By Ed Carroll The Arts Council and the County and City Management Association (CCMA), the local government management network, have just agreed “A Framework for Collaboration”. The Framework marks thirty years of collaboration between the Arts Council and the local authorities. It is promoted as a new way for these partners to work together, maximise the impact of their collective efforts, and reflect their shared belief in the contribution of the arts to cohesive and sustainable communities. Could this new partnership agreement be the Irish hub to lead-out a strong, democratic voice for culture? Could it reflect the ambition of The Agenda 21 for Culture, with its concern for the interdependent relationship between citizenship, culture and sustainable development? These are the expectations against which we need to assess this Framework. Local authorities spend €37.5 million annually through their respective arts services. They are the most significant supplier of the arts. Local government holds valuable potential for the arts, according to the Framework, as the elected body with the closest relationship to person and place. However, local government remains challenged to further develop its agency and capacity for engaging in community-led participation. This raises questions as to the very starting point of the Framework and its capacity to live up to any expectations of a strong democratic voice for culture. The state and its executive will lead out this Framework Agreement with no sign of engagement by elected representatives or citizens. In 2016 the first in a cycle of three year plans will be developed by a Management Liaison Group that will establish strategic priorities. A Working Group will develop and implement strategic actions to reflect these priorities. Both structures are limited to Arts Council, CCMA, and local authority executive representatives. This is more of the discredited top-down management approach to the arts and to public value and engagement with the arts. There is an obvious potential for linkage to the community development responsibilities of local authorities. However, this receives no mention and there are no such linked measures envisaged. The Framework puts too much emphasis on its own role and infrastructure and not enough on its potential to integrate the arts into a community development agenda and to ‘work with’ rather than ‘on’ or ‘for’ communities. It ignores
1