Arts at Spaghetti Junction
As the new Auckland Council fast approaches commentator Mark Amery considers the role of arts in the supercity to be at spaghetti junction - an 'ideal foggy territory for all sorts of rugs to be pulled out from underneath people.’
In the first of a two part series, Amery looks at the issues the new structure throws up for arts organisations and artists.
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“At the last election, just Epsom was FUCT, and we're confident that by the next election, half of Auckland could be FUCT. And by 2020, once our free market reforms kick in, we're pretty sure the entire country will be FUCT.”
- From Le Sud a play by Dave Armstrong
Times of Change
Talk to people about what the supercity means for the arts in Auckland, come its creation on November 1, and you’re likely to hear the shuffling of feet, rustling of paper, and lots of ums or ahs. This is not surprising. This is a time of significant change: how many parts of the structure will join up, and how structural changes will effect decisions about the arts, remain often unclear. Currently, it is one very big spaghetti junction attracting around it a vaporous ball of confusion.
Such a ball of confusion is ideal foggy territory for all sorts of rugs to be pulled out from underneath people. Artists and arts organisations need to get their head around the issues at stake for them and the new relationships they need to make to ensure strong thinking cements the important place of the arts across the city.
“There is a lot of unease in town at the mom
ent,” says Candy Elsmore, Project Director of the Arts Regional Trust. “That unease is uncertainty, because people aren’t exactly sure how this is going to roll out.”
Elsmore is a member of the Auckland Arts and Culture Working Group, who since last year have been submitting to, lobbying and talking with the Auckland Transition Agency (ATA) and key members of the new council on behalf of the arts community.
“One of the major aspects of the construction of the supercity,” comments James McCarthy, Director of Te Tuhi and fellow member of the group, “is that this is the first model like this in the world, which is slightly alarming. It means it’s definitely going to have lots of problems. We’ve just created the biggest single municipal city in Australia and New Zealand.”
Such unease shouldn’t obscure the fact that the restructure also presents huge opportunities to see a city with a wealth of cultural activity working far, far better.
“One of the frustrations currently of working as a regional body,” says Elsmore, “is there not being a regional approach to arts strategy and funding. All of the local authorities have had their own agendas.
"Getting a regional approach has been tried by a number of different well-meaning officers along the way, but no-one is on an equal playing field - an equal ratepayer base - and no one has the same agendas in terms of policies. There are younger councils who are obviously putting a lot of money into infrastructure growth as a burgeoning city, and there are older ones like Auckland City who are less growth orientated because they’re older.
“There’s a lot of pain around this transition process, but there may be some wins around the development of a regional arts strategy that gives us significant traction in - I’ll drag it out! - being a world-class city.”
The challenge all arts organisations are facing, whether they are large or small, says Elsmore, is a change in their significant relationships.
“That can be at a governance level or for others it’s their funding structures. But mainly it’s changes with the officers they’ve formed working relationships with over many years. The people that hold the significant knowledge about arts and culture in the region, sometimes in quite a localised way - those people may not have jobs! I think the majority probably will, thankfully, but they themselves will be fitting into a brand new structure with new rules and tiers above them and around them.
“When the entire environment changes and everyone is trying to find their place it’s going to be harder, particularly for smaller organisations, to have their voices heard.”
In terms of local knowledge and experience 
a case in point is Naomi McCleary. After 18 years as Waitakere’s Public Art Manager McCleary is one of this country’s most experienced arts officers. Back in 2004 she was the first recipient of an Outstanding Individual Contribution Award from Creative New Zealand for her services to the arts through the local government area.
Yet at the time of writing McCleary had decided that the advent of new supercity had signalled the time for her to change direction and explore the world of arts consultancy.
“This is a silo structure,” says McCleary. “It's politically siloed and it’s bureaucratically siloed. Out here (Waitakere) we’ve been breaking down silos for twenty years, so we’ve got huge amounts of cross disciplinary work that goes on under this council. It is one of the reasons it’s so successful.
“Obviously Waitakere has invested a huge amount in the arts, and North Shore has invested virtually zip, but if you look at the whole budget basket how much are they going to invest in the arts? These are all unknowns. It could be wonderful. I mean, am I cynical? Yeah, I am cynical about what’s going to happen. I think we’re going to have three to five years of a real struggle.”
