Financial troubles at the Sydney Dance Company (SDC) and other SOBs (symphony, opera, ballet) in Australia are being laid at the feet of government, at least among some in the arts industry there. Says this article:
The financial crisis at the Sydney Dance Company, and the dismal affairs of the three state orchestras singled out in the Strong report this week, were the result of a lack of urgent government action in updating the way major arts companies are funded.Although poor box-office returns at the SDC were among reasons cited for the problems, critics who did not wish to be named said the real problem for all the country’s major arts organisations lay in the continued use of the original funding model set out by the landmark Nugent inquiry.
Since it seemed to be the source of the ‘real problem for all the country’s major arts organisations,’ I figured the Nugent inquiry was worth a look. Prepared back in 1999 (not by Ted Nugent, which would have been cool…’Cat Scratch Fever’…but by a team led by banker Dr. Helen Nugent), the report was an advisory on how government support and policy should play a role in the country’s ‘major performing arts.’ There’s a link to the full report on this page (item number 5).
The report was a surprisingly ‘banker-ish’ treatise on strategic economics, calling for specific categories to guide funding and support for each arts organization:
The Inquiry recommends that, based on an assessment of a company’s economics, artistic quality and breadth of product, each company should be designated — for its core activities — as a Global, Australian Flagship, Niche or Regional Flagship company….The Inquiry makes these recommendations so that Australia can benefit — artistically and economically — from each company’s artistic capabilities. In turn, the companies can more readily take advantage of the changing external environment; focus their activities on what they do well; and avoid having their limited resources stretched too thinly by being asked to be ‘all things to all people’.
The five-point funding model took these designations, and applied fairly exacting standards and formulas for funding:
- It established a ‘normalized’ cost base for each company recognizing its strategic role but designed to ‘not reward inefficiency’;
- It established a base level of government funding for companies in each artform, through a ‘standard artform ratio’ (yikes);
- It applied yet another ‘adjustment factor’ for companies outside of major metropolitan areas, reflecting their ‘current inability to generate the same proportion of revenue from box office and the private sector as is possible for companies based in Sydney and Melbourne.’;
- For four companies based in Sydney and Melbourne, it applied an ‘artistic risk adjustment factor’ to the base funding, recognizing their commitment to the development of new work; and
- It allocated the amount of funding responsibility to the Commonwealth and State Governments according to indicators in points 1 through 4.
Beyond the stark and formulaic approach to arts funding of the report, arts organizations are now also taking issue with the lack of periodic reviews of those formulae, the model’s inflexibility to massive environmental shifts, and the seeming emphasis on larger, traditional arts organizations over smaller, non-traditional ones.
I’ve rarely seen a policy document as specific and strategic as this when it comes to the arts…which turns out to be both fascinating and frightening on many levels.
