| A Look-back & Guide |
Culture in Senedd and Westminster |
| Artists, Senedd Members, Chairs, Writers , Art & Culture in the Public Sphere , February 14, 2025 |
The articles in this sequence below:13 February 2025: Wales and Scotland: The Gap Becomes a Gulf Robert Wilson, Chair of Creative Scotland said: “This is an extremely positive moment for culture in Scotland, bringing with it a renewed sense of stability and certainty to Scotland’s culture sector. Thanks to the vote of confidence in the culture sector, demonstrated by the recently announced budget from the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland can offer stable, year-on-year funding to more organisations than ever before.” * * * * 03 February 2025: “Crumbling building is a metaphor for the culture sector in Wales” “We are disappointed that the minister was unable to give us any assurance that the 2025-26 allocations represent a turning point in the Welsh government’s approach to funding for the sector.” “The committee reiterated appeals to the government to increase funding for culture until it was comparable with that of similar nations, having cited research earlier in the report that found Wales ranked second from bottom in Europe in terms of cultural services spending per person.” * * * * 28 December 2024: A Year Without Precedent for Cultural Critique “Sir Bryn Terfel performed an evening of Christmas carols at the Swansea Arena on 18th December. He spoke of 2024: “The arts in Wales are on their knees.” * * * * 14 November 2024: “The Worst Time to Be a Welsh Artist” “Alun Davies is Member of the Senedd for Blaenau Gwent. He is also a member of the Culture Committee. On 17th October Alun Davies struck a note that was not usual. “The Welsh Government has not funded the arts and culture sector in the same way as, say, Scotland or the Republic of Ireland, in terms of general funding over the last decade, and perhaps more.” * * * * 10 October 2024: “We Can No Longer Go on to Cut, Stint, Cancel and Slash" Westminster: “Arts Council of Wales, in its wisdom, has cut support to this innovating company to zero. It just does not care—that is the problem.” * * * * 19 September 2024 “Culture Strategy: Raymond Williams- "the State Builds Images and Symbols of Itself” "The virtuous cycle of feedback between the public sphere and the state, vital to deliberative democracy, cannot take place. Wales' absent public sphere constrains cultural output, impedes the development of a collective civic identity, and hampers flourishing of the Welsh language." Raymond Williams: "Display, the state building images and symbols of itself. No space or time is made for culture for its own sake, as an unquantifiable variable, or as a medium for social critique and dissent". * * * * 1 August 2024: Senedd Committee Reporting at National Museum of Wales “The Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee...exposed serious governance issues that led to significant costs for the public purse, as part of a novel and contentious settlement.” “The Committee was extremely concerned by the evidence heard about the governance arrangements that were in place at Amgueddfa Cymru and how, ultimately, they proved to be wholly unsatisfactory.” * * * * 18 January 2024: Government Reduction to Culture of Wales “The Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee published a report...weakly written, lacking in insight and analytical rigour. In language, style and quality the Civil Service under Welsh Government management is now in full divergence from its counter-part in London. “The report uses casual and colloquial language. Plural nouns are followed by singular verbs and vice versa. Sentences occur without verbs, Words are omitted. Apostrophes are inserted before an “s” where the word is a plain plural.” * * * * 6 July 2023: Arts Debated in House of Commons “To say from behind its hands, “Well, we’ve been told by wicked Secretaries of State and DCMS that we have to do this”, is something that I do not accept for one moment. The Arts Council is an independent body, for goodness’ sake—the key is in the name, “independent”—and if people take on responsibility for an independent body, they have a duty to that body to act independently. If they are told what to do by somebody whose business it is not, they should tell them to shove off, or threaten to resign.” * * * * 1st June 2023: Geraint Talfan Davies “At Arm’s Length” “National identity has both a political expression, through government, and a social expression, through culture” wrote Robert Hewison in his 1995 book about fifty years of Arts Councils “Culture