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McMaster Report to the DCMS on excellence, innovation and risk-taking - Ignite! responds.
Published 10 January 2008 Supporting Excellence in the Arts
In his report, Sir Brian McMaster makes a series of recommendations that place excellence, innovation and risk-taking much more centrally to the strategies and judgement criteria of government and funding bodies.
Ignite! welcomes the report as a useful stimulus to debate about the very notion of culture, who makes it, and its purpose and significance in how we define our social and communal well-being. We start from the principle that art, culture, creativity are powerful tools for making society, and not just a reflection of it. We therefore encourage policy makers to adopt strategies that help young people in particular to make culture, creatively, imaginatively, curiously, by taking risks and employing innovative techniques, as well as to consume it.
Our responses to the McMaster report are as follows:
1 We anticipate that the press and media will exercise themselves endlessly about excellence – what does it mean? is it signalling an elitist approach to culture? who defines and who decides what is excellence? all the while, ignoring the fact that the report is just as emphatic about innovation and risk-taking…
2 The media will also suggest that this is a shift in policy away from targets, measurement, and access. We are not so sure… there will still be the exercise of judgement, and that judgement will require evidence (and some of that will need to be measurable).
3 McMaster actually says this about excellence – The best definition of excellence I have heard is that excellence in culture occurs when an experience affects and changes an individual. An excellent cultural experience goes to the root of living.
4 And this is what McMaster says about innovation – Innovation is understood to be the introduction of something new, where old methods and systems are insufficient.
5 And this is his understanding of risk-taking – Risk-taking is about experimentation and pushing boundaries in ways which artists and practitioners themselves may not be sure will work. It demands courage, curiosity and desire, and a degree of spontaneity.
6 We share his appreciation of courage, curiosity and desire and spontaneity.
7 In terms of governance Mcmaster makes this recommendation – I recommend that the board of every cultural organisation contains at least two artists and/or practitioners.
8 The Board of Ignite! endorses this by including at least three practitioners among its number.
9 McMaster makes full reference to the Cultural Offer for Young People – see Children’s Plan previously posted…
10 This is what McMaster makes of the Cultural Offer – Much has been done in the last fifteen years to further promote cultural learning, including schemes such as Creative Partnerships and Renaissance in the Regions. There are also some laudable programmes overseas. Norway, for example, has a programme called the Cultural Rucksack, which aims to help all pupils aged 6 to 16 become acquainted with all forms of culture.
11 And again – It is vital that young people are given the chance to experience culture within and outside school, and that this experience is excellent. Cultural organisations must be proactive in meeting the extra demand for their work that the ‘cultural offer’ will generate. They must ensure that the activity that makes up this offer is of the highest standard, reflecting the diversity and internationalism highlighted in this report.
12 We would wish to ensure that the Cultural Offer includes MAKING culture as well as experiencing it ie not simply as consumers.
13 In terms of CPD for practitioners, McMaster recommends thus – I recommend that practitioners take responsibility for the cultural ecology and actively engage with the development of their peers and the next generation.
14 In terms of public subsidy, McMaster places an emphasis on new ways to find new practitioners of excellence – I recommend that funding bodies actively identify innovative ways for new talent to be identified and funded.
15 Audiences – I recommend that to overcome the endemic ‘it’s not for me’ syndrome and building on the success of free admission to museums and galleries, for one week admission prices are removed from publicly funded organisations.
16 Challenging work – I recommend that cultural organisations stop exploiting the tendency of many audiences to accept a superficial experience and foster a relationship founded on innovative, exciting and challenging work.
17 New technologies – I am concerned that many cultural organisations are not making the most of their potential for innovation because of a lack of awareness and access to the latest technological knowledge and breakthroughs. I believe that there needs to be a group specifically tasked with monitoring new technologies and innovative ideas. They should disseminate this information throughout the cultural ecology, thus enabling organisations that may not otherwise have the capacity to keep abreast.
18 Ignite! endorses these recommendations.