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Dateline: 9th January, 2008
Equity "No Confidence in ACE" Vote At a special meeting between members of Equity and Peter Hewitt, the outgoing chief executive of Arts Council England, held at the Young Vic today, the around 500 members attending, who included Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Sheila Hancock, Caroline Quentin, Joanna Lumley, Roger Lloyd Pack, Samantha Bond, Miriam Margolyes, Miriam Karlin, Harriet Walter, Alison Steadman, Patrick Malahide, Sam West and Jonathan Pryce, passed a unanimous vote of "no confidence" in ACE. Amongst those who spoke out was Sam West, who said, "Cut funding to our smaller spaces and you eventually starve our larger ones to death." Patrick Malahide claimed that ACE has become an agency "for social change" and that is no longer fit for purpose. Equity's general secretary Christine Payne said, "Unless Arts Council England not only listens to the concerns of people here today but actually takes action to respond to them, then the credibility of Arts Council England could be fundamentally and possibly irreparably damaged. "We demand a thorough review of the process and procedures used by the Arts Council in reaching funding decisions, and until that review is completed the status quo should apply and the current funding process should cease." Other speakers described the process by which the decisions were reached as unclear and that the timing of the announcements was "unacceptable", being made just before Christmas. Peter Hewitt accepted the feelings of the meeting but, alleging that it was composed of people who were unhappy with the proposals, added, "We do not feel they are representative of the theatre community as a whole and most certainly not the wider arts community. We must remember that 75 per cent of our funded organisations are getting an increase in line with inflation or above and their voice was not heard at today’s meeting."
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