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Arts Council OF GREAT BRITAI N Patronage and Responsibility Thirty=fourth annual report and accounts 1978/79 ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAIN REFERENCE ONLY DO NOT REMOVE fROwI THE LIBRARY Thirty-fourth Annual Report and Accounts 1979 ISSN 0066-813 3 Published by the Arts Council of Great Britai n 105 Piccadilly, London W 1V OAU Designed by Duncan Firt h Printed by Watmoughs Limited, Idle, Bradford ; and London Cover pictures : Dave Atkins (the Foreman) and Liz Robertson (Eliza) in the Leicester Haymarket production ofMy Fair Lady, produced by Cameron Mackintosh with special funds from Arts Council Touring (photo : Donald Cooper), and Ian McKellen (Prozorov) and Susan Trac y (Natalya) in the Royal Shakespeare Company's small- scale tour of The Three Sisters . Contents 4 Chairman's Introductio n 5 Secretary-General's Report 12 Regional Developmen t 13 Drama 16 Music and Dance 20 Visual Arts 24 Literature 25 Touring 27 Festivals 27 Arts Centres 28 Community Art s 29 Performance Art 29 Ethnic Arts 30 Marketing 30 Housing the Arts 31 Training 31 Education 32 Research and Informatio n 33 Press Office 33 Publications 34 Scotland 36 Wales 38 Membership of Council and Staff 39 Council, Committees and Panels 47 Annual Accounts , Awards, Funds and Exhibitions The objects for which the Arts Council of Great Britain is established by Royal Charter are : 1 To develop and improve the knowledge , understanding and practice of the arts ; 2 To increase the accessibility of the arts to the public throughout Great Britain ; and 3 To co-operate with government departments, local authorities and other bodies to achieve these objects . Chairman's Introduction By coincidence the printer's deadline obliges me to write thi s introduction during the brief period between the departure of Mr Callaghan's government and the first meeting of Mrs Thatcher's team with Parliament. It seems therefore to be a good moment for a glance at the immediate past and a cautious look into the future for th e arts. In the two years since I became the Arts Council 's Chairman th e Labour Government has dealt very fairly with the arts, indee d generously, when taking into account the prevailing economic climate. The Council, and artists in general, are grateful to Mrs Shirley Williams as Secretary of State for Education and to Lord Donaldson as Ministe r for the Arts for all they did to sustain the arts during this period an d help to make them accessible to more and more people. What then are the prospects under the new Conservative administration? Such evidence as .I have so far suggests that the Council might be justified in viewing the future with some degree o f optimism. The discussion paper published only a few months before th e election by the Conservative Political Centre - `The Arts - The Way Forward' - recommended `that spending on the arts should b e protected from across-the-board expenditure cuts and that, when resources become available, there should be the possibility of a n increase in expenditure'. The new Minister responsible, Mr St John - Stevas, when in Opposition went a good deal further than this an d advocated significantly increased spending on the arts . The last government came to realise that money invested in the art s produces dividends of many sorts, not only the social dividend o f providing the citizen with richer leisure opportunities and generall y enhancing the quality of life, but more tangible returns in stimulatin g tourism, contributing to the economy and raising our national prestige in the world. All this must surely commend itself with no less force to a Tory administration . Just over £ 1 per head of the population is not a high price to sustain those many areas of our cultural heritage whic h look to the Arts Council for support. More is needed and it will be wel l spent. Secretary-General's Report Patronage and Responsibilit y Introductio n It should therefore be emphasised that Arts Council The Arts Council is the major source of arts members and advisors, from the Chairma n patronage in Great Britain . It spends taxpayers' downwards, are all unpaid. As for political bias, money, and this lays on it a duty to exercise it s Lord Goodman, when he was Chairman of Council , patronage with responsibility and discrimination . said he had-never heard a political discussion at an y Since the beginning of the period of financia l Arts Council meeting, and it seemed to him restraint the funds available have been rather les s inconceivable that one should take place. That is still than the Council knows is needed - and far less than true, much as it may surprise both those who see th e many arts bodies ask for . So now, more than ever , Arts Council as the tool of the ruling class and those the essence of responsible patronage lies i n who believe it favours left-wing arts. The basis o f discrimination, in making very difficult choices . both these false perceptions lies in the eyes of the Otherwise, it would be a simple matter of writin g beholders rather than in any real knowledge of how cheques to first comers (or loudest shouters), an d the Arts Council works . then closing the books . Discriminating patronage calls for the advice of many experts in the different The decision to set up the Council over 33 years ag o art forms - over 300 at present on panels and (long before the word `quango' was thought of), was committees, as well as the 20 members on the taken by a wartime coalition government, endorsed Council itself. by a brief Conservative administration, and finally implemented by a Labour government . This The Arts Council and Politic s pedigree reflects two important consequences o f The Arts Council is in fact a quango (a quasi - government funding of the arts in World War Two . autonomous non-governmental organisation) . There First, the view that arts should be funded by th e has been recent criticism of the proliferation of state was whole-heartedly endorsed by both th e quangos, and it has been argued that some reflec t major political parties. Second, arts policy was, an d undue political bias in their composition and ar e has remained until perhaps the last two years , open to abuse as a source of jobs for favoured boys . almost wholly bi-partisan . It was political only in the sense that politics represents the achievement b y collective action of what cannot be achieved b y individual action. A suggestion made by one report during the year that arts subsidy should be scrappe d and the money left in the taxpayers' pockets, leavin g , individuals to make their own subsidy decision s 51 ignores a basic fact: if the Arts Council's subsid y this year had been scrapped and the fund s redistributed, it would have given individua l taxpayers less than a couple of pounds a year t o spend on the arts. Clearly, however wisely they spent it, it would not have ensured the survival of , for example, the National Theatre, or the regional theatres and orchestras. The arts would, however, benefit from reductions in direct taxation (provided it is not balanced by increased VAT on tickets) , since this would enable individuals to face the increasing cost of visiting many arts events ; but there is a limit to this process if we are to preserv e the institutions which have been built up since th e war, which are a prime source of enjoyment to th e 11 . then one quango led to another . British people, as well as a magnet which draw s London Express Service . Reproduced by permission o f tourists to spend millions of pounds in London an d the Evening Standard, London. elsewhere . Secretary-General's Repor t The Arts Council and the Governmen t The foregoing expresses more accurately the delicate The British way of organising public subsidy for th e balance between independence and responsibilit y arts is admired (and envied) throughout the world . than does the phrase about `the arm's length Government has put between itself and the artist a n principle' which most of us have used since Lord independent body, thus assuring the arts freedo m Redcliffe-Maud said three years ago that it was th e from political control. Government pays the piper , basis of `the gentle art of patronage' which all but makes no attempt to call the tune . The situatio n politicians, national and local, must practise i n was described in an Arts Council report over twent y dealing with the arts. The phrase can suggest - and years ago when the Chancellor of the Excheque r has suggested to some - an unacceptable remotenes s was the Minister responsible for the arts : between politicians and the arts. This is an area No Minister directs its policy or decides how and where the delicate balance can tip either way : to whom its grant shall be made. There is n o independence can degenerate into real single instance on record of a Chancellor of the irresponsibility ; responsibility can degenerate into Exchequer requiring or directing, or even political subservience. We in Britain have kept th e advising, the Arts Council to do this or not to d o balance right for over thirty years, but it can only b e that, and when from time to time some action o f kept right by the continuing good sense of both the Arts Council is criticised in the House o f Government and the Arts Council.

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