sorry to say it, I have come across examples of individuals developing policy and making funding decisions that have a negative impact on ethnic cultures and some arts/heritage types because they have little or no understanding of the culture or area - and as 'experts' they don't seem to see the need to actively find out, and end up stumbling upon the information through organisational champions!

Getting those community based organisations who are working at grass roots level involved in decision making (and I mean the REAL organisations - not the ones that they have worked with for years and feel they have micro managed enough to feel comfortable with) - is the way forward to ensure that grants programmes will be able to balance the need for accessibilty and accountability. It will also result in policy that with less grey or forgotten areas.

One more thing - I think it is important that young people are represented in the decision making process and policy/strategy development - They need to be able to ensure that arts from their perspective (constantly evolving and not part of the mainstream) is part of the Arts agenda and has opportunities for funded and supported in its development.

I dont think smaller applications for abstract proposals would make good TV, but it is worth noting that the technology makes a people's vote a very easy and inexpensive thing - it might be an eye opener for a local Arts Council to put together a panel of a hundred or a thousand or however many people from that area and ask them to vote online or maybe by phone on possible local arts projects - just as a way of testing the temperature and getting a sense of the divergence or otherwise between advisory panel decisions and punter decisions.

In our community, we have diverse people from Africa who are artist, but whose first language is not English, so when they write applications to arts council, the way in which their project proposal is being interpreted might not reflect what they actually want to do, because most of us Africans interpret our mothers tongue into English, this usually makes the reader not to understand what is being written, and may have been turned down because of this, but if a representative from our community is in the panel, such an individual will be able to give a true judgment of the application based on cultural understanding.

People will be willing to invest their time and energy if they are given opportunity.

It would improve the decisions because there will be a clearer understanding of what the project entails.

I doubt if there will be any room for disagreement because the goal of every body should be to support a good and viable project

It is important for members of the public to be involved in the arts funding process and ensure their positive participation at decision-making level for the arts. Because of the diversity of people in the community, we are sure there are hiding talents that can help make positive angd give ideas as to best way to fund applications.

Greater involvement of the general public makes arts widely accessible to people and creates better undertsatnding of the role of arts.

Appoint or contract leading community group / organisation whose work have been consistent and are also have busieness and community development vision in developing their communities.