[spectre] Arts Council adds new gagging clause to NPO contracts

[marc garrett]

Hi Heath,

 >the arts council scapegoated irational.org instead
 >of supporting it as is its mandate

Your experience with the Arts Council sounds terrible.

The ACE response at the bottom of the article seems to say their main 
concern is about misappropriation of public funds. But what does this 
really mean, it could mean anything, what examples do they have that we 
can look at?

Surely we are entering a kind of totalitarian initiative reflecting an 
arts version of Minority report-- a kind of panopticon of the arts, 
where concerns based on losing one's funding creates a perpetual 
condition of fear, therefore self-censorship.

Wishing you well.

marc


> On Mon, 22 Sep 2014, marc garrett wrote:
>
>
> irational was blacklisted by arts council
> for displaying arts council logo on irational website
> as stipulated by arts council funding requirements
> after the daily mail newspaper published a hit piece against
> arts council using irational.org as a weapon
>
> the arts council scapegoated irational.org instead of supporting it
> as is its mandate
>
> i received a call from the chief exec of arts council at the time
> swearing and threatening me that if we did not remove the logo from 
> our our site immediately he would fuck us up
>
> we waited a few days to discuss internally and then removed it
> during which time, other government departments had further threatened 
> irational.org
>
> this new gagging clause it to protect individual careers in the arts 
> council not even the arts council itself
>
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Thought this important to share here....
>>
>> marc
>>
>> Arts Council adds new gagging clause to NPO contracts
>>
>> Arts organisations and those connected to them must be sure not to do 
>> anything that could damage ACE’s reputation as a Government sponsored 
>> body, else their grants could be at risk.
>>
>> Arts Council England (ACE) is inserting a new clause into its 
>> National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) grant contracts for 2015-18 to 
>> deter any individual involved with those organisations in any 
>> capacity from doing anything that ACE considers might damage its 
>> reputation. Under the new draft contract, from 2015 ACE will be able 
>> to “impose additional terms and conditions” on an NPO if it judges 
>> that the organisation’s staff, trustees, volunteers or anyone else 
>> “closely involved” with it may be acting so as to have a “detrimental 
>> effect… on its [ACE’s] reputation as a distributor of public money or 
>> as a Government sponsored body”. Under the 2012-15 NPO contracts, ACE 
>> could withhold or demand repayment of all or part of an 
>> organisation’s grant if it acted in a way that was likely to harm 
>> ACE’s reputation, and this clause remains in the new contract, but 
>> the much broader scope of the new clause has raised serious concerns 
>> across the sector.
>>
>> Potentially the new clause could not only prevent anyone connected 
>> with an NPO from speaking publicly about ACE decisions or policies, 
>> but it could also give the funding body the power to withdraw from 
>> arts activities that it initially agrees to fund, but which it 
>> subsequently judges to be too politically or socially sensitive. 
>> Simon Hughes MP, Minister of State for Justice and Civil Liberties, 
>> told AP: “I think this clause is too extreme. I understand that ACE 
>> want to discourage organisations from public criticism but this 
>> wording is drafted also to control individuals and curb their 
>> fundamental freedom of speech. I would urge funded organisations to 
>> think carefully before signing up to this restriction of activity for 
>> their staff, governing bodies and volunteers.”
>>
>> more…
>> http://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/arts-council-adds-new-gagging-clause-npo-contracts 
>> ______________________________________________
>> SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
>> Info, archive and help:
>> http://post.in-mind.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
>>
>>
>


-- 
--->

A living - breathing - thriving networked neighbourhood -
proud of free culture - claiming it with others ;)

Other reviews,articles,interviews
http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews.php

Furtherfield – online arts community, platforms for creating, viewing,
discussing and learning about experimental practices at the
intersections of art, technology and social change.
http://www.furtherfield.org

Furtherfield Gallery – Finsbury Park (London).
http://www.furtherfield.org/gallery

Netbehaviour - Networked Artists List Community.
http://www.netbehaviour.org

http://identi.ca/furtherfield
http://twitter.com/furtherfield