A press cutting:
'When the [Arts] Council announced the results of its first round [of arts funding] in March – just over £114m to 26 projects – Max Stafford-Clark was moved to describe the Council (in The Guardian) as "absolute vermin", focusing on the dominance of London's "big-hitters" as the largest recipients of this pot of the council's largesse. [ACE] chief executive Alan Davey responded with a defence of the council's geographical reach.
'To recap, the Council's capital programme for the current four years amounts to £214.6m – just over half of this was allocated in March with a further £50m available in 2012-13 and £50m in 2013-14.
'At one level, the March announcement highlights a rich array of projects, but at another it provides a worryingly narrow picture, both of future artistic excellence in England and of the spatial contribution arts and culture investment might make to economic growth and development.
'Of the £114m provisionally allocated, 47% goes to eight London projects, and the next two highest regional allocations are to the south-east (14%) and south-west (13%). These three southern regions take 74% of awards, which certainly gives a particular perspective on the government's avowed economic "rebalancing" priority.'
Another announcement:
Successful Catalyst: Endowment programme applicants
'Catalyst is a £100 million culture sector wide private giving investment programme aimed at helping cultural organisations diversify their income streams and access more funding from private sources. The new programme is made up of investment from Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund and the DCMS.'
'Arts' Organisations received £30.5m of which £18.5m (61%) wenet to London-based organisations.
'Heritage' organisations received £27.5m of which £15m (55%) went to London-based organisations and a further £6m (22%) to Portsmouth (HMS Victory and the Mary Rose).
It would be unfair to mention that many of the London recipients of the heritage money (eg National Portrait Gallery, British Library, Victoria and Albert Museum) already receive large government grants: perish the thought.
Thursday 28 June 2012
Wednesday 27 June 2012
Customer care: a bank's version
Off our usual subjects, but definitely part of our wonderful world.
We normally tot up the takings of the previous day every morning and take a bunch of cash to the bank round about lunchtime. Recently a member of our staff was told that instructions from above said that we could no longer bank pay in large quantities of cash every lunchtime - which was convenient for us - as this was a busy time for them. They offered an alternative system which would allow us to deposit a few small bags for counting later but this was hopelessly inadequate. So we complained. Back came a letter from the bank:
Our understanding of your complaint to the Bank
My understanding of your complaint is you are unhappy with the service you have received from the [...] Branch. You feel the service is unprofessional.
Your desired outcome is to be able to pay in cash at any time and to receive an apology from the Bank.
Please let me know if you think I have misunderstood, or missed out any of your concerns.
They went on to assure us that a Case Handler - I hope not a left over from Heathrow - would be tasked with carrying out a full investigation and let us know the result of their findings ... and so on. More dreaded procedures over common sense.
All we wanted to do was pay in money: a service for which we pay the bank extra. Is that such a novel concept for a 'Helpful Bank'? Do they not want money?
Maybe they wanted a bonus.
We normally tot up the takings of the previous day every morning and take a bunch of cash to the bank round about lunchtime. Recently a member of our staff was told that instructions from above said that we could no longer bank pay in large quantities of cash every lunchtime - which was convenient for us - as this was a busy time for them. They offered an alternative system which would allow us to deposit a few small bags for counting later but this was hopelessly inadequate. So we complained. Back came a letter from the bank:
Our understanding of your complaint to the Bank
My understanding of your complaint is you are unhappy with the service you have received from the [...] Branch. You feel the service is unprofessional.
Your desired outcome is to be able to pay in cash at any time and to receive an apology from the Bank.
Please let me know if you think I have misunderstood, or missed out any of your concerns.
They went on to assure us that a Case Handler - I hope not a left over from Heathrow - would be tasked with carrying out a full investigation and let us know the result of their findings ... and so on. More dreaded procedures over common sense.
All we wanted to do was pay in money: a service for which we pay the bank extra. Is that such a novel concept for a 'Helpful Bank'? Do they not want money?
Maybe they wanted a bonus.
Unto those that hath 1
I have always been amused by those photographic competitions which offer a first prize of £1,000 worth of photographic equipment to their winners. Any prize is to be welcomed. If it is an amateur competion then the equipment may well be beyond the reach of the photographer's pocket. But hang on, the photographer must have had a camera and some pretty good equipment to take the photograph in the first place.
