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Hewitt Rewrites ‘Core Script’
England’s Art Council Chief Executive, Peter Hewitt, has used the 12 July Smith Institute Arts Lecture to announce the first ever public value inquiry for the arts. If the Arts Council ‘really want(s) to be part of the nation's core script’, Hewitt argued, ‘then we need to do much more than convince government of our value. We need to have the courage to enter into a new relationship with the public and place public dialogue, engagement and participation at the heart of what we do. … We need a new conversation about value - how it is created and whom it is created for.’ Hewitt, (who, after being appointed chief executive in March 1998, led a major overhaul of the organization, merging it with ten previously independent regional arts boards) argued that ‘such a genuine conversation with our public or publics - for there are many - has never happened.' 'From time to time we speak to the artistic community, the suppliers of much of what is currently available to the public, but we don't do it enough or well enough. Neither do we speak systematically to all our other partners and stakeholders and certainly we have never spoken to members of the public, the public that pays for the Arts Council, about what it is that they value and how we might create more value in future.’ For the full transcript, CLICK HERE To hear the speech, CLICK HERE
Show latest news, more from July 2006.
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