Feature: Arts in Sussex

Last month, proposals were put forward to disband the South East Regional Arts Board and the neighbouring Southern Arts Board to create one central office for the area.

The move is part of a plan to create a single, centralised arts funding and development organisation for arts throughout England.

South East Arts plays a central role in the arts across Sussex.

It provides partial funding for the Brighton and Chichester festivals and offers grants to groups and individuals to help develop the arts, including books, films, multi-media presentations and music.

In the past six months alone, Brighton Jazz Club received £3,500 to set up an interactive web site and undertake outreach work.

The Duke of Yorks Cinema was given £4,000 to set up an educational and interactive web site and Brighton Youth Orchestra has received £6,000 to fund a new composition by Sir John Tavener.

Now The Arts Council for England is uniting with ten regional arts boards to create a single arts funding and development organisation for all the arts in England.

Under the proposals, South East Arts (SEA), the regional arts development agency for Brighton and Hove, East and West Sussex, Kent and Surrey, will be merged with Southern Arts to form a single regional office that will also cover Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, the Isle of Wight and Milton Keynes.

The remaining eight regional arts boards will be disbanded in favour of regional offices, each with their own advisory panel.

The argument for one central funding organisation is that it would provide a simpler, quicker and more arts-friendly service to the community, with more flexible funding decided at regional level, reduced administration costs and a greater capacity to develop partnerships with local authorities and regional assemblies.

The new arts council would have a strategic central office responsible for national arts leadership, while the regional offices would be responsible for regional partnerships and investment and frontline contact with the arts.

The structure for the new arts council is due to be published in July and will be established by the end of the year. The proposed merger of SEA and Southern Arts means the plans have even greater implications in these regions.

With the area represented by one body almost doubled, the siting of the new regional office is crucial. The options include retaining either the existing offices in Tunbridge Wells (SEA) and Winchester (SA), or moving the whole organisation into new premises in the centre of the patch, for which Guildford has been suggested.

Spokeswoman for South East Arts Rachael Cordell said: "We are the only two regional arts boards in this position because we are the only ones that don't follow regional Government planning lines.

"The site of the new office is an important issue and I am aware there are high-level consultations going on at the moment.

"Because the new office is going to cover such a large area, it is possible there will be one main office and a couple of smaller offices.

"Having just one central office for the entire region could cause problems for artists who may have to travel a long way."

SEA is run by a board of 18 members drawn from the arts community, business sector and local authorities, including Brighton and Hove City councillor Jackie Lythell and broadcaster Simon Fanshawe.

In addition, the largest concentration of cultural industries in the South-East are the media and multi-media industries in Sussex.

Brighton-based writer Richard Witt, is the author of Artist Unknown - The History Of The Arts Council, published in 1999.

He supports the disbanding of the two boards but believes the new offices should be based in Brighton and Hove.

He said: "The plans are basically a return to how arts funding was structured in the Forties and Fifties and a much simpler and more effective method.

"The current system is inefficient and too much money is wasted on bureaucracy. Also a policy of spreading the money equally across the region has meant that many projects in Brighton and Hove that should have received funding didn't.

"Brighton and Hove is clearly the centre of creativity in the region and it should benefit as a result of the restructuring.

"However, I would also like to see the new office based in the city. At the moment, artists have to travel to Tunbridge Wells to visit the South East Arts Board. With all the transport links geared to London it's a complete headache. If it is moved to Guildford it will be even worse.

"While there may be geographical or political reasons to put it somewhere else, surely it would make sense to have the office in the area's cultural centre."

SEA has also cautiously welcomed the plans to restructure arts funding in Britain, believing it will simplify the application process for artists.

However, Southern Arts is strongly opposed to the plans and believes the objective of streamlining is possible without dissolving the boards.

A spokesperson said: "There is a need to identify the real causes of wasted work and excessive bureaucracy but we believe they are as much the result of misguided policies and initiatives as of structural issues.

"We believe there are cheaper and better ways of achieving the aims than through restructuring the whole funding system."

The restructuring plans also mean a number of jobs will be lost, which is likely to include some of the 42 people employed at SEA.

Miss Cordell said: "While we believe it will be good for artists, it's a period of uncertainty for us. There are concerns about whether people will keep their jobs and where they will be located.

"Reducing the number of employees is one of the aims of the restructuring. We hope to have more of an idea as to what is going to happen in July when details of the proposals are announced.

"Until then, we are saying it's business as usual. All funding commitments for the next three years will be honoured and we are still taking applications for new awards."