The same conundrum applies to museum awards. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter deservedly recently won the Art Fund award which was worth £100k.
Reality check: they had just completed a £24m refurbishment project - which had gone well over the original budget, causing headaches to the managers and arts administrators - and so one can imagine that they had all the gold-plated taps they needed.
What about those museums and galleries that had not had £24m and could really do with a large sum like this? Oh, of course, it was building on excellence and rewarding success.
The same conundrum applies to museum awards. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter deservedly recently won the Art Fund award which was worth £100k.
Reality check: they had just completed a £24m refurbishment project - which had gone well over the original budget, causing headaches to the managers and arts administrators - and so one can imagine that they had all the gold-plated taps they needed.
What about those museums and galleries that had not had £24m and could really do with a large sum like this? Oh, of course, it was building on excellence and rewarding success.
Tuesday 26 June 2012
Data or information?
An issue which quangos are going to be faced quite soon is the mismatch between their appetites and their tummies' ability to absorb food.
On the one hand they are suffering a massive reduction in staffing while on the other, they are asking for ever more detailed information on the use that has been made of their money, no doubt to ensure probity, effectiveness and such stuff.
Administration in the public sector generally is driven by three motors:
I have an irresistible image of an Edward Lear-like quango looking something like the Quangle-Wangle and behaving like the cartoon character Wil E Coyote, lumbering off the edge of the cliff, with its legs thrashing around in mid air before descending to the canyon beneath, weighed down by the load of indigestible data that it has requested. If only they realised what they are doing to themselves.
How many times have we said to a quango or funding body something like: 'We can provide data on what each volunteer did in each hour on each day of the project if you really want it, but what are you going to do with it?' 'Never mind,' they reply, 'just provide it. It is best practice.'
So they also judge us on our ability to produce detailed figures which is an easy proxy for good management and for real information. Oh for some intelligent risk-taking and management and rather less administrative correctness; for someone who knows the difference between more data and useful information.
On the one hand they are suffering a massive reduction in staffing while on the other, they are asking for ever more detailed information on the use that has been made of their money, no doubt to ensure probity, effectiveness and such stuff.
Administration in the public sector generally is driven by three motors:
- The need to ensure that all stable doors that have been found wanting in the past can never be re-opened
- The need to ensure value for money - the old economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and
- The belief that 'good management' is an absolute: mostly consisting of the two above underpinned by lots of data
I have an irresistible image of an Edward Lear-like quango looking something like the Quangle-Wangle and behaving like the cartoon character Wil E Coyote, lumbering off the edge of the cliff, with its legs thrashing around in mid air before descending to the canyon beneath, weighed down by the load of indigestible data that it has requested. If only they realised what they are doing to themselves.
How many times have we said to a quango or funding body something like: 'We can provide data on what each volunteer did in each hour on each day of the project if you really want it, but what are you going to do with it?' 'Never mind,' they reply, 'just provide it. It is best practice.'
So they also judge us on our ability to produce detailed figures which is an easy proxy for good management and for real information. Oh for some intelligent risk-taking and management and rather less administrative correctness; for someone who knows the difference between more data and useful information.
Does size matter?
Fashions change in confusing ways. We have a government that is preaching Localism and the Big Society: the devolution of choice (and responsibility?) to the lowest levels and the involvement of all in those choices. On the other hand, much of the decision-making is being increasingly centralised. So what is the best solution?
The present thesis is that the country will lift itself out of recession when bright, sparky entrepreneurs create dynamic new companies and organisations. Small companies display a lightness of touch, creative passion and an ability to grow and adapt quickly. Big companies, in this narrative, can be slow and cumbersome, as difficult to turn around as an ocean liner.
The stock market does not always agree with this analysis. When a large company swallows up a smaller rival the share price goes up: efficiencies will be made behind the scenes, more will be obtained out of existing customer lists, the smaller company will benefit from the wider experience and access of the larger.
On the other hand, when the asset stripper comes along and separates out a large company, then this will provide focus, allow people to concentrate more on their core business, cut out wasteful communication costs. The share price goes up.
