Arts Council England have responded to the publication of Marc Sidwell’s report for the New Culture Forum. The executive summary of ‘The Arts Council – Managed to Death’ opens by stating that “The Arts Council has become increasingly wasteful of taxpayers’ money and increasingly unpopular with the arts establishment itself, even as its budgets have remained high. Administrative costs have risen; PR expenditure is exceptionally high; and arts expertise has been lost in favour of managerialism. It is time, not for more piecemeal reform, but to abolish the Arts Council and start again, building a new settlement for the arts in Britain that takes account of the new realities of funding levels and the existence of a department of state with responsibility for culture.”

Arts Council England’s response states that “The New Culture Forum has missed important opportunities – for a proper analysis of arts funding and of the challenges that lie ahead, and a proper debate about how the Arts Council can continue to change and improve its relationships with artists. The report is hampered and its analysis called into question by some basic errors and highly misleading factual inaccuracies….The New Culture Forum has spectacularly missed the point. It claims to want to reduce bureaucratic burdens on artists and then proposes massively increasing them.“

‘The Arts Council – Managed to Death’ report – www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/548

Arts Council England’s response – http://press.artscouncil.org.uk/content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=758&NewsAreaID=2

From Voluntary Arts England