ANNUAL REVIEW 2008 Review 08 State of the arts Interview with Jon Winstanley, creator of Manchester’s unique Sketch City Five years of Grants for the arts A look at Arts Council funded programmes 02 Chair’s report 16 A year across the arts Contents Sir Christopher Frayling reflects on Arts Council staff across music, the heated debates and successful theatre, literature, dance and visual outcomes of the past year. arts consider their personal highlights of 2007/08. 04 Chief Executive’s report Alan Davey reflects on an eventful 19 Images of the year year, and considers how we must A selection of images that showcase create the conditions under which work we have funded across 2007/08. great art must flourish. 27 Five years of Grants for the arts 06 Finances at a glance Our open application programme In 2007/08, we invested more than celebrated its fifth year in April 2008, £529 million of public money from making over 2,800 grants totalling the government and the National nearly £57 million in 2007/08. Lottery in the arts. 30 The year at a glance 08 Artist interview: From the reopening of the Southbank Jon Winstanley Centre to Liverpool becoming Sketch City’s Jon Winstanley talks European Capital of Culture, it’s motivation, music, and street art. been a significant year for the arts. 10 Artist interview: 32 Our priorities Nazrin Choudhury Our priorities for 2006–2008 are: Author Nazrin Choudhury explains children and young people, the creative how a Grants for the arts award economy, internationalism, vibrant gave her time to write her first novel, communities, celebrating diversity, My England. and taking part in the arts. 12 The arts debate 44 Highlighted information The arts debate research findings were published in November 2007, 51 Grant-in-aid accounts and will play a vital part of shaping our future priorities. 89 Lottery distribution accounts 14 Regular funding review 120 National Lottery report In February 2008, we announced the most comprehensive review of arts 130 Council and regional council funding in our history, which sparked members controversy across the art world. Great art for everyone Arts Council England works to get great art to everyone by championing, developing and investing in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives. As the national development agency for the arts, we support a range of artistic activities from theatre to music, literature to dance, photography to digital art, carnival to crafts. Great art inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2008 and 2011, we will invest in excess of £1.6 billion of public money from the government and the National Lottery to create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. CHAIR’S REPORT Looking back, moving forward In the year when the Arts Council conducted the most comprehensive review of public funding to the arts in England ever undertaken, it is important to look back further than the furore of the early part of 2008 and remind ourselves of the successful outcome won from the comprehensive spending review. Led by the Arts Council, the arts sector fought a long campaign that won us a surprisingly good settlement from government in what was roundly acknowledged to be a tough spending round. It is one thing to win a good settlement in an expansive spending round – quite another to do so in tighter times. But since becoming Chair I‘ve been clear that the Arts Council should be much, much more than a funding body. As I think I may have said once or twice before, the Arts Council is not just a cash point machine with a complicated pin number, but is also a development agency for the arts. Sir Christopher Frayling, The Arts Council’s decisive investment strategy for the Chair, 2008. arts for 2008–11 led – inevitably – to controversy, but Photo: Steve I believe it will enable us to build on the firm foundation Double of the successes and achievements of the last 10 years, and to move on. I also believe that the arts ecology in this country can be more healthy, confident, and strong as a result. Everyone I’ve spoken to agrees with the principles we adopted; to champion innovation and excellence by bringing new organisations and giving others above-inflation increases rather than simply give all existing funded organisations a little more. As for the practical consequences… well, they were bound to divide opinion, especially when they led to organisations facing a reduction or non-renewal of their funding. It is precisely because we knew from the start that the investment strategy would at times be difficult that we must now conduct a review in order to benefit from a valuable external perspective on the process. This was in some ways new territory for the Arts Council. 02 Arts Council England annual review Learning lessons should be one of the key outcomes for So future audiences and arts practitioners must the Arts Council from any review of these proportions be nourished as well and, standing as I do with and I look forward to discussing with Baroness one foot in the arts world and the other in art and McIntosh her recommendations. They will come in very design education, I was inspired by Creative Britain, useful for future investment strategies, and for putting the strategy document from the Department for persuasive cases to government about the future level Culture, Media and Sport. Skills are at the heart of arts funding. I’m sure the Arts Council will stay of the creative economy and the Arts Council firmly on the front foot and will remain a powerful must support the progression from talent to jobs and ambitious advocate for the arts in England, if and ensure that more people with the right skills anything enhanced by the events of the past year. enter the creative sector. Also, we must constantly remind everyone of the deep connections which I must pay tribute to Peter Hewitt who stood down exist between the publicly-funded arts and the as chief executive of the Arts Council this year. During profit-making creative industries. the last 10 years Peter oversaw the beginnings of a new renaissance in the publicly-funded arts, from My time as Chair of the Arts Council comes to an the merger of nine regional arts boards into one end in January 2009. Over the last five years much organisation to Artichoke Productions’ the Sultan’s has happened, from the redefinition of our role as Elephant. Peter’s contribution to making the arts one a development agency and a clearer understanding of our national success stories was profound. And in of the ‘arm’s length’ relationship to government, the debate about the investment strategy, he proved to a new approach to our investment strategy and himself to be courageous as well. the successful refurbishment of the Festival Hall and hundreds of other major arts centres. Our national In the next year the Arts Council must digest and office has also been reorganised and there have been respond to the McMaster review, Supporting fresh appointments at senior level – including the Excellence in the Arts. Sir Brian McMaster is a auspicious and timely arrival of Alan Davey as chief member of our national Council and his was a executive. Plus a lot of speeches. I keep them all, in very welcome intervention that grew in part out of hard copy, and the pile of papers is now about as tall extensive discussions on the Council itself as well as as me! During the heated debates of January 2008, out of our public value inquiry, the arts debate. I was I said on the radio, ’you certainly don’t take on a role particularly pleased to see the review recognise that like this to increase your circle of friends’. That’s true. artistic excellence can encourage wider and deeper But my unwavering belief in public funding of the engagement with the arts by audiences. Access arts has made it all worthwhile. enhances excellence, and the two should never be seen as antithetical. As Joan Littlewood once said, if you offer the public anything less than the best you are just being patronising. Arts Council England annual review 03 CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT Artistic ambition It is a great honour to be writing this, my first introduction to an annual review of Arts Council England. The last year has been significant for the arts – the reopening of the Festival Hall and the wonderful programme in the first season including the Barenboim recitals and the Messiaen centenary events, Liverpool Capital of Culture, Opera North going from strength to strength, the RSC history plays, the emergence of new artists such as Hofesh Shechter, wonderful new writing in the theatre such as The Pitmen Painters – the list is enormous. Alan Davey, The Arts Council itself has also had an eventful year. Chief Executive, The successful Comprehensive Spending Review 2008. Photo: Piers Allardyce settlement allowed the Arts Council to deepen its commitment to excellence, risk-taking, innovation and reach. The easy thing to do given such a settlement would have been to just leave things as they were and give everyone a little more. That we chose to do something more ambitious – to bring in over 80 new regularly funded organisations, to give over 750 organisations more than inflation – is the sign of an organisation with ambition for the arts. It is an ambition I want to continue. 04 Arts Council England annual review I’d like to pay tribute to my predecessor Peter Hewitt, percentage of our budget we spend on ourselves who has created the conditions under which the arts by 15 per cent, and put that money into the arts.