Visuals arts need to embrace change

When Christopher Frayling, the outgoing chairman of Arts Council England (ACE), gave his final address last month, he stressed that participation in the arts was investment in our quality of life. He said that with the world's eyes on the UK in the lead up to 2012 it was the time for the government to stand firm on arts funding.

It was a direct plea to the Treasury, which has its eye on the 2010-11 financial year for what could be a claw back of funds promised in the last comprehensive spending review before the recession hit (£5bn needs to be found across all government departments).

Culture minister Andy Burnham has warned publicly that arts bodies may face cuts, while privately committing himself to do all he can to ensure that doesn't happen.

Liz Forgan became chairwoman of ACE last month, just as it embarked on a cost-cutting drive to find 15 per cent in administrative savings, which will affect its staffing levels. The cuts will come into play in 2010. Proposals for the cuts were due to be announced at the end of last month.

An ACE spokeswoman admitted it was a "tough ask" and added that the cuts would be as severe as when the regional arts boards were brought under the national umbrella in April 2002.

ACE's last major restructure saw 150 posts lost. But it is adamant that this one will not affect the 888 regularly funded organisations' (RFOs) budget allocations.

Last year, the RFOs were busy fighting their corner as individual agreements were squeezed. Visual arts organisations fared better than theatre RFOs.

From some angles, the landscape for the visual arts sector in England has never looked better. ACE's masterplan for 2008-11 placed visual arts at the centre of its vision. According to ACE figures, its investment in the visual arts will increase 16 per cent over the period.

Turning Point, ACE's visual arts plan for the 10 years from 2006, promotes the idea of better partnership working and alignment in some policy areas with bodies such as the National Trust, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the National Museums Directors' Conference.

But one regional museum source said the plan has had a slow start. Turning Point strategy groups have now been set up in each region to look at partnership working and knowledge transfer amongst other things.

Hilary Gresty, the director of the Visual Arts and Galleries Association, said the strategy groups should include non-RFOs and following feedback from the first strategy group in the south-east region, the structure now includes non-RFOs, to give a fuller picture of visual arts needs.

Turning Point has also been criticised because it is unclear what resources are available to put the plan into place. But Andrew Brown, senior strategy officer for visual arts at ACE, says that a lot of what Turning Point sets out to achieve is not dependent on funding but more about changing behaviours and attitudes and partnership working."

Museums Sheffield became an Arts Council England RFO in 2008-09. Its creative director Caroline Krzesinska says it is unclear how much money has been put aside for Turning Point overall. In Yorkshire, £50,000 has been allocated to the Turning Point strategy group for 2008-09, to work up the strategy.

Krzesinska says although previous ACE programmes came with funding, there was little sense of regional connectedness. She says this is the strength of Turning Point and stresses it is an opportunity that must be grasped by museums, galleries and other arts bodies in order to and make it work in the regions.