INDEPENDENT EXPERTS TO REVIEW FIVE-YEAR ARTS STRATEGY

Arts Council initiative welcomed by Minister

24th January 2000

The Arts Council this morning announced an independent review of its five-year strategy, To The Millennium, which has directed its policy since 1995. The Arts Minister, Michael McGimpsey MLA, welcomed the review: "This will be a key element in a wider process to map out the future strategic direction for the development of the arts in Northern Ireland", he said.

Responding to the Minister’s statement, Brian Ferran, Chief Executive of the Arts Council, said: "The Minister’s endorsement of our independent review is welcome. A rigorous evaluation of the needs of the arts constituency, given years of underfunding from central government, can only be strengthened by support from the new Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure".

The review team of Anthony Everitt and Annabel Jackson Associates, selected after competitive tender, will begin work immediately and are to report by April this year. The objectives of this study, the most comprehensive review and preview of the Council’s activities in ten years, are to examine:

Arts Council Review

Professor Anthony Everitt, heading up the review team, announced at a press conference in the Wellington Park Hotel that the keystones of the review would be independence and transparency. All Arts Council clients would be contacted by the Review Team. All submissions would be acknowledged and their confidentiality respected. The Review will incorporate a public consultation meeting of the arts constituency at the Posthouse Forte Hotel, Dunmurry on March 6^th.

Anthony Everitt’s e-mail address is : review@artscouncil-ni.org

The Review Team

Anthony Everitt is a writer and journalist. He is Visiting Professor in Performing and Visual Arts at Nottingham Trent University and Visiting Lecturer in Arts and Cultural Policy at the City University. He was Secretary-General of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1990 until 1994. For the Council of Europe, he wrote and edited In From The Margins (1997), the first ever survey of European culture and development. He is the author of In Pursuit of the New, a research study for the Arts Council of England into the commissioning of new music in Europe. He has worked recently on major reports for the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and has been working for the Arts Council of Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland on public support for the individual artist.

Annabel Jackson is an evaluator with 16 years experience. Since 1990, her firm, Annabel Jackson Associates, has carried out more than 150 assignments. She is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Imperial College Management School and currently lectures for the Performance Measurement Module of the MBA at Imperial College, London University. She has published many papers and studies in her field, including the forthcoming An Evaluation of Evaluation: Progress in Planning and a book, An Integrated Model of Performance Measurement.