and Consensus”. “Talfan Davies recounts how often during his tenure he was faced with authority opposed to this distinction.” * * * * 4th May 2023: Dai Smith Memoir “Off the Track” “In my view, this fight, ending in a kind of score draw, pitted constitutional principles against the power game of political willpower. There was, once it began, little chance of being settled by consensual goodwill. Instead, it became more and more heated and quarrelsome in its mode.” “The culture portfolio is a merry-go-round with seven ministers in ten years. Of Carwyn Jones: “promised us everything and so was immensely popular as he floated free of any concrete responsibility.” * * * * 20 January 2022:“I Keep Preaching that Arts Council Money Should Be Spent on Art” The Senedd Committee too is resolute on reducing the public sphere, doing away with the independence of the Arts Council. "The Welsh Government should require the Arts Council for Wales [sic] all arts and cultural bodies in receipt of public funding to set out their objectives for tackling poverty...in their strategic plans." "Here arts organisations", writes Smith, "already strenuously run by low-paid and precariously employed workers- are not only expected to produce high-quality art, but to shape their practice to pick up the slack that has failed to look after its most vulnerable." * * * * 13 May 2021: Labour in Wales' Cultural Manifesto for 2021-2026 “Establish a National Music Service to make sure that a lack of money is no barrier to young people learning to play an instrument. Invest in our theatres and museums, including committing to Theatr Clwyd, establishing the Football Museum and the National Contemporary Art Gallery." * * * * 20 September 2020: Soggy Language of Senedd & Welsh government Monism, Welsh exceptionalism: "This sentence- lackadaisical, empty, void of specifity- would never appear from a counterpart in Holyrood or Westminster. It appears in Cardiff because everyone knows that no-one will notice. From not noticing it is a short step towards not caring.” * * * * 19 September 2020: Good Intentions Over-valued “The first sentence is made up of six collective and abstract nouns. The Committee lacks discrimination to notice. The contributor is full of high motive but it is language that has been put to sleep. “The Report has no words about the actual art forms- the stuff of dance, sculpture, exhibiting, performance go unmentioned. In its place is an uncritical obeisance to “digital”, employed ungrammatically as a noun. This is not the case with the writing standards of the Civil Service in London.” * * * * 01 September 2020: Poor Quality of Language and Clarity in the Public Sphere of Wales "Banality regrettably runs through public documents. So back to Orwell in 1946: “The slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts...If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration." * * * * 20 August 2020: Arts Council of Wales Surrenders Its Independence “It is perfectly reasonable for us to work with Government to develop programmes of work” “The Plan, in making government and people synonymous, shrugs off its obligation to serve the public. It is in the public domain but the public are not expected to read it. The public is certainly not expected to comment." * * * * 27 June 2020 and 26 June 2020: The Arts Council Summoned to the House of Commons In the Palace of Westminster: “After a shaky start before the Committee, WAC just about managed to pull together a creditable performance. By the end of the show WAC had begun to shape up as a troupe of honest, well-meaning chaps, much maligned in the press and misunderstood by clients. However, a number of serious questions remain: Just who is the WAC accountable to? How does WAC decide and administer its artistic criteria? * * * * 16 February 2020: Arts Council’s Aims Should Reflect Welsh Government Policies Jennie Lee, in the words of Lord Goodman: “She had spent much time with artists of all kinds- musicians, writers and painters- and knew that the genuine artist was an uncompromising creature who would not relax his standards. She was not concerned to bring a mediocre amalgam of bits and pieces to a multitude unprepared to receive the unalloyed product.” “She was a forthright woman, given to plain statement, impatient of circumlocution, hating evasion and above all loathing any attitude of defeatism.” * * * * 16 October 2019: The Arms-Length Principle: State is not Nation "On Jennie Lee: "She did not get in the way and she did not allow her minions to get in the way. If the Arts Council operates as it should, it has no need of ministerial control and no means of conforming to it. The Minister should exercise only the restricted functions that an autonomous Council assigns to him." * * * * 22 May 2019: Culture, Welsh Language & Communication Committee "For the Committee to have been effective would have meant getting into the income streams....The selection of interviewees was skewed towards managers from public sector bodies. The questioning was entirely restricted. Not a single question was asked on growing sales revenues, nor was it suggested that the products of Wales might sell a few more tickets." * * * * 02 March 2019: A Report That Says Nothing "This says nothing. The report comes weighted with verbal ballast." * * * * 21 February 2019: CWLCC- Why So Much Effort Ended Up Saying So Little "Tiny audiences, when they occur, are paraded not as failure of service to the public but as indicators of virtue. Wales runs a large balance of payments deficit in theatre." * * * * 2 February 2019: Theatre-Wales' submission to Culture Committee Non-public Funding of the Arts Inquiry "There is no national community in the world of three million that offers a similar abundance of companies and quality. Cardiff has more venues- WMC, the Other Room, Chapter, the New Theatre, the Richard Burton, the Sherman- than any city in Britain outside London." * * * * 02 February 2019: Culture Committee Non-public Funding of the Arts Inquiry “Lastly, the Council is also an outlet for government policy as a whole. Social policy is at its heart but there is evidence of some muddle in its application.” A footnote cites: “A document of advice to companies stresses attention to the most impoverished communities both materially and culturally. It suggests experimental work, the exact opposite of what such communities deserve. The bedrocks of theatre are comedy, musical and drama. An aesthetic of snobbery dislikes these genres, the holders usually lacking in skill to make them.” * * * * 28 January 2019: Submission to Culture Committee Non-public Funding of the Arts Inquiry "Gary Owen alone has over the course of many years become a voice, with a reliable distinctiveness, who can sell out a theatre." * * * * 28 January 2019: “Dramatic portrayals of Welsh life remain largely invisible" “A fragmented media, some answerable to a senior management elsewhere, puts the lid on critical response and public debate. As in other areas entrepreneurial spirit, zeal and managerial competence are high but Wales lacks the structural mechanisms for its full enablement. In the name of solidarity to the national project nostalgia and the selective editing of history pervade the arts to its weakening. The culture is ill-at-ease with modernity. The tourist interest is a strong influence on arts decision-making.” .* * * * 24 February 2018: Mid Wales Opera & Theatr Na nÓg Give Evidence to CWLLC , “This is writing as flock wallpaper. “This helps brand Wales as a forward-looking nation and one that welcomes investment and new business, making it a desirable place to live in and visit.” This is big and baggy corporate waffle." * * * * 21 February 2018: Arts Council Wales Submission to CWLCC ACW notes accurately “One of the most significant sources of non-public funding in the arts is the unpaid time committed by professional artists and creative professionals to delivering projects that they’re involved with. When public funding is tight, arts workers will often absorb the costs themselves by reducing the fees that they take for their work. This isn’t public funding. Nevertheless, it represents a significant hidden ‘subsidy’ to the arts.” * * * * 20 October 2017: Sybil Crouch, Andy Eagle, Emma Goad, Rachel Jones, Yvonne Murphy giving evidence in Senedd “As artists and as a sector we spend an inordinate time and energy- which we do not have- articulating the case for the arts to government...We are being seen as a sector that can sort out poverty, education, health, and, oh, can you make some great art, and take you on an overseas visit as well to promote Wales?" * * * * 06 August 2017: Senedd CWLCC to Look at Non-subsidy Arts Funding "The Committee’s inquiry will investigate the success of the arts sector in Wales at increasing its non-public funding." * * * * 28 July 2017: The Flint Ring Sculpture: CADW & ACW Discomforted “For the Minister the crisis erupted from nowhere. That is the nature of politics. The government will be hopping mad at its quangos creating a side issue when so much else that matters is on the agenda.” |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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