.........
The
proceedings are reported in the language in which they were spoken
in the committee. In addition, a transcription of the simultaneous
interpretation is included. Where contributors have supplied
corrections to their evidence, these are noted in the
transcript.
Dechreuodd y cyfarfod am 09:03.
The meeting began at 09:03.
|
Cyflwyniad,
Ymddiheuriadau, Dirprwyon a Datgan Buddiannau
Introductions, Apologies, Substitutions and Declarations of
Interest
|
[1]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch a chroeso i’r Pwyllgor
Diwylliant, y Gymraeg a Chyfathrebu. Yr eitem gyntaf yw’r
cyflwyniad, ymddiheuriadau a dirprwyon. Os bydd larwm tân,
dylai pawb adael yr ystafell drwy’r allanfeydd tân
penodol a dilyn cyfarwyddiadau’r tywyswyr a’r staff. Ni
ddisgwylir prawf heddiw. Dylai pawb droi eu ffonau symudol i fod yn
dawel.
|
Bethan Jenkins: Thank you and welcome to the Culture, Welsh
Language and Communications Committee. The first item is the
introduction, apologies and substitutions. If there is a fire
alarm, please leave the room via the exits and follow the
directions of the ushers. We are not expecting a test today. Please
turn your mobile phones on to silent.
|
[2]
Mae’r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol yn
gweithredu’n ddwyieithog, ac mae clustffonau ar gael i glywed
y cyfieithiad ar y pryd ac i addasu’r sain ar gyfer pobl
sy’n drwm eu clyw. Mae’r cyfieithu ar y pryd ar gael ar
sianel 1, a gellir chwyddo’r sain ar sianel 0.
|
The
National Assembly operates bilingually, and there are headphones
available to hear the simultaneous translation and also for
amplification. The interpretation is on channel 1 and the
amplification is on channel 0.
|
[3]
Peidiwch â chyffwrdd
â’r botymau ar y meicroffonau, gan y gall hyn amharu ar
y system, a gofalwch fod y golau coch ymlaen cyn dechrau
siarad.
|
Please don’t touch the buttons on the microphones because
this can interfere with the broadcasting system, and please make
sure the red light is on before you begin to speak.
|
[4]
A oes unrhyw ddatganiad o fuddiannau
gan Aelodau? Na. Nid oes unrhyw ymddiheuriadau ar hyn o bryd
chwaith.
|
Are
there any declarations of interest from Members? No. There are no
apologies at this time either.
|
09:04
|
|
Craffu ar Waith Cyngor
Celfyddydau Cymru Scrutiny of the Arts Council of
Wales
|
[5]
Bethan Jenkins:
Yn eitem 2, rydym yn craffu ar waith
Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru. Mae yna gwestiynau penodol ar hyn o bryd
ar ddyfodol Celfyddydau & Busnes Cymru, a materion sy’n
gysylltiedig â hynny. Diolch yn fawr iawn i’r tystion,
sef Nick Capaldi, prif weithredwr Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru, a Sian
Tomos, cyfarwyddwr menter ac adfywio Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru, am
ddod i mewn atom ni heddiw. Rydym yn gwerthfawrogi eich bod wedi
dod i mewn, braidd ar fyr rybudd.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Item 2 is scrutiny of the Arts Council of Wales. We
have specific questions at the moment around the future of Arts
& Business Cymru and other issues related to that. Thank you
very much to the witnesses, Nick Capaldi, chief executive of the
Arts Council of Wales, and Sian Tomos, director of enterprise and
regeneration, Arts Council of Wales, for coming in today. We very
much appreciate your presence, and I know it was at short notice,
so thank you very much for that.
|
[6]
Mae’r cwestiwn cyntaf gen i.
Rŷm ni wedi cael y papurau, yn amlwg, ond a fedrwch chi
amlinellu yn fras y rhesymeg ynghylch pam yr ydych wedi
cwtogi’r arian ar gyfer Celfyddydau & Busnes Cymru, yng
nghyd-destun y ffaith eich bod chi wedi cael codiad gan Lywodraeth
Cymru yn y flwyddyn ariannol
yma? Rydw i’n deall yr hyn rydych yn ei ddweud ynglŷn
â’r arian loteri, ond rydych wedi cael codiad gan
Lywodraeth Cymru. Felly, y cyd-destun, os fedrwch chi roi hynny yn
fras ar y record, diolch yn fawr.
|
The first
question is from me. We have had the papers, of course, but could
you perhaps give us a brief outline of the rationale behind cutting
funding for Arts & Business Cymru, in the context of the fact
that you have had an increase in your funding from Welsh Government
during this financial year? I understand what you’re saying
about the lottery funding, but you have had an increase in funding
from Welsh Government. So, if you could put the broad context on
the record for us, please, thank you very much.
|
[7]
Mr Capaldi: Thank you. I’ll try and unpick some of the
issues relating to that. I think the first point that I would make,
and I recognise that this can sound a little like angels dancing on
pinheads, is that we haven’t withdrawn funding. There was
funding committed by the Welsh Government—a two-year funding
agreement—which came to a conclusion at the end of 2015-16.