The public sector is going through a similar exercise at the moment. Quangos were created as arms-length units which could focus on specific issues and which could do things at arm's length from ministers - thus protecting fragile posteriors from the need for real understanding and from flak over unpopular decisions. Perish the thought that quangos were also a way of getting around civil service head count.
Small, light-footed quangos are no longer flavour of the times: no, we must get rid of as many as possible. The result has been a series of super-quangos. Their share prices, if they had one, would immediately go up, never mind that they are now likely to be further from their real customers and less sensitive to their needs.
We can make savings from putting quangos together, say ministers. We need to cut their expenditure budgets and demand administrative savings.
Doing these two things at once was a cute political move. Cutting the budgets of existing quangos by say 10% would have produced howls of protest from the special interest groups concerned but tell a quango that it is to be abolished and combined with another and magically the special interest group is left isolated, concentrating so hard on ensuring that the 'work should continue' that they completely miss the fact that the budget is being cut by 50% in the process.
What is the consequence of this change? The new quango is intended to be smaller - leaner in public sector jargon - than the previous two or three. With a net reduction in head count, the quango staff are even further from the action than before. They are less able to give time to a proper consideration of what is going on: there is simply too much of it.
Because budgets have been cut there is less money to spend anyway and therefore there are likely to be more disgruntled clients but never mind, they are out in the sticks and their individual loss will not rock the ship of state.
So how do they react to the new world in which they are separated further from their clients or interest groups, in which they have fewer informed staff and less money to share? There are two obvious strategies: find an organisation at 'the next layer down' or re-introduce the famous challenge fund.
The challenge fund
Organisations need to be more focused (on our agenda - unspoken). We cannot go on giving money across the board. We need to stimulate targeted change. Let's create a challenge fund.
This suits the centralists of course and produces a centripetal force with descions spiralling inwards to the centre, quite the opposite of Localism. Centralists can choose the projects and announce them - nothing like an announcement for getting publicity for the giver - while the recipient's agenda is tortured off track by the need to respond to the often weird requirements of the new scheme. We want to you make a real and sustainable change in the number of people of Lithuanian origin that you attract to your museum/visitor attraction/sports fields. Given that this is the only money available, we, the clients, simply say yes to the absurd request and hope that everyone will have forgotten the original purpose by the time the scheme is over, hoping that we can cream off enough money from the the targeted grant to pay the electricity bill for that is what is really needed.
The next layer down
We need someone to do the work we used to do but can no longer do because of a shortage of staff: enter the 'bridge organisation' as the code for Localism. This is typically a small charitable body with an enthusiasm for some part of the quango's work. Its pitch to the quango is along the lines of 'You provide us with funds and we can deliver your BlahBlah agenda'. The poor overworked, under-resourced quango is all too grateful for such things and signs a cheque. The bridge organisation rushes around the quango's former clients, looking for people who will do their bidding. So they create a new mini-quango. The clients have their agendas disrupted and are even further from the funding body while the bridge organisation takes the credit for the excellent BlahBlah work.
There used to be such things: they were called 'regional offices' but many of these were abolished in the last round of slimming down quangos.
How much better if the money did not have to cross a bridge.
Another solution is to preach partnership to a group of disparate bodies: if you all worked in partnership to a single agenda then ... The unspoken agenda completes the sentence we would have fewer people to deal with therefore might just about be able to cope.
No one asks whether partnership is a good thing. It is the thinking of the acquisitive company which hoovers up small entrepreneurial businesses to create a conglomerate. set your clock for the moment when someone suggests breaking up theses behemoths in order to give greater focus, allow people to concentrate more on their core business, cut out wasteful communication costs, allow greater freedom of local decision-making.
As Augustus De Morgan - I always thought it was Hilaire Belloc - said:
'Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
The present thesis is that the country will lift itself out of recession when bright, sparky entrepreneurs create dynamic new companies and organisations. Small companies display a lightness of touch, creative passion and an ability to grow and adapt quickly. Big companies, in this narrative, can be slow and cumbersome, as difficult to turn around as an ocean liner.
The stock market does not always agree with this analysis. When a large company swallows up a smaller rival the share price goes up: efficiencies will be made behind the scenes, more will be obtained out of existing customer lists, the smaller company will benefit from the wider experience and access of the larger.
