The Arts Council wants "robust debate" on its role and the arts in Ireland, director Mary Cloake said yesterday as the council issued a draft of its new strategy.
The public consultation and a plan to formulate long-term strategy based on it is an implicit acknowledgement that the council's engagement with its clients and the public has been deficient in the past. Yesterday chairwoman Olive Braiden said: "I'd like to think we have listened to what people have said."
The council has been accused of not taking its clients' needs on board and has been criticised for poor communication and inaccessibility. Asked yesterday what the principal change was in this draft strategy, Ms Cloake identified the goal to ensure the council worked effectively and improved its responsiveness.
Other priority areas are: to assist artists to realise their artistic ambitions; to strengthen arts organisations statewide to secure the basis of a vibrant and stable arts community; to make it possible for people to extend and enhance their experiences of the arts; and to promote and reaffirm the value of the arts in society.
Described as a work-in-progress, the draft is a result of about 100 individual submissions and a series of 70 meetings around the State asking: Arts in Ireland: what do you think? The trawl for feedback aims to elicit what people who work in - or enjoy - the arts want.
The document sets out areas on which the council wants to concentrate and includes about 300 proposals that arose from the consultation.
The draft can be downloaded from www.artscouncil.ie or by post by phoning (01) 618 0230. Feedback from interested parties, setting out the top three proposals, is sought by July 1st. In September it will publish the new strategy, which looks like being a new Arts Plan in all but name.
Probably the most common response from the consultation was the wish that the Arts Council would take on an advocacy role for the sector.
Ms Cloake said this should be done with people at grassroots level. She cited the council's stance on the artists' tax exemption scheme, drawing up a report and making a submission to Government on an issue crucial for working artists and which is being examined by the Department of Finance. Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue had also urged artists to make direct comments on the exemption, she added.
The council also yesterday announced a change in the timeframe of applications for revenue funding. The date has been moved forward to October 21st and decisions will also be made later, by the week of January 23rd, a month later than usual.
The change allows more time for submissions to be put together and a longer window for the council to consider grants, which it can only do after the book of estimates is published.
This may lead to difficulties for some council-funded groups as it will now be almost a month into the year before they know their public funding. The ditching of multi-annual funding, because the council could not honour commitments due to Government cuts in its own budget, has led to planning difficulties for arts groups. The council stressed it was trying to find ways around the problem.