The Arts Council review has gathered more than 4,500 responses about how to improve English culture. That is not a consultation. It is a festival where every tent contains a strongly held view about regional touring, and the queue for the feedback form has its own funding application.
The independent review examines Arts Council England’s role, structure and effectiveness. Baroness Margaret Hodge leads it with an expert advisory panel, while evidence has arrived from more than 700 people and a public Call for Evidence that produced more than 4,500 responses. Somewhere in the paperwork, the phrase ‘strategic direction’ has acquired enough momentum to demand its own office.
Culture needs public support, local knowledge and a fair idea of who receives the money. It also produces a special kind of meeting. Everyone agrees art matters. Nobody agrees whether the words ‘art matters’ should be printed on a banner, projected onto a wall or submitted as an eligible project cost.
At the Institute of Notes in the Margin, reviewer Pippa Curtainwall faced the evidence pile. “We asked the sector what it needed,” she said. “It supplied opinions, counter opinions and a mime about rural procurement that lasted longer than some touring productions.”
The panel must consider what Arts Council England should do and how it should work. Those are serious questions about access, place and support. They are also the sort of questions that can leave a small venue completing a funding application longer than the play it hopes to stage.
A wide evidence base is useful. It stops policy drifting into a narrow corridor where only people with good Wi Fi, an assistant and a previous successful application can find the form. It also creates the administrative equivalent of trying to direct 4,500 actors, each convinced the spotlight is historically theirs.
Evidence librarian Nigel Programme has promised that every contribution will be read. “If necessary, we will turn the final recommendation into a six hour immersive experience,” he said. “There will be an interval, naturally, during which audiences can apply for permission to enjoy it.”
There is a real point beneath the theatrical furniture. Arts organisations serve places and people that central spreadsheets cannot see clearly. A review that listens properly might make the system more useful. A review that merely counts submissions will eventually give the sculpture a dashboard and ask the dashboard to demonstrate community reach.
The test comes after the evidence. Recommendations must help creativity reach communities, not merely improve the typography of rejection letters. The sector has supplied the raw material, the competing interpretations and enough opinions to stage a fringe festival inside the spreadsheet. The only thing still awaiting funding is the person who can read them all without calling it a pilot, then explain the result in fewer than 4,500 words.