While the intent of the supercity is to see the whole region working together more there is equally a danger, at least in the short term, that communication will be weak and fragmented across new lines of communication on areas that might not be considered ‘core business’.
“To be fair to council,” McCarthy says, “people often don’t understand what councils do. The majority of their money is spent on all the infrastructure things most of us don’t think about - like roading, water and urban planning. But what happens to its commitment to arts and culture in this transition, in relation to the Royal Commission’s recommendations to make this city vibrant and sustainable for long term growth?
“The sector sees this as an opportunity and that’s why we (Auckland Arts and Cultural Working Group) feel an arts and cultural strategy is important to ensure the discussion develops at a very high level in the right direction. It needs to look at collective wellbeing supporting a diverse range of activity and also recognise that some organisations and people are aspirational - they want to survive and grow.”
The Big Picture
Before we go any further let’s look at the supercity structure and its likely impact on the arts.
The current seven city councils and Auckland Regional Council are to be replaced by a new centralised council organisation, new large council controlled organisations (CCOs) and 21 local boards, dividing up the current seven cities.
While the local boards will have decision and policy-making responsibilities in 21 communities, the major new CCOs will run ‘major’ venues and events.
“What they define as the role of the local boards in the Third Local Government Bill is anything that is non-regulatory,” says Elsmore. “They call the Auckland Council the governing body, and they seriously mean that. They are there to consider strategy and policy of a regional nature. It’s leaving everything else to the local boards and CCOs. It’s a deliberate operational/strategic split.”
Some key arts appointments to the new counc
il have been made: Louise Mason, currently one of eight General Managers at the Auckland Regional Council, is the incoming Manager of Community Development, Arts and Culture. Under her are teams for central, west, south and north Auckland.
Gail Richards, Manager of Arts Services at Auckland City Council and highly respected for her leadership in the arts for more than 20 years, will be working with Mason as Manager of Arts, Culture and Events.
“Other management appointments are still in progress,” says Mason. “I hope to be able to announce these in the next couple of weeks. We will have teams based in Manukau, central city, and Waitakere as well as staff continuing to be based as at present across the region in various facilities. From 1 November there will be no drop in current service delivery but decisions about future priorities will be made by the new Auckland Council. Staff will report on regional issues to the governing body of the council and on local issues to the relevant local board.”
“The key priority for me in the first few months of the new Council,” she adds, “will be to ensure that we continue to deliver our current programmes and services to a high level and keep excellent relationships across the arts sector.
Meanwhile of the new CCOs two are crucial to the arts.
Regional Facilities Auckland will run and develop sport and entertainment venues. Initially that’s limited to only a few facilities including Auckland City Art Gallery and The Edge (which effectively as a brand will cease to exist – an identity loss that some have expressed concerns about in the discussion documents). Other bigger venues will be taken on over time.
Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development Limited will encompass major events. These are defined as typically either a one-off sporting event that carries international media profile and generates a substantial economic impact (in excess of $100 million) or regular arts, sport, cultural or other type events that impact the majority of the Auckland region and “generate a sound economic return ($10 ? $100 million)”.
“The restructure has been done very much from a big fiscal point of view,” says McCarthy, “hence lopping all the cultural institutions with assets worth more than $10 million dollars into one CCO.”
Elsmore: “We know what’s happening to the big outfits - the people who have got big bits of infrastructure. Anyone who sits on $10 million or more worth of infrastructure such as the Bruce Mason Centre or the Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre and what are called the collecting entities, which are all the museums basically, will at some point come under the Regional Facilities CCO. We also know that significant arts events and festivals will come under the Economic Development, Tourism and Events CCO.”
There are many other existing residual CCOs of varying sizes (Te Tuhi is one for example). They will report to officers at council under a CCO Governance and Monitoring Unit, under its Finance section.
The Smaller Fry
So, what’s in store for everyone else? This is where things get a little more cloudy.
Arts organisations who have current contracts and artists applying for funding won’t see change until the current Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) finishes. In terms of contestable funding schemes - programmes like Arts Alive –a lot of council have adjusted their rounds to take funding through until June. After that naturally the pots of money with respective councils will be one big pot. Right now what the structure for funding will look like isn’t clear.
“We are still working through how contestable funding will be handled after June 2011,” says Louise Mason, “and are talking to key agencies such as Creative New Zealand to help work through these issues.”
When I asked Mason to confirm that the combined pottle of money from across the councils will remain at least at the same level, she couldn't.
