Arts Council commissions ‘independent’ opera analysis

This might be Arts Council England’s lowest moment.

Last night, in response to protests from every major opera company at its lack of an opera policy, ACE issued this statement:

At the Arts Council we have a single 10-year strategy, Let’s Create, which shapes all our investment and development decisions. We will not therefore develop separate artform or sub artform strategies. But as the national development agency for creativity and culture, for the past few months we have been planning to commission an independent piece of analysis, designed to focus on consideration of opera and music theatre in relation to Let’s Create. This analysis will help us shape our future investment in opera and music theatre and to develop a shared understanding with the sector of the challenges and opportunities currently faced by it. We will share further details of this work later in the Spring.

Got that?

The Arts Council, whose main job it is to make arts policy, has now famrmed it out to persons unknown for ‘an independent piece of analysis.’

That means either the ACE lacks data, in which case it should be shut down, or its lack thinking capacity, in which case its chief executive Darren Henley should take responsibility and resign without further equivocation.