The Minister for Culture, Welsh Language and Sport (Alun Pugh): The stories in the Western Mail about the post of chair of the Arts Council of Wales have distorted what is, in essence, a very simple matter. I therefore welcome this opportunity to put the record straight. There is nothing spiteful or Stalinist in following normal procedures for appointments to public bodies. I will explain how those procedures work.
First, I plan to complete two appointment exercises to the arts council. One of these is to recruit four new members to the council to replace retiring members. I also confirm that I intend to advertise the post of chair. No-one has been sacked. Contrary to indications in the Western Mail, I have made no announcement, surprise or otherwise, about the chair. The current chair was given advance notice of my intention to advertise the position when his term expires on 31 March 2006. It is good practice and courteous to inform the current incumbent of intentions in a timely manner.
I am following the National Assembly for Wales’s code of practice for ministerial appointments to public bodies in its entirety. These appointments will be made in accordance with the National Assembly’s code of practice, as approved by Plenary, and the advertisements will accord with established best practice. It remains open to the current chair to decide whether or not he wishes to seek reappointment. The Culture, Welsh Language and Sport Committee nominees will be consulted in the normal way in due course. The code makes no provision for informal soundings of the kind proposed by members of the arts council. Members of the Assembly will understand that it is inappropriate to publicly discuss the individual merits of potential candidates in public appointments, and I remind all Members of the provisions of our code.
The arts council has received substantially rising investment from the Welsh Assembly Government. Its budget was £15 million in 1999-2000; this year it is £27 million, which is an increase of 56 per cent. Since 1999-2000, this Government has invested a total of £181 million in the arts—a sharp contrast to the Redwood years of freeze and stagnation. Despite this recent increased investment, there continue to be real barriers to access to the arts in some communities in Wales. There is a need to reform for the future in order to ensure that we continue as a nation to develop excellent art, with access for all.
In this context there has been much speculation about the recent arts participation survey. Let me give you the bare facts. If you are in a managerial or professional occupation, you are three times more likely to benefit from public money invested in the arts than if you live in a Communities First area. The people least likely to attend arts events live in Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil and the valleys around Bridgend. The same applies to deprived communities in Flintshire and Wrexham. I do not believe that these huge differences in participation are acceptable, and I invite Members to disagree with me. The culture Committee has received a detailed presentation on that arts participation survey, and I look forward to engaging with the opposition parties on the real issues here. I have received nothing from them as yet.
3.20 p.m.
On the issue of independence and the arm’s-length principle, we have made it clear that politicians do not influence artistic judgments, nor will they do so. The comments made by Mike German in the Western Mail, that I will be choosing which operas the Welsh National Opera will perform, are patently absurd. Indeed, Judith Isherwood, chief executive of the Wales Millennium Commission, mentioned the controversy about Jerry Springer The Opera in a business meeting, and I replied quite clearly that the decision was entirely a matter for the WMC’s financial and artistic judgment. Ministers do not, and will not, interfere in these matters. It is the role of Ministers, however, to ensure that the appropriate infrastructure, policy development and governance are in place with regard to the public funding of the arts. It is for the Minister to appoint chairs and members of public bodies, using our appointments guidelines.
Those are the facts about the appointment process, but much more important are the real issues. How do we ensure that our record investment reaches every corner of our nation and every community? There are important changes facing the arts council, so the role of its chair is changing. That is why I am more than happy to engage in an informed and reasoned debate about the reforms and the real issues. For the future, the arts council will need to become an organisation that is more developmental in character and one that will fund the very best, within a supportive framework for new talent, ideas and creativity.
Ieuan Wyn Jones: We are most surprised at your unwillingness, Minister, to face the Assembly in a debate on this issue, and at the fact that you have hidden behind the Business Minister and said that we will only receive a statement today. That is totally unacceptable, because there are people in Wales who wish to hear, in a debate, the reasons for your actions. There are people who are seriously concerned about the way in which this Government treats the arts sector.