"Existing funding and programmes will remain at current levels until June 2011," she says. "Basically the new Council will continue to deliver the funding that is now provided for in the existing councils’ annual plans until June 2011. Decisions on what happens after June 2011 will be made by the new council."
For the organisations that aren’t considered part of the CCO major infrastructure there is also a lot of detail that remains unclear.
“Conceivably small localised events or org
anisations will be working through their local boards,” says Elsmore. “We don’t know exactly how, but we know there is a division of Auckland Council headed up by Karen Lyons (senior strategist, Auckland City Council) that will be supporting the boards.
“There are currently taskforces working out specifically the roles and responsibilities of the local boards. We may not know what those are by the 1 November, because at the moment the ATA have a massive, massive task of basically getting everyone over the line on the 1 November: everybody in a job, everyone knowing where they’re sitting.
“The funding decisions that occur in those local areas for arts and culture and the other ‘well-beings’ will be made by the local boards. The process of dealing with those boards for organisations is not yet clear.”
A complicating factor is that many arts organisations are distinctive for working across council boundaries. Now these will be split even further.
“What is deeply unclear,” says Elsmore, “is how smaller arts organisations that have significant activity across more than one board will be resourced. That’s quite a big issue because when you think about it most arts things will be. If you’re someone like the Manukau City Orchestra, how do they make the decision about who you interface with? They represent what is now the second biggest city in the country. Nobody disputes that the Govett Brewster or the Dowse is anything but regional, even though they have a tiny host community compared to the likes of Manukau City in numbers and geographic area.”
Then there are the medium-tier, or subregional organisations, such as Corbans Arts Estate or the Pumphouse Theatre for example.
“Some of these have a national focus, so how they work with at local board is a concern. Some might say that they are of regional significance but that their local board doesn’t understand their regional or national aspirations.”
Te Tuhi in Pakuranga is a perfect example. It could be dubbed the ‘Govett Brewster of Auckland’ - which is to say it’s in a non-central location but plays an important role nationally and looks to both its local community and the world.
There’s a risk such non-collection based institutions get parochially jettisoned. McCarthy asks that their output be compared comparatively to the Auckland City Art Gallery. Te Tuhi don’t want to come under the management of a local board. They want to report to council.
“The Howick ward will be as large in population as Hamilton and will have councillors on the local board only paid $37,000 a year who won’t have their own staff and only a few things to really sink their teeth into,” says McCarthy.
“We’re a mixture of things, we’re both a com
munity centre and a contemporary art gallery, and we rely on the community centre for part of our income. We can’t put on the contemporary art shows we do without Communicare in the social room, or our art classes.
“What I don’t like about the local board discussion documents is that they’re forcing us to make a choice between a regional facility or a local. I enjoy the relationship both with Fran from Senior Citizens, and then next week our guest Artists from London, Pil and Galia Kolletiv. It’s a really good model, its keeps us honest. Why should I have to compromise that by either being local or being regional, where the community side would be seen as a problem?”
Elsmore believes that in dealing with a local board a lot of smaller organisations are going to have to enter a level of political relationships they may not have had to in the past in order to be valued by the people who are influential.
“It’s the smaller organisations, who are the people running the leanest most volunteer based organisation that are having to find new skills and resources to do this work.”
Louise Mason says she’s keen to ensure good communication with organisations from early on.
“I’m keen to see that we keep very good relationships with arts organisations, venues and festivals and to work with them through any teething problems in a positive way. I’m very aware of the excellent work and commitment of many of these organizations and I value keeping close contact with them in the first few months of the new Council and beyond.”
Yet the decisions about the priority placed on the arts and its place in the structure won't just be decided by arts officers. Right now you have your biggest opportunity to influence who makes the decisions. Voting papers are out now and need to be in by October 9. If you do nothing else, read up well on the candidates and vote accordingly.
In Part Two we will look more closely at the reasons for a call for a regional arts and culture policy, the challenges of bringing together a culturally diverse city, and the way with good planning the arts can help Auckland's growth, as it has in some other major cities in the world.
Commissioned by The Big Idea, September 2010.
SmART reporting: People bemoan the lack of in-depth arts reporting. We want to change that. The Big Idea wants to commission a series of issues-based articles for the arts and creative sectors. Issues like the supercity. You can Givealittle, or a lot, here.
