Graham Hitchen

We’ve heard lots about the importance of ‘frontline’ organisations recently, but very little about the organisations and agencies which support the frontline and which, mainly in a very self-effacing and under-sung way, provide a critical infrastructure for a rich and diverse arts landscape. The arts in the UK have profited hugely from the active support and intervention of an infrastructure of organisations and agencies working to provide advice and support to emerging sectors or practices. Think of the critical work pursued in the past by agencies such as the Minority Arts Advisory Service, established by Arts Council England (ACE) in the 1980s to promote ‘minority ethnic’ arts practice, or south Asian dance promoter, Aditi, in stimulating and supporting the growth of Black and Asian arts, or organisations such as Interaction in spawning a generation of community artists and arts activists. This issue of AP highlights the work of organisations such as Shape (p5), promoting disability arts as well as advising on and supporting access and equality through the mainstream; and Earlyarts (p2), promoting the arts to very young children. Even agencies generating data on audiences, as cited by Ivan Wadeson (p3), play a crucial role in providing insight and intelligence to inform programming decisions, as well as marketing and promotion. None of these are frontline – but all fuel and support a vibrant arts ecology. The Government’s insistence on the frontline could be seen as tacit encouragement to withdraw funding from many of these. (Arguably, the system of funding the frontline is a ‘picking winners’ approach to arts funding – which is frowned upon in other areas of public funding – rather than addressing ‘market failure’, by promoting under-represented arts practice and enabling the sector to be more resilient.)

It’s notable, for example, that among the first decisions made by ACE after the first round of cuts soon after the General Election was that to withdraw funding for Arts & Business (A&B). Now, A&B might not have fitted that picture of self-effacing organisations referred to above, but there is no doubt that it has provided a critical support system enabling organisations to access new funding opportunities, particularly outside London and for those sectors least obviously attractive to sponsors and business partners. It could, of course, have an important role to play in promoting philanthropy. To be fair to ACE, it has opted not to slash funding for all intermediary organisations and agencies, despite high-profile casualties such as A&B and CCE (formerly Creative Partnerships), and has retained a large number as NPOs. Indeed, in the context of a refocused programme of arts support, these agencies should, arguably, have a greater role to play. Almost by definition, support for agencies and the programmes they run is overtly strategic: it is about intervening to support growth or development. The principle of strategic intervention is that it is exactly that: time- and issue-specific intervention to support or stimulate changing practice. But, just as the intermediary agencies can play a catalytic role in promoting arts practice, it’s also right that organisations such as ACE should have the ability to flex and reduce funds, according to strategic priorities.

In which case, we need to move beyond the language of frontline, and instead demonstrate a better understanding of the complex ecology of arts practice, within which these support organisations can play a critical role.

THIS WEEK Graham recently visited the Estorick Collection in Islington, and is looking forward to a packed week of activities at Digital Shoreditch in East London next week.