Lessons not learned

Arts Council England (ACE) has recently had problems with its IT systems – and for that we can only empathise. We have all had egg on our faces when our websites crash, our databases become corrupted or our ticketing systems fall over, and know how embarrassing it feels when we have to apologise for these temporary lapses in service. Attempting to do a News of the World-style cover-up job so that those affected never know they were affected isn’t a great strategy for cementing long-term relationships: fessing up is temporarily humiliating, but leaves trust intact. So why was it that ACE chose not to inform 66 arts organisations that their bids for National Portfolio Organisation status were under review again when it came to light that its IT systems had failed to deliver applicants’ full submissions (see AP news online) . We can only speculate about the motives, but ACE clearly felt that no one whose application was affected needed to know unless the outcome of the review revealed a need for decisions to be changed. Surprise, surprise, the internal review found that none of the decisions would have been altered if the assessments had been conducted fully in the first place. So that’s all right then.

But this episode begs two important questions – to what extent does ACE’s response to the crisis show respect for arts organisations that will have spent many hours compiling their information for consideration; and what does it says about ACE’s claims of operating an “open and transparent process”? for selecting its NPOs? Clearly the ACE insider who gave AP the tip-off about what was going on felt that these were questions that deserved a more public airing.

Waiting for the press to raise the issue before coming clean has undermined so much that ACE has been working towards in terms of building trust within the arts sector. Following the acrimonious 2008/09 funding decisions, Baroness McIntosh identified flaws in ACE’s strategy that exposed it to “reputational damage.” A Communications Review at the time, examining the way the cuts had been covered in the media, concluded that ACE had been damaged by “the organisation’s cultural tendency not to be open with its stakeholders about its thinking”. In ‘Lessons Learned’, his ironically named response to the McIntosh report, Chief Executive Alan Davey accepted its recommendations, promising to put his house in order, and McIntosh subsequently said: “It would have been easy for an arts council to feel defensive; but that was something this Arts Council was not. They have been very open and candid, and that augurs well for the future.” Perhaps this incident will serve as a much-needed reminder of Davey’s pledge, and a wake-up call for real transparency – not to mention good customer relations – in the future.