The Death of NECDAF

A job I particularly enjoyed, and where I managed to effect significant positive changes laboured under the lugubrious label of 'the North East Cultural Diversity Arts Forum' which meant little to anyone. The organisation was the product of an Arse(sic) Council funding 'rationalisation': there had existed "Arts Forums" for North East England African and different South Asian groups all asking for funds, so some bright spark thought it would be good to get them under an organisational umbrella. By the time I get the job the organisation had become a tedious monthly ritual of (male) "elders" droning on interminably about the age and relevance of their particular cultural background and why it should be given prominence. Personal "standing" was the most important issue: they were on that Board of Trustees for personal kudos. Their idea of an "Arts Policy" was to formulate unreasonable and unrealistic demands for access to stages and venues they could rarely fill.

It was dull.

They then began to treat me like a servant which was a fatal error. They were casual about signing cheques for my salary for example and I once had one of telling me how he used to have responsibility for a budget of millions. I responded by asking him what relevance that had for an organisation with an annual budget of £40K? That was amusing; I thought he was going to have a coronary. I decided to expose their collective incompetence by arranging their AGM in the Council Chamber at the civic centre and inviting the cultural great and good. My plan was going swimmingly until the "Chair" contacted me THE DAY BEFORE THE AGM on a day off and instructed me to write his speech! I think the Arse Council 'Officer' did it for him in the end. It did do the trick though as most of this old guard seeped back into the ether shortly after and I was able to get experienced trustee-types to join and the name was changed to Intercultural Arts. I tried the name out on various bods-in-the-street as well as "Cultural Professionals" and everyone's ideas about what an organisation called that might do were fairly spot on.

And good work was done for a while...

By 2009 I was aware that the global financial crisis would affect UK arts disproportionately because that always happens in times of financial crisis, even more so when there is a Selfservative government in power. I spent the next TWO YEARS trying to get these supposedly trusty Trustees to wake up to the impending danger. I warned of the need to diversify income and not rely solely on the Arse Council. I even went out and secured a couple of contracts that demonstrated how we could be free from Arse Council hegemony. My head was patted, but my illustrious leaders refused to take the issue seriously until the government's Comprehensive Spending Review of 2011 wherein, guess what; the arts budget was severely cut and this was after the Arse Council had imposed its own cuts on itself thinking they'd be spared. The effect of the cuts was that the Arse Council stopped funding support organisations in favour of producing artists. They said that diversity would be the responsibility of every arts organisation. I know what that means: if something is everyone's responsibility it tends not to be done, so I was unsurprised when the Arse Council announced in orchestrated corporate horror last year that there was a serious lack of diversity across its funded organisations!!!! I mean: who could have predicted that?

But WHY did Intercultural Arts fold? I dare to say now, that its Board (mainly invited by me doh!) were in some ways worse than the original: they seemed to me to be on the Board for what that position would do for them rather than the other way around. The organisation was about promoting minority ethnic artists and helping them onto the stages and into the cultural venue in the region. However polite it was always a campaigning function which included some boat-rocking sometimes more vigorous than others. The Board was keen that their other connections weren't negatively impacted by these uppity artists of colour.

Months before I left, the administrator. with whom I had developed an excellent working relationship, left and was replaced by someone who was a young new father. When the shit actually hit the fan I was pissed off with the Board anyway so waived any notion of last in, first out and offered voluntary redundancy largely out of consideration for this guy. I then worked to give the organisation a reason to continue- setting up a watching and communicating brief in great detail. After I left, I found that this guy actually demanded a pay increase claiming greater responsibility (remember; more than half of the function had been removed). Had I known he was going to be such a... to have acted like that, I would have stayed put and let them make him redundant. The organisation grew increasingly pathetic after that, until it closed.

I think the Death of NECDAF was engineered, it was certainly unlamented by the arts establishment! I felt increasing dismay from the Arse Council the more Intercultural Arts delivered on its intercultural remit by empowering artists and putting pressure on venues and institutions to engage minority ethnic regional creative professionals. The last thing the Arse Council actually wanted was an empowered group of black artists. The most shameful thing they did was to deny access to a £750K capital grant on the grounds that despite me and other members of the group requesting the money having extensive building management experience, THE GROUP as an entity did not! When I became chair of the national group to manage this fund I had been warned "You know they want the money to go to London" and that's where most of it ended up. The Arse Council were afraid that if they gave the grant to these black artists to run their own venue on their own (!), they wouldn't be able to manage it and have to be bailed out.

I don't think the Arse Council has ever really been keen for independent minority ethnic arts, but they rejoice in periodically throwing their hands in the air and lamenting the lack of diversity in the arts infrastructure. It was interesting that when I had an opportunity to resurrect the organisation independently, the former Board was reluctant to support it- I mean, what would they do if I made it successful?