Isn't it odd that when publicly funded organisations start using overblown language to describe plans to improve themselves, you can be certain there is flummery afoot?

And so it is with the Arts Council of England.

ACE works with what it regards as ten lesser beings known as regional arts boards, including our own South East Arts and Southern Arts.

As Brighton is about to enter its annual three weeks of jollification with the Brighton Festival starting tomorrow, this is as good a moment as any to examine the drivel ACE is spouting on behalf of the arts.

New ACE, says its Prospectus for Change, will be "more attuned to local, regional and national democratic structures".

The moment you read such bureaucratic artspeak, you know the fun is starting.

New ACE will be able to "make the big-picture case for the arts, to respond to big ideas".

I seem to recall a big TV advertising campaign when Sir AnthonyHopkins used his big personality to make a big fortune - though I cannot quite recall what the big product was.

Who says TV ads do not stick in the mind - even the minds of the arty folk who write New ACE reports.

New ACE will provide the arts with one voice, claims the prospectus.

It will speak regionally, nationally and internationally but still be able to accommodate regional distinctiveness.

This, apparently, will prove "an immensely powerful new tool for the arts in this country, something the arts has never before had".

You must forgive New ACE's short memory - not to mention its wonky grammar.

While making conventional noises about "freeing artists from unnecessary bureaucracy and complexity", New ACE is performing a delicious sleight-of-hand.

It talks such gobbledegook as giving the regions "more presence nationally and the national Arts Council more presence in the regions", and strengthening regional communication and advocacy (one of the council's favourite words).

Simultaneously, New ACE talks of uniting with all the regional boards to create a single organisation for the arts in all parts of England - which smacks of centralisation.

Also, chairman Gerry Robinson has agreed to stay on for three more years.

A clever businessman, he knows all about the power game and keeping the reins in his hands.

He is as likely to hand out more power to the regions as Scrooge was to hand out bags of Christmas sweets to the children.

In the end, all we are talking about is giving away the annual government grant to the arts - £252 million currently.

Nearly 700 people, at a cost of many millions of pounds, are employed to do this before a single penny reaches a single artist.

There has to be a better way.

One last bit of twaddle. You may like to know that South East Arts and Southern Arts are not just being merged.

They are to become "co-terminous with government planning regions"!