In your statement, you do not say a word about the critical letter that you have received from the council’s board, telling you that you have harmed the relationship between you as a Government and the board, and between the Government and the arts sector. Therefore, as you make no reference to the letter in your statement, I will refer you to some of the issues raised in it. Before I quote from it, I say to you that I have never seen a Government-funded public body criticizing a Minister or Government in such as way.
Let me read some of those statements to you, Minister, since you decline to accept that you have even received this letter, and ask you to respond. The board says that the Government has forced ‘an unnecessary and potentially damaging change of leadership’ at a very ‘sensitive time’ in the period of the board’s life. Secondly, it says that you have adopted, without consultation, a single criterion for selecting and adopting new members of Council, and, thirdly, that you have lacked a ‘serious dialogue on the proposal to transfer the responsibility of six of the Council’s largest clients to the Assembly Government’.
That is a damning indictment of the Government, and you chose not to even refer to that letter. What the council goes on to say in that statement, which it has published, is that the council states that, by your action you’are damaging to the relationship that needs to exist between the council and the Government’.
You know perfectly well, Minister, that there are occasions—I will not put it stronger than this—when chairs of public bodies are invited to serve for more than one term. You know that that happens—it has happened in other public bodies—yet you have chosen, for whatever reason, not to follow that practice on this occasion.
Secondly, in relation to the transfer of responsibility for the six major clients, the board has expressed deep reservations about your proposals to deal with it. The board feels strongly—as I say to the Minister who does not have any responsibility for this matter, but who is choosing to intervene from a sedentary position—that the whole of the arts world believes that this matter goes to the heart of the issue. In other words, you, Minister, and your Government are the first in the United Kingdom, in 50 years, to breach the arm’s length principle regarding arts bodies and the Government. We need better reasons than those that you have given so far for doing that. The council makes it clear, in its statement, that it accepts the Government’s reform package, it accepts the argument that you have put forward for extending access to the arts and, in the document that it prepared for you, it has suggested ways in which that could be delivered, without compromising the arm’s-length principle. You have not given us a reason for rejecting that proposal. In fact, you have not even bothered to tell the council why you rejected that proposal. In the council’s view, you have not responded at all to the views that it has expressed to you.
Minister, you have behaved reprehensively in this matter. It is your responsibility to apologise to the council for the way in which you have operated. You must now start a proper dialogue with the council and the arts bodies regarding how those bodies should be funded, and you should withdraw the proposals to transfer responsibility until the result of that dialogue is known.
Alun Pugh: Let us get over the synthetic outrage and deal with the real issues. You will know that, in my diary, I have a long-standing meeting booked with the arts council; it happens in a fortnight’s time and I look forward to it. As far as the appointments are concerned, it is an entirely normal appointments process; there are no special issues to consider. The standard National Assembly code will apply throughout. I do not accept that there has been substantial harm to the arts sector. Quite to the contrary, if you look at our record of investment, there has been substantial real-term investment in the arts sector the length and breadth of Wales, which applies to the national companies and community arts. There is more money available for arts companies than there has ever been before. While we are dealing with finance, frankly, if it had not been for some of the budgetary nonsense that came from you party, in looking at the draft budget, the arts budget for Wales would have been higher still.
As far as the other appointments are concerned, we will need to look at a range of factors when dealing with the appointment of the four new members. Clearly, we will want to look at the specialist expertise to ensure that the new arts council has an appropriate balance of expertise across all fronts. Other factors, such as geographical location and the representation of black and minority ethnic groups, are also important, as is the linguistic balance, but I make no apologies for saying that one of the biggest issues when it comes to recruiting new members of the arts council will be addressing the issue of differential participation in the arts. If you come from a professional or a managerial group, you are three times more likely to benefit from public investment in the arts than if you come from a Communities First area and I do not think that that is acceptable.
You talk about investment in the national companies as if that channelling of Government money to national organisations was unusual in the world. If you look at liberal western democracies all around the world, Ieuan, from the Netherlands to Australia, you will find that there is nothing remotely unusual about Government passing money to artistic and cultural organisations directly.
3.30 p.m.
Indeed, the Wales Millennium Centre, which is just outside our front door, has been receiving its money in that way from day one, and there has never been an objection from your party about that. There are no breaches of principle whatsoever.
Lisa Francis: Like Ieuan Wyn Jones, I cannot recall an occasion when a public body such as the Arts Council of Wales has been so damning of a Minister or a Government as it has been in laying bare its concerns about political interference in the arts over the past few days. Your statement today does not appear to address any of the points that I will raise. You have not properly answered Ieuan Wyn Jones’s question. Why has your Government decided to adopt, without consultation, a single criterion for the recruitment and selection of new members to the arts council, which does not in any way take into account the corporate governance requirements of the arts council?
On 23 December, you informed the chair of the Arts Council of Wales that you intended to initiate a full appointment procedure, with a view to seeking someone to lead on the issue of increasing attendance and participation among disadvantaged groups. That was followed by a recent advert for new council members that focused solely on that issue, ignoring several other detailed selection criteria that had previously been agreed between your Government and the Arts Council of Wales. Why? Why did you do that?
Why, despite your Government’s announcement 14 months ago concerning the creation of a new culture board and the transfer of six of the arts council’s largest client organisations from the council to the culture department, has your department chosen not to respond to any ideas or arguments put forward in relation to the Arts Council of Wales? How arrogant is that? Do you think that it is sufficient to have had just two meetings of the new culture board in the past 14 months, considering the massive changes that are occurring? As chair of that culture board, Minister, can you provide us with minutes of those meetings?
You mentioned the arm’s-length principle and the fact that politicians will not influence artistic judgments in future. Given that, do you really think that it is appropriate for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to be directly funded by your Government, when the BBC is the dominant provider of news and current affairs information in Wales? You must be aware, and you should recognise—in fact, it is inconceivable that you stand there and choose not to recognise—that an organisation such as the arts council needs a specific range of skills if it is to govern itself effectively and discharge its duty of care for public funds. You must see that it will be impossible to recruit such skills if the effectiveness of the Arts Council of Wales, as guardian of public money and as a development agency for the arts, is put at risk.
I am afraid that, as it has been your habit in statements in the past to not answer properly questions that I raise—and not even to provide written answers to my questions that you are unable to answer on the spot—I find myself today expecting nothing more from you than the usual ill-rehearsed waffle. In these circumstances, a Government debate is needed. To refuse to agree to that is whey-faced, craven one-partyism, and is arrogant in the extreme.
Alun Pugh: It is difficult to know where to start in responding to that. You asked when the arts sector was depressed. It was depressed during the years of the Redwood freeze. We had public demonstrations about the freezing of arts funding. Now we have record investment in the arts. With regard to your general judgment on this matter, I was reading the Western Mail and scratching my head and wondering about your judgment You said that my actions were Stalinist. Hang on a second. Josef Stalin was responsible for the deportation and execution of millions of people, and I am placing an advert in the Western Mail. If you cannot tell the difference between those two things, your judgment is seriously in question.
Eleanor Burnham: Minister, thank you for your slightly obscure, red herring of a statement. I am deeply concerned by the perceived vindictiveness and cack-handed way in which the excellent and well-respected ACW chairman was informed that he would not be continuing in his post. These issues are important, and they reflect badly on you. However, Minister, the most important part of this sorry issue must be seeming politicisation of the arts, despite what you assert to the opposite. As in so many other areas of life, decisions are best taken closest to the people, and not centrally by a Minister, such as yourself, who often knows little of the detail.
Like the Minister for Economic Development and Transport, you have destroyed the morale of many who work in the media, unnecessarily creating uncertainty, confusion and lack of clarity.
