The latest report from the completely useless and entirely ineffectual Department of Culture Media and Sport select committee arrives at conclusions that several hundred thousand people came to many years ago.
ACE for the most part, is a bit rubbish.
Unfortunately this latest report focuses on things that happened so long go that the funding monolith can simply release a pithy statement or two decrying the report as “old news”.
A case in point would be the debacle surrounding the funding of ‘The Public’ a ridiculous art gallery in the west midland’s that cost a fortune and went bankrupt before it even opened. The story is long and torturous and not worth revisiting here, again!
We first wrote about ‘The Public’ nearly three years ago and others had written about it before that.
Yes, it was a mess, it was stupid, ill conceived, badly managed, a massive waste of money and the building itself looks stupid. The only problem is, there’s nothing you can do about it now. The money is gone and the people who authorised it, for the most part, are gone.
Once again ACE can pull the “it was the other guys not us” routine and move on because everything is better now. It isn’t better now of course but time is the best blind fold money can buy.
The report, such as it is, makes no mention of the Sustain funding programme and the slightly dubious reasoning made by ACE for handing over huge sums of money for no good reason. We highlighted one case in November last year regarding Sadler’s Wells and £720,000. ACE has yet to hand over the second half of that money.
There is something the DCMS select committee could do about that.
Also not mentioned in the report is the recent round of funding announcements for capital projects. One of those projects is sucking up £7Million for a new studio complex in the Southbank for Rambert Dance Company.
Not only was ACE making ill-timed and ill-advised capital funding decisions but they were also misleading Article19 about non-existant discussions to change the spending rules for lottery money.
Rambert was so confident and so completely not embarrassed about receiving millions while massive cuts were being thrown around like confetti they would put forward not one senior employee to speak in their defence when asked for interviews by Article19.
They did block us from following them on Twitter though.
Presumably that money money is still in ACE’s bank account so there is something the committee could do about that.
This report will be read, reported on (sort of) and then, like most reports, completely ignored until the end of time. It has no force and effect and ACE had already washed it hands of it before the PDF was downloaded by the hacks.
Much like ‘The Public’ the whole thing is a waste of time and money and the people involved would, under normal circumstances, be dismissed from their posts whether they be politicos or the ACE hierarchy.
Instead, we continue to play or little game, going round and round and round until those with the weakest grip fall off and are never heard from again.
Roll on Wednesday!