Letters to The Western Mail
Lack of arts funding: 12/1/06
SIR - Since 2003, the Arts Councils for Wales have dispersed £47.8m throughout Wales. Of that, the Merthyr Borough has received £2,500. That's 0.00005% of the total - as next to nothing as makes no difference. The Caerphilly Borough has received 0.003%, Blaenau Gwent 0.003%, Rhondda Cynon Taff 0.03%.
It is clear that in this period the Arts Council has failed my constituency and the taxpayers there that pay for its existence. Indeed the same could be said for the working class communities of the Valleys as a whole.
The Culture Minister, Alun Pugh, is well aware of this disparity in funding and is taking steps to put it right.
I hope he lets nothing get in his way, least of all the bleating of a Cardiff and rural Wales-based Arts crachach who in the same period absorbed 74% of that cash (figures for Cardiff, Gwynedd, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, Powys and Pembrokeshire combined).
In your execrable editorial (Jan 6) you lay the blame for this on working class people themselves, saying "you cannot lead a camel to the water trough if it doesn't want to drink" (sic). Well I say that if you cannot detect the massive middle-class bias in Arts spending in Wales, its no wonder you cannot tell a horse from a camel.
My constituents pay for our Arts and Culture policy, just the same as everyone else. They deserve to be a part of it, just like everyone else. The Valleys need the regenerational and educational spin-offs of cultural activity just like everyone else. Alun Pugh is on their side. Whose side is the Arts Council on?
HUW LEWIS AM
Assembly Member, Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney
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A share of the arts: 13/1/06
SIR - In response to the letter from Huw Lewis AM, published in yesterday's Western Mail, about how much the Arts Council of Wales has spent in his constituency, I thought your readers might find it helpful to have a fuller picture.
ACW has been concerned for some time about historically low levels of spending in Merthyr and has been working with the local authority and voluntary arts organisations in the area to improve the situation. For the past few years we have been supporting an Arts Development Officer position with the local authority with the aim of increasing arts activity and applications from the borough to our Council. So far we have spent £77,892 - the highest level of award to any local authority under this scheme, recognising the acute need. We have also offered £30,000 to fund a second arts development officer post with the local authority provided the authority can identify match funding.
In 2005 we spent £39,550 on seven projects in the borough, including a £15,000 grant to the Tydfil Training Consortium to support a Youth Music Action Zone to engage children in a wide range of musical activities and another £10,000 to the local authority to support young musicians in and out of school.
Our Night Out community touring scheme has supported 15 events at community venues throughout the borough over the past two years. Fourteen of these events were in Communities First areas.
Many organisations which we fund, which are based elsewhere, also deliver activity within Merthyr: Community Dance Wales, Spectacle Theatre, Drama Association of Wales, and WNO Max to name a few.
Elsewhere in the Valleys we are funding five venues under the Arts outside Cardiff scheme: Park and Dare in the Rhondda, the Coliseum in Aberdare, the Muni in Pontypridd, the Blackwood Miners Institute and the Beaufort Theatre in Ebbw Vale. The Arts Outside Cardiff scheme uses funds provided by the Welsh Assembly Government.
The creation of a theatre or arts centre in Merthyr has long been our ambition, but it must be done without putting an undue burden on what is a small local authority. We are working with the Welsh Assembly Government's new Heads of the Valleys initiative to see whether this can be achieved in a wider context.
The Arts Council of Wales is fully supportive of Huw Lewis's commitment to ensuring all the people of Wales have access to the arts and we will continue work with our partners to increase access to, and participation in the arts in those communities where opportunities lag behind other parts of the country.
PETER TYNDALL
Chief Executive, The Arts Council of Wales
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A Culture in Common: 14/1/06
Sir - The sorry affair of the removal of that outstanding servant of Wales, Geraint Talfan Davies, from the chairmanship of the Arts Council, puts me in mind of the review of arts policy conducted by the Culture Committee of the National Assembly in the year 2000.
The committee, which I chaired and of which Alun Pugh was a member, produced the report A Culture in Common. Two points deserve particular attention at this time.
We considered what roles were appropriate for different players.
Government, we agreed, had a legitimate voice in determining policy, such as an emphasis on wide participation and social inclusion as well as excellence.
Strategy - determining how such policy principles should be given effect - was a matter for an arms-length agency, lest specific decisions be corrupted by political priorities. The Arts Council, we agreed, should be retained.
Alun Pugh and Welsh Labour are now riding rough-shod over this crucial distinction.
We laid great emphasis on bringing the national "flagships" - WNO, the National Orchestra, Diversions etc - into a continuing constructive and vital relationship with the cultural life of the nation, from the grass-roots upwards.
By removing the responsibility for funding the "flagships" from the Arts Council, Alun Pugh has destroyed the possibility for funding decisions to encourage this integration of arts policy.
Increasingly, people throughout Wales are realising with horror what the continued domination of Welsh government by Labour entails - a ruthless centralisation of power in its own hands accompanied by a lack of creative and constructive policy.
Breaking free of this stranglehold must surely be a priority for those who have the interests of Welsh democracy at heart.
CYNOG DAFIS
Cedrwydd, Landre, Bow Street,Ceredigion
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