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North East Arts Council voice becoming ‘diluted’

Concerns have been raised that the North East arts council is becoming too centralised an organisation, potentially ‘diluting’ the North East’s voice.

After a review last year, Arts Council England planned a 15% cut in Administration costs, and a staff cut of more than 100 jobs.

The North West and North East will combine to create a Northern organisation, as nine regional offices across the country are streamlined into 4 areas.

Cllr David Faulkner, Deputy Leader of Newcastle City Council, said: “I suspect that the die is cast, people are already leaving the Arts Council and our opportunity to influence will be limited.

“We weren’t consulted properly in the first place, but nonetheless we still have to speak up.

“The Arts Council in the North East and the leadership it’s brought has been absolutely instrumental in securing our position really at the forefront of English regions and cultural development, and I’m really concerned that it might now be at risk.”

The Arts Council has been responsible for some of the most iconic structures in the area, including the Angel of the North, The Sage Gateshead and the Baltic.

Peter Stark, who was awarded an OBE for his services to Northern art, has kept a watchful eye over the changes since he helped establish what would later become

He said: “I think there’s a considerable sadness and a great deal of worry that since the new reforms that were introduced four or five years ago, all decision-making was essentially taken back at the policy level to London. The independence of the voice of the North East has been substantially diluted.

“We’re now at the point where major savings are being made in administration and the North East region is being downgraded, some would say, to a branch office within a greater Northern area including Manchester, Leeds and so on.

“Obviously with the noises being made and the position of the economy, you could be in a position after the next election where another round of economies actually lose the regional desk that we still have and then we’ll be back to where we were fifty years ago and the region would have to start again – and as a policy analyst that’s something I would come dangerously close to predicting.”

A statement from the North East Arts Council said: “The new Arts Council structure continues to have a strong regional focus with an office in Newcastle upon Tyne. The new structure allows for much more external focus, with specialist Relationship Managers advising artists and developing opportunities across the region.”

The statement continued: “The recruitment process is underway to appoint the Executive Director, North. This role represents the whole of the north of England. The North East will be firmly represented at Executive Board through this post.”

But while the Arts Council has said it is concentrating on administrative job cuts, and that front line services will not be affected, Cllr Faulkner still has worries.

“We’ve been told that the cuts in the arts may not be at the front line but will in office, administrative and staffing.

“Well that may be the case, but I expect to see the loss of some key posts within the arts council structure, people who have been instrumental and key in helping the sector develop,” he said.

Cllr Faulkner concluded: “I fear that there’s more to the agenda than this, that it’s about centralisation, it’s about Arts Council North East becoming a sub-region rather than a region in its own right.”

To read the Art’s Council’s statement in full, go to bdaily.info/news/arts-and-culture/30-11-2017/arts-council-organisational-review/

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .