Will bad management end up being rewarded?
AIvan Hewett cross the country arts organisations big and small are clamouring for a slice of the emergency cash that’s just been announced by the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport – and although £1.57billion is a huge sum, it’s a fair bet the sector’s demands can’t be met in full.
One of the trickiest issues that the government department is going to have to navigate is the difference between those organisations that most “deserve” its cash and those that most “need” it.
A theatre that might need £200,000 to avoid bankruptcy next month may not deserve it; another theatre of the same size which needs only £50,000 may deserve more.
The bare figures won’t tell us either way, which is why the department has to resist the temptation to write the biggest cheques to those who shout the loudest. It will have to apply a range of criteria, one of which will have to be, “how well has this organisation been managed?”
How well or badly an arts company has fared during the coronavirus pandemic depends on many factors, but one of them has to be how good a shape it was in before the pandemic struck. To see the truth of that one only has to look across the English Channel, at the Opéra de Paris. Its finances were in a parlous state before the pandemic struck because of a strike earlier this year, so it’s now seeking a huge bail-out from the French government.
It’s not just that giving the biggest cheques to those who make the biggest demands risks rewarding extravagance and poor management. It also penalises thrifty and wellmanaged organisations that have been able to weather the storm comparatively well – or at least less badly.
Take the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. Under the shrewd management of John Summers, its chief executive, it has set aside a sizeable reserve. He says it could sit out the pandemic until early next year without going under. So the orchestra’s immediate need is small, but doesn’t it deserve a helping hand for being so well managed?
Examples like this show that the business of state support for the arts in a time of crisis isn’t just an artistic issue, it’s also a moral one. Between the people and the arts there is a delicate compact which must be respected. Arts organisations do their utmost to provide top-quality work, of a kind which may challenge but never spurn audiences, at a reasonable price. In return they get public support.
That compact has been shattered by the pandemic, because organisations are being paid essentially for waiting. This is not their fault, but they need to play their part in restoring the compact.
That means the DCMS must make a firm distinction between deserving cases and needy cases, which will involve making tough and unpopular decisions. It also means making a return to work – however small – a condition of funding. To return to my example of the Hallé Orchestra: John Summers says he refuses to consider playing to quarter-capacity houses, because it makes no financial sense.
The ministry should say no, that’s not good enough. You must reestablish the compact with your public now. Give chamber concerts, play outdoors, play to 200 people in the Bridgewater Hall, whatever, and in return we will give you extra help. It is tremendously good news for the arts, and a feather in the Government’s cap, that these desperately needed funds are forthcoming; it must now show that it remembers the people’s needs and rights, as well as the arts’, when it comes to deciding who gets what.