Ultimately, Minister, it is not your place to decide between Così Fan Tutte and Flashdance, or between Swan Lake and Moon River. That is why the arm’s-length principle has proved so successful in recent years. If you really mean what you say about not wanting to interfere, why are you bothering with these changes at all? Surely, you can achieve greater access to the arts by issuing a new director with a simple and clear mandate, and not by breaking this arm’s-length principle that has sustained independence in the arts in Wales over the last 30 years. How will you ensure that you do not end up taking artistic decisions? I am sure that you will enlighten us in a minute.
The budgets of the big six amount to just over 40 per cent of the grant budget, as far as I am aware. Why did you decide to bring six in-house? Why not five, seven or even 106? Can you explain your logic, give any rationale or show any academic prowess behind this decision? Dividing responsibilities for grants in two just looks like a recipe for duplication and confusion, in my humble opinion. A new mechanism will need to be established to distribute and monitor spending among the big six and, meanwhile, the existing mechanism will need to be retained to administer small grants. I am all for employing more people in the arts, but how does it help to employ more administrators rather than investing more money in artists and arts development, which all Members want to see?
Alun Pugh: You talk this up as though there were some sort of crisis in the arts in Wales. Actually, the arts are in rude, good health. Anywhere you look, from Wales on the world stage at the Artes Munde competition, the investment in the Welsh pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the opening, to huge public acclaim, of the Wales Millennium Centre—probably the biggest single cultural project anywhere in western Europe, with the Assembly Government as its biggest contributor—Welsh National Opera receiving rave reviews for its performance, the opening of a national and rejuvenated network of galleries from the Riverfront in Newport to Galeri in Caernarfon and Mwldan in west Wales, to the additional £2 million investment in the arts outside Cardiff to put on top-rate performances, the arts are in rude, good health.
I am surprised that the Liberal Democrats, of all people, raised this issue of public appointments because this is the procedure that Jenny Randerson followed when she held this post. There is nothing unusual about this, and there are no special departments—I am following the National Assembly’s code of practice and doing what Jenny Randerson did when she was the Minister with responsibility for culture. There is therefore nothing unusual whatsoever in what I am doing.
Huw Lewis: Minister, nothing squeals as loud as the middle class faced with the removal of one of its perks. Since 2003, the Arts Council of Wales has dispersed nearly £50 million throughout Wales. Of that, the Merthyr borough has received £2,500. That is 0.00005 per cent, or as next to nothing as makes no difference. The Caerphilly borough has received 0.003 per cent, while Blaenau Gwent has received 0.003 per cent. Rhondda Cynon Taf has received 0.03 per cent—it is doing quite well. Torfaen has received 0.004 per cent. It is clear that throughout that period, the arts council has failed my constituency, and the taxpayers there pay for its existence. The same could be said for the working class communities of the Valleys as a whole.
3.40 p.m.
Minister, I know that you are well aware of this disparity, and have said so, and that you are taking steps to put it right. I hope that you will not let anything get in your way, least of all the bleating of a middle-class Cardiff and the rural-Wales-based arts crachach, and their little attack dogs in the Chamber. It was these areas that, during the same period, soaked up three quarters of the £50 million in question—it is concentrated in the areas defended by the opposition parties. Do you agree that my constituents pay for arts and culture policy in Wales just the same as everyone else? They deserve to be part of it just the same as everyone else. The Valleys need to be part of the regenerational and the educational spin-offs that cultural activity provides just like everyone else, and the person who heads the organisation and the people who bleat about it is of very little interest to them when they continue to be ignored by that organisation.
Alun Pugh: You are entirely right to draw attention to the differential rates of participation. I have the figures here, and they are available to everyone with access to the internet or a public library. Merthyr Tydfil’s score is clear—its participation rate of 58 per cent is considerably below the national average. In fact, there are few areas in Wales that have worse results than Merthyr Tydfil. One of those areas happens to be Blaenau Gwent, which makes Peter Law’s voting behaviour in relation to today’s business statement quite bizarre. While I am the Minister for the arts, I will ensure that every community in Wales benefits from arts spending as a priority.