On the other hand, when the asset stripper comes along and separates out a large company, then this will provide focus, allow people to concentrate more on their core business, cut out wasteful communication costs. The share price goes up.
The public sector is going through a similar exercise at the moment. Quangos were created as arms-length units which could focus on specific issues and which could do things at arm's length from ministers - thus protecting fragile posteriors from the need for real understanding and from flak over unpopular decisions. Perish the thought that quangos were also a way of getting around civil service head count.
Small, light-footed quangos are no longer flavour of the times: no, we must get rid of as many as possible. The result has been a series of super-quangos. Their share prices, if they had one, would immediately go up, never mind that they are now likely to be further from their real customers and less sensitive to their needs.
We can make savings from putting quangos together, say ministers. We need to cut their expenditure budgets and demand administrative savings.
Doing these two things at once was a cute political move. Cutting the budgets of existing quangos by say 10% would have produced howls of protest from the special interest groups concerned but tell a quango that it is to be abolished and combined with another and magically the special interest group is left isolated, concentrating so hard on ensuring that the 'work should continue' that they completely miss the fact that the budget is being cut by 50% in the process.
What is the consequence of this change? The new quango is intended to be smaller - leaner in public sector jargon - than the previous two or three. With a net reduction in head count, the quango staff are even further from the action than before. They are less able to give time to a proper consideration of what is going on: there is simply too much of it.
Because budgets have been cut there is less money to spend anyway and therefore there are likely to be more disgruntled clients but never mind, they are out in the sticks and their individual loss will not rock the ship of state.
So how do they react to the new world in which they are separated further from their clients or interest groups, in which they have fewer informed staff and less money to share? There are two obvious strategies: find an organisation at 'the next layer down' or re-introduce the famous challenge fund.
The challenge fund
Organisations need to be more focused (on our agenda - unspoken). We cannot go on giving money across the board. We need to stimulate targeted change. Let's create a challenge fund.
This suits the centralists of course and produces a centripetal force with descions spiralling inwards to the centre, quite the opposite of Localism. Centralists can choose the projects and announce them - nothing like an announcement for getting publicity for the giver - while the recipient's agenda is tortured off track by the need to respond to the often weird requirements of the new scheme. We want to you make a real and sustainable change in the number of people of Lithuanian origin that you attract to your museum/visitor attraction/sports fields. Given that this is the only money available, we, the clients, simply say yes to the absurd request and hope that everyone will have forgotten the original purpose by the time the scheme is over, hoping that we can cream off enough money from the the targeted grant to pay the electricity bill for that is what is really needed.
The next layer down
We need someone to do the work we used to do but can no longer do because of a shortage of staff: enter the 'bridge organisation' as the code for Localism. This is typically a small charitable body with an enthusiasm for some part of the quango's work. Its pitch to the quango is along the lines of 'You provide us with funds and we can deliver your BlahBlah agenda'. The poor overworked, under-resourced quango is all too grateful for such things and signs a cheque. The bridge organisation rushes around the quango's former clients, looking for people who will do their bidding. So they create a new mini-quango. The clients have their agendas disrupted and are even further from the funding body while the bridge organisation takes the credit for the excellent BlahBlah work.
There used to be such things: they were called 'regional offices' but many of these were abolished in the last round of slimming down quangos.
How much better if the money did not have to cross a bridge.
Another solution is to preach partnership to a group of disparate bodies: if you all worked in partnership to a single agenda then ... The unspoken agenda completes the sentence we would have fewer people to deal with therefore might just about be able to cope.
No one asks whether partnership is a good thing. It is the thinking of the acquisitive company which hoovers up small entrepreneurial businesses to create a conglomerate. set your clock for the moment when someone suggests breaking up theses behemoths in order to give greater focus, allow people to concentrate more on their core business, cut out wasteful communication costs, allow greater freedom of local decision-making.
As Augustus De Morgan - I always thought it was Hilaire Belloc - said:
'Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
Friday 22 June 2012
Write or Wrong?
An announcement in the Western Morning News:
'... museum is celebrating after being awarded £21,500 from Arts Council England to fund a special project ... a year-long initiative which will see writer-in-residence ... work with community groups, helping them to connect with the museum through the medium of writing.'
