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Vaulting Ambition That O'erleaps ItselfDateline: 23rd February, 2003
And who can argue with that? In fact, there is little anyone can argue with in ACE's Ambitions for the Arts. It is a bold statement of the value of the arts and hence of artists and arts organisations. It sets out a vision of the arts at the centre of life in England, with teachers, health professionals, probation officers, youth workers, social workers and carers reporting the value of the arts in their work. It sees the arts impacting on all aspects of society:
It will also order itself so that it will make operational changes that deliver a much improved service to the arts at considerably less cost and will lever resources for the arts from a wide variety of national and regional sources at a level far greater than was possible previously. There is surely no one in the arts world who will not applaud loudly, who will not stand four-square behind these aims. However, we can be forgiven, I think, if the words "pie in the sky" or even "vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself" come to mind. As we have chronicled on this site over the last six years, ACE has not had a particularly good track record: for much of the time, indeed, it has been damned for its bureaucracy, sluggishness and, at times, sheer ignorance of its own field. Its response to the Bowden Report and the extra funding it has obtained for theatre in England did much to redeem it in the eyes of many theatre people, but its take-over of the Regional Arts Boards alienated many and the cost of this this "merger" - £1.2m the last time we looked - sent shockwaves through the arts world. On the other hand, ACE has never quite experienced the depths of contempt into which the Arts Council of Wales fell over its Drama Strategy, its approach to new writing and the Theatre in Education débacle. ACW is now beginning to recover its credibility, so we can only hope that Arts Council England will rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the Arts Council of England and that the words from the Scottish play which form the title of this article will prove to be completely unfounded. Articles Indices:
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