Peter Law rose—
The Presiding Officer: Order. This is a statement, and I may call you to contribute.
Jenny Randerson: I listened to the statement with great sadness. I thought that we had grown beyond the days of meltdown in the arts council, and it is with great sadness that I note your applying of the blow torch to the arts council on this occasion. As my colleague, Eleanor Burnham, states, this is a much bigger issue than the appoitment, or non-reappointment, of the chair of the arts council. The loss of a person of his stature will badly affect Wales as a whole, and it will do us no good in the eyes of the rest of the UK and the world. It will make it more difficult to attract a person of high calibre to that type of post in the future. I also place on record the contribution made by Geraint Talfan Davies to ‘Cymru Greadigol’, the strategy upon which the Minister, following the previous partnership Government, has chosen to continue to base his arts strategy.
Minister, although I understand that you would welcome flexibility in your budget, do you accept that you will inevitably come under increasing pressure to intervene in events such as Jerry Springer—The Opera? I am pleased to hear that you would not be prepared to intervene in such an event, but do you realise that direct funding inevitably brings that type of pressure? You may not be willing to intervene, but your successors—as you may not be standing in that position one day—will come under increasing pressure and may give in to it? Do you accept that not having a buffer between you and the people who demand some type of censorship or artistic sifting is dangerous?
Minister, you inherited the budget structure—the culture fund—which gave you mid-year freedom to fund additional items, and you did not have to fund everything via the arts council any longer. Why did you believe that that was not adequate and go to direct funding of the six largest companies? How do you intend to balance the demands of those six companies against the other 60 per cent of your budget? Which side of the budget do you intend to favour in future and do you intend to keep the 40/60 per cent split?
Alun Pugh: I notice that you have not talked in any detail about your appointment of the current chair. I reaffirm that I am following the clear precedent that you set. The current chair can reapply for the post when it is advertised shortly. We are currently preparing a new arts strategy. You will know that members of the Culture, Welsh Language and Sport Committee have been informed of that.
On direct funding, the Wales Millennium Centre is currently directly funded to the tune of around £2 million a year. It is a major investment, part of the record investment in the arts. However, I have made it clear that I have no intention whatsoever of intervening in the cultural, or performance, schedule of that organisation. If it wants to put Jerry Springer—The Opera on in the face of criticism from one or two people, that is entirely a matter for it; it is not my role to intervene. It is my role to ensure that everyone benefits from the investment that we have made in the WMC, but not to intervene in the programme.
You mentioned the culture fund, and one problem with that is the lack of transparency between the fund’s sports, language and artistic components. A regular criticism made by members of all parties in committee was the way in which the budget was structured. You may not be aware of this, but the budget has been restructured this year into its component parts so that you can see the differences more clearly in the investment in language, both in terms of the Welsh Language Board’s running costs and support for the language. You now have a much clearer picture of that overall culture spend.
The Presiding Officer: We have spent half an hour on this statement, so I ask for concise questions, please.
Denise Idris Jones: I will be as brief as I can be.
While it is not for Government to interfere with individual performances and while such decisions should be made at arm’s length, do you agree that it is proper that resources allocated to the arts are invested in line with the public interest? Do you agree with the report, ‘Arts Council England—Report of the Peer Review’, that Government has a
‘proper need to have a clear view of how it wants to see public money invested in the arts, and to have accurate and ongoing evidence about the return on its investment’
and that that should be the only basis on which funding is continued?
Alun Pugh: That Arts Council England review was a useful piece of work. One of the most important sentences of the whole report is that which states that no public body can expect to continue to receive funds on any basis other than with clear evidence about the return of public investment. Government has an entirely proper role in that area.
Owen John Thomas: In November, you received a paper from the Arts Council of Wales, dealing with its strategy, policy, planning, research and evaluation relative to this restructuring. Within a month or so, you had informed the chair that he would have to reapply for the post if he wanted to stay as chair when his term came to an end in March. That did not happen with previous chairs, for example, the chair of the Welsh Language Board, in the three years prior to the latest chair coming into place.