That sounds like a nice way to earn a salary. Why is 'connecting with a museum through the medium of writing' something so important? Come to that, what does it mean? Does it start with 'Dear Museum ...'
Why do I wish that the money had been given directly to the museum to spend as they saw fit: perhaps on providing more exhibitions for more people; or on staying open. It sounds like yet another example of money being given to move deckchairs on a doomed ocean liner. Which suggests another thought ...
'... museum is celebrating after being awarded £21,500 from Arts Council England to fund a special project ... a year-long initiative which will see writer-in-residence ... work with community groups, helping them to connect with the museum through the medium of writing.'
That sounds like a nice way to earn a salary. Why is 'connecting with a museum through the medium of writing' something so important? Come to that, what does it mean? Does it start with 'Dear Museum ...'
Why do I wish that the money had been given directly to the museum to spend as they saw fit: perhaps on providing more exhibitions for more people; or on staying open. It sounds like yet another example of money being given to move deckchairs on a doomed ocean liner. Which suggests another thought ...
Thursday 14 June 2012
One word
Reading through the conditions for a recent grant application, we came across the following:
To receive a grant your project must help people to learn about their own and other people’s heritage. Your project must also do either or both of the following:
What form are these decisions to take? Is this 'wider range of people' to be allowed to take decisions about what is and what is not collected or displayed, perhaps in preference to the 'narrower' range of people who just perhaps might know more the answers to those questions? We are old-fashioned enough to trust heritage managers to know about their subject and to make recommendations or to interpret those collections to us. This is now heresy.
Whatever happened to that old adage that we will preserve what we love; love what we understand; understand what we know about and know about things we have explored. Now, it seems, we must ask a wider range of people - perhaps uninformed - to take decisions on what we preserve, without exploration, knowledge or understanding.
And how do we 'evidence' - a horrible verbal use of the word - the 'making decisions'? That is another question.
To receive a grant your project must help people to learn about their own and other people’s heritage. Your project must also do either or both of the following:
- conserve the UK’s diverse heritage for present and future generations to experience and enjoy.
- help more people, and a wider range of people, to take an active part in and make decisions about heritage.
What form are these decisions to take? Is this 'wider range of people' to be allowed to take decisions about what is and what is not collected or displayed, perhaps in preference to the 'narrower' range of people who just perhaps might know more the answers to those questions? We are old-fashioned enough to trust heritage managers to know about their subject and to make recommendations or to interpret those collections to us. This is now heresy.
Whatever happened to that old adage that we will preserve what we love; love what we understand; understand what we know about and know about things we have explored. Now, it seems, we must ask a wider range of people - perhaps uninformed - to take decisions on what we preserve, without exploration, knowledge or understanding.
And how do we 'evidence' - a horrible verbal use of the word - the 'making decisions'? That is another question.
Comparative religions
We enjoyed a GCSE Religious Knowledge paper. For those who do not know these, the layout is pretty standard: there are separate sections for Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Sikhs (no Jedis unfortunately).
Each section asks much the same question eg 'Name two things a Buddhist/Christian/Hindu ... might regard as evil'. We would quite like to see the answers to this question as it happens but the real fun was in a comparison of the questions on fasting:
'Explain why Christianity approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Buddhism approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Hinduism approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Judaism approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Islam approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Sikhism disapproves of fasting.'
Queue up here folks. It may only be a snip.
Each section asks much the same question eg 'Name two things a Buddhist/Christian/Hindu ... might regard as evil'. We would quite like to see the answers to this question as it happens but the real fun was in a comparison of the questions on fasting:
'Explain why Christianity approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Buddhism approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Hinduism approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Judaism approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Islam approves of fasting.'
'Explain why Sikhism disapproves of fasting.'
Queue up here folks. It may only be a snip.
Tuesday 12 June 2012
Benefits Boob Op Mum Jailed
A great headline in the local rag was awaiting my return from a week away. It turns out she was caught shop-lifting but you might have thought otherwise. Apparently she had previously 'sparked outrage after spending her benefit money on a breast enlargement operation'. A prize for spotting any connection between the actual offence and the headline (with the obvious exception of 'jailed').
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