Dirty windows

Transparency is a variable quality – it could mean anything from an open window to a vague glow through unpolished glass. One example from Arts Council England (ACE) is its decision not to release the consultation document on public collections of contemporary art (p3). It’s not available on ACE’s website, though it says it has consulted “pretty widely” in the sector, and it wouldn’t let us publish the document on our site so that you, dear reader, could have a butcher’s. The only possible conclusion is that ACE wants to limit the number of responses. Perhaps – charitably – this is to make its workload more manageable. Or perhaps it just wants to hear from selected people, which is frankly dangerous, as well as undemocratic. What is most disturbing is that ACE can’t see what’s wrong with this.
Further conversations with ACE have alerted us to a potential lack of joined-up thinking concerning Sustain, the two-year £40m fund for arts organisations hit by the recession (p1). We now learn that consultants’ fees have to come out of that – let’s hope it’s not going to be a consultancy bonanza on a par with the Stabilisation Fund. Sustain has been greeted with plaudits almost everywhere – for its daring, its timeliness, its necessity. Yet it’s clear from our probing that there are two views out there: one, that it could be the saviour for many arts organisations which are facing extinction; and two, that’s it’s actually not very much money and people mustn’t get their hopes up. Guess which one of those ideas came from ACE. Let’s do some sums. The minimum grant from Sustain is £75,000 – so theoretically it could make 266 grants each year. The maximum grant is £3m, of which a maximum of six could be made annually, not including consultants’ fees, leaving £2m for smaller bids. ACE has admitted that the competition will be fierce – people fighting for their lives tend to fight hard. ACE has trumpeted a bold initiative, but it may end up plugging leaks in flagships rather than saving the fleet. If it is going to save us from death by cynicism, ACE will need to keep its windows very clean as it decides who will benefit from Sustain.

Catherine Rose
Editor