A member of your party once said that the Labour Party is not a party of policies, but a party of power—a party that seeks to retain power. That is what you have done here. Is it not right, Minister, that, in deciding not to extend that three-year period to a new three-year period, you were seeking to appoint someone who would be submissive, whereas this chair, Geraint Talfan Davies, would stand up to you and say that what you are doing is not in the best interests of Wales or the arts council? What you have done is disgraceful.
3.50 p.m.
Alun Pugh: You need to be careful with the comments that you make in the Chamber and elsewhere, bearing in mind your special position as a nominee of the Culture, Welsh Language and Sport Committee, in terms of appointments and pre-judging matters. You need to go away and read the code of practice on public appointments.
David Melding: To quote The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, which is currently rather popular, what you have told us this afternoon is in fact ‘a cock and bull story’. I was on the Health and Social Services Committee’s public appointments panel for nearly seven years. I know how the system works. When a chair is up for reappointment for a second term, if the appraisal is strong and the chair has the Minister’s confidence, he or she is reappointed. That is how the system works.
You are technically correct in saying that you have not sacked the current chair, but I find it quite incredulous that you are telling us that he still has your confidence. He clearly does not. He could further embarrass you and seek reappointment, and he would have to be interviewed. The panel, no doubt, would be held in a constructive and proper way. I have no doubt about that because, in fairness, your party has improved the procedure for public appointments. However, the stark fact is that the current chair has lost your confidence. You are not prepared to reappoint him, as you could, subject to reappraisal and the agreement of the other members of the culture committee’s appointment panel. That is the case. Christmas has come and gone, but we still have a turkey for an arts Minister.
Alun Pugh: I am not sure what the question was, but it is true to say that the role of the chair is changing. The structure of the arts council is also changing, and there will be a new strategy for the arts, with participation and the need to get everyone involved at its core. Given the fact that the role of the chair is changing, I think it entirely appropriate to follow the clear precedent set in the past and to go for a public re-advertisement.
Carl Sargeant: Constituents such as mine and those of Huw Lewis and Lynne Neagle rarely have access to the arts, so they will hardly be interested in the appointment of this chap. The simple question is: have you followed, and are you following, the guidance on employing people to these positions? The answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and not the cock-and-bull or the pantomime-horse statements made by opposition Members in the Chamber today.
Alun Pugh: The public appointments procedure will be followed to the letter in making this appointment—I can assure you of that, Carl. I am sure that you enjoyed the Brassed Off tour by Clwyd Theatr Cymru, which went into a Communities First area in your constituency, and many others. I have been brassed off by some of the comments made by opposition Members and the nonsense that I have heard from them today.
Leighton Andrews: I pay tribute to the work carried out by Geraint Talfan Davies as chair of the Arts Council of Wales. I have been pleased to welcome him to my constituency on at least three occasions, and all of his visits have been to Communities First wards. I am not sure whether I would ever think that the arts council, or any other public body, was spending enough on, or doing enough to encourage activity in, the arts in my constituency, but I hope that, in appointing a new chair, you will ensure that you appoint someone who is committed to the access agenda, as Geraint Talfan Davies has been. It is an important issue, and I agree with the comments made by Huw Lewis and Carl Sargeant about the fact that we want to encourage more people to have access to the arts in disadvantaged constituencies. I hope that that will be one of the criterion for this appointment.
Alun Pugh: It is true to say that I want someone who takes the access agenda seriously. I am looking here at the figures for Rhondda Cynon Taf, which currently has particularly low participation figures in terms of the arts. I am sure that you are not happy with the fact that the RCT figures are below those for Merthyr Tydfil and level with those for Blaenau Gwent. I know that that is an area that we both want to see addressed by any future chair.
Nick Bourne: It was a sad day for Wales when you failed to re-appoint Geraint Talfan Davies. I do not think that that is the central issue here, but I feel that we have lost an excellent ambassador for the arts in Wale |
