Government Report Backs Peer Review & Free Tix

As the furore over Arts Council England’s controversial funding cut proposals continues (See Today’s Other News), Brian McMaster’s report on developing excellence in the arts – commissioned last July by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) – has been published, with one of its key recommendations being a move to experience peer-based reviews of funding decisions.

Since ACE’s plans to withdraw funding from 194 arts organisations were revealed last month, industry experts have harshly criticised many of the Council’s choices as uninformed, biased and, in some cases, based on flawed or outdated evidence. The future of the arts, they argue, should be determined by people who have first-hand experience of what they speak: arts practitioners.

McMaster’s similarly advises today: “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.” McMaster, the former director of the Edinburgh International Festival, also considers expertise at board level vital for encouraging innovation and risk-taking, saying that “the board of every publicly funded organisations must include at least two artists or practitioners”

Other key recommendations in the 32-page report, entitled “Supporting Excellence in the Arts: From Measurement to Judgement”, include: one week of free admission to all publicly funded organisations, building on free admission to museums and galleries, in order to combat the “it’s not for me” syndrome; ten-year (rather than the usual three-year) funding packages for the country’s ten most ambitious and innovative organisations, providing them with the financial security to “fulfil their potential”; a strategy to encourage more international exchanges with foreign arts bodies; a comprehensive mentoring and networking scheme; more widespread touring; and the use of digital technology to facilitate direct artist-to-audience communication.

In his foreword, McMaster predicted that, all going to plan, “we could be on the verge of another Renaissance”: “The society we now live, in Britain, is arguably the most exciting there has ever been. The experience that it encompasses could produce the greatest art yet created. This will have an impact around the world … We need, though, to do all in our power to facilitate this. The driver must not be the achievement of simplistic targets, but an appreciation of the profound value of art and culture.”

Culture secretary James Purnell welcomed McMaster’s findings saying they mark a “real shift in how we view and talk about arts in this country” at a time when the arts are “now more than ever deserving of public funding”. “It is also time,” said Purnell, “to trust our artists and our organisations to do what they do best – to create the most excellent work they can – and to strive for what is new and exciting, rather than what is safe and comfortable. To do this we must free artists and cultural organisations from outdated structures and burdensome targets, which can act as millstones around the neck of creativity.”

In compiling the report, McMaster gathered 249 written consultations as well as online public feedback and met extensively with 140 members of the arts community including, from the theatre sector, Nicholas Hytner, Michael Boyd, Alan Ayckbourn, Jude Kelly, David Farr, David Lan, Declan Donnellan and journalists Michael Billington, Lyn Gardner and Jane Edwardes.

The full report can be downloaded from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website.

– by Terri Paddock