Fear and arts funding

The most important rule to maintain your funds  has nothing to do with the quality of your work or organisation, it is NOT to criticise your funders- ESPECIALLY if they're a government agency! At least not publicly.


I worked as an advocate and developer for minority ethnic artists in North East England for 5 years and the stories I heard from the artists, groups and organisations I served about their treatment at the hands of the regional branch of Arts Council England were often shocking. The same stories were never repeated in ear-shot of ACE "Relationship Managers" who continue about their business believing that everything in their garden is rosey. Something interesting happens to people who become ACE Relationship Managers: before; they criticise and complain with the rest of us, once in receipt of 'the king's shilling', they suddenly understand and are happy to spout the corporate rhetoric without question.


4 or so years ago ACE issued a questionnaire about their services and I was contacted by a Relationship Manager (sorry, but that does make me giggle), who told me my submission was the only one that offered negative responses. I was surprised and I related that my responses were based on what clients had shared with me. I suggested that had the exercise been anonymous, the results might have been different. But the "facts" spoke for themselves: I had a personal problem with ACE that wasn't shared with others in the "sector".


I felt set up. I contacted people who'd complained to me about their treatment by ACE and asked why they hadn't used the opportunity to give honest feedback and found that they feared being "black-listed" and that future applications would be doomed to failure.


The conspiracy of silence is pernicious as it includes not challenging BME groups and organisations that DO receive ACE funding even when their incompetence and lack of engagement with the communities they claim to serve is obvious. Some of the (few) BME organisations that secured "National Portfolio Organisation" status in my region are better at making friends with ACE Relationship Managers than they are at delivering the art and culture they claim in their applications. One in particular has "special relations" with several "flagship" venues and secures regular programme dates but, if you attend their events, audiences are often small and seem to include a significant number of the organiser's extended family, few of whom have paid for their tickets.


This practice leads to assumptions among the major venues that "culturally diverse" programming is not good box office- it is something to be offered to gain 'Brownie points'  and get a tick in a box. The Usual Suspects in receipt of ACE funds tend to be the least challenging, the most complimentary of ACE, the happiest to add  colour to corporate photography. One character, on the Board of major regional venues "Often misses meetings, rarely says anything and if [they] ask a question, no one really understand [the] response which is usually met with a polite silence", but without this person there would be no BME presence on that Board. Other artists, groups and organisations offer private grumbles not shared with ACE in an attempt to show a unity that ironically contributes to division within the sector.


Now that I am an independent freelancer, I feel less restricted to share my experiences and to question ACE decisions. I refuse to ever be in a position where my future is dependent on the whim of an ACE Relationship Manager.