MEASURING THE EXPERIENCE #27
The move to clarify professional advice and peer group input to the arts funding system through adoption of an Integrated Advisory System for England suggests another way in which the operation of artist-led organisations could be strengthened to the mutual benefit of groups and the funding bodies. Overall, there are already some 1,500 advisers on lists held by the Arts Council of England and English regional arts boards. Advisers are drawn from the broad base of professionals involved in the arts including artists, staff of arts organisations, local authorities and agencies, independent arts professionals and people with experience in fundraising, marketing, business planning, etc. Their role is to advise the arts system in various ways and at a number of different levels, through membership of advisory and task groups and evaluation of the work of arts organisations.[1]
Allocating advisers from this list to specific artist-led organisations would provide regional arts boards and councils with a mechanism for offering professional advice and support to artist-led organisations. In return, the advisers would gain valuable information as regards their input to discussions on the development of arts policies and strategies within the funding system. Such arrangements need not necessarily be linked with financial support to an artist-led organisation, although where they were, they would ensure that grant aid requirements were met and provide the ‘independent eye’ in order to fulfil the requirements of public accountability. In addition, because arts boards and councils often find it difficult to maintain communication channels with groups who are not funded by them, this arrangement offers a means of ensuring that the work of such groups can also directly inform policy development.
The mechanisms suggested above could, in principle, provide the skills and checks generally offered by members of trust boards, without making a firm distinction between what artists do (ie concentrate on the art) and what other people do (ie deal with everything else). Dispensing with the hierarchical model, which places ‘experts’ at the top and ‘artists’ underneath, has the potential of providing the genuine, even-handed interchange between professionals and the “new way of talking” which Landry and Bianchini[2] have suggested is a vital element within strategies for cultural development.
Such mechanisms also suggest ways of extending the support and training options which are readily available to other arts professionals into artist-led organisations. One study of the training needs of visual artists and arts administrators[3] indicated that as short courses were less appropriate to artists than they are to administrators, a multi-stranded approach needed to be taken to delivering the training and information needs of practitioners. Amongst recommendations was the suggestion that “artists’ groups should be encouraged to identify their own training needs” and that arts boards should “encourage [the use by groups of] placements… and mentor schemes”. In other words, arts boards were asked to acknowledge that artists needed more flexible opportunities for personal development and professional advice. With this, they could better facilitate their own projects and develop their careers and continue to make valuable contributions to the arts environment in their region.
[1] Paper on the Integrated Advisory System, Arts Council of England, 1996
[2]The Creative City, Charles Landry, Franco Bianchini, Demos, 1995
[3]Training of Visual Artists and Arts Administrators, Lee Corner, Susan Jones and David Patten, Eastern, East Midlands and West Midlands Arts Boards, 1994.