So, a funding arrangement was in place and that ended. Since then,
what we’ve been talking to Arts & Business Cymru about
has been the basis upon which future funds might be available. As I
said in my note to the committee—I think it’s point
8—we wrote to Arts & Business back in December 2015,
explaining that the Welsh Government’s previous funding
arrangement had come to an end and that we were having to move to a
different basis for funding Arts & Business. We hoped, into the
future, that we would be in a position to fund their activities,
but that it would be done on a procured basis, that we would be
defining a series of specifications for business development
support, we would be publishing tender documents and inviting
organisations to bid for tenders to do that, and Arts &
Business was very much one of the organisations that we would hope
would do that.
|
[8]
I think we’re grateful for Arts & Business’s notes
in terms of clarifying the position and in terms of their
interpretation of our actions and our behaviour. I think I’m
happy to go on record as apologising if we have misunderstood what
they said. But in their request to you as Chair of the committee,
for an urgent review of this, I think the e-mail did talk about a
withdrawal of funding and did say that they were in imminent danger
of closure, which presumably is why this committee wanted urgently
for us to come along and see you, because by the end of this
financial year it very much looked as though the organisation was
going to have to close. It now transpires in terms of their
subsequent notes to the committee that they’re actually
talking about next year’s funding. Well, we did misunderstand
the situation, I acknowledge that. If we’re talking about
next year’s funding, we are exactly where we’ve always
been in that we’ve published the specification, we’re
going to be procuring services and we very much hope that Arts
& Business will want to bid for those services. They do good
work. There are many aspects of what they do that are hugely
popular and welcomed by the arts and business sectors. So, I
wouldn’t want to give the impression that in any way we want
to debar Arts & Business from being part of our future business
support.
|
[9]
Very briefly, I’ll just address the points that you made
about the additional Welsh Government funding for next year. This
is welcome and we are very grateful to the Welsh Government. I
think, working with its members in Plaid Cymru who have advocated
the importance of arts and culture across the board, that’s
terrific news. What it does do, though, only begins to redress some
of the funding cuts that we’ve seen over recent years. The
3.5 per cent funding increase has enabled us to reinstate a 3.5 per
cent funding cut that we had to apply to our arts portfolio last
year. So, we’re still trying to make up lost ground and, as
you yourself noted, there are serious problems with the
lottery.
|
[10]
Bethan Jenkins: Okay. Thank you for that. I just wanted to
ask a question myself and that was: you’ve referenced the
funding from the Welsh Government, from the two departments: from
the arts division and from education and skills. So, you had a
direct involvement, did you, then, with Welsh Government officials,
in how that funding came about? Because from how I’ve read
point 8, it didn’t come through you, that money. So,
why—
|
[11]
Mr Capaldi: It did.
|
[12]
Bethan Jenkins: It did come through you.
|
[13]
Mr Capaldi: It was routed through us.
|
[14]
Bethan Jenkins: It was routed through you, so it would have
been for Arts & Business Cymru to come to you to deal with any
of the processes in relation to that particular financing also.
|
[15]
Mr Capaldi: Yes. I mean, during that time we did, obviously,
in partnership with Arts & Business, meet with Welsh Government
and its officials to brief them on what was happening. Also, when
it looked as though, particularly, the Department for Education and
Skills was going to have to withdraw funding, we worked very hard
with Arts & Business to try and persuade the Government to
think again, but it was clear that there were significant funding
pressures on them, and that they had to reassess their funding
priorities.
|
[16]
Bethan Jenkins: It seems to me as well, from the remit
letter that you got from the Welsh Government, that they’re
asking you to, potentially, do some of the work in relation to
working with businesses and, potentially—correct me if
I’m wrong—perhaps mirroring some of the work that Arts
& Business Cymru does. Can you tell us how, potentially, you
are doing that, and whether that may conflict with what they are
doing at all? Or is it totally separate to what Arts & Business
Cymru would be doing?
|
[17]
Mr Capaldi: It’s certainly not totally separate,
because Arts & Business do some important work in terms of the
development of business capability. What the Welsh Government has
asked us to do is to encourage the organisations that we fund do be
more financially resilient, to be less dependent on public subsidy,
and to build their business capacity. There’s a very wide
range of ways in which that can be done, and whilst I think that we
as an organisation have some very specific skills and expertise, we
don’t have the highest quality skills and expertise in this
area of relating to business. That’s why we specify what we
think is needed, and we tender and we procure for other bodies, so
that we don’t, ourselves, compete in that market. What
we’re doing is we’re procuring from expert
providers.
|
[18]
Bethan Jenkins: Okay, thank you. I think Lee Waters has some
questions.
|
[19]
Lee Waters: Thank you, and thanks very much for coming in at
short notice. I appreciate the point you’re making about the
general funding pressure that you’re under, and I think what
we’re trying to understand is the way that Arts &
Business has tried to recalibrate itself, and the implications that
has for other bodies within the sector too. So, just going through
the different evidence that has been submitted, it’s fair to
say there isn’t a meeting of minds, but for Arts &
Business, it seems to me their primary case is that for an
investment of £70,000, they have been able to lever in
£1.4 million of private sector investment. Do you recognise
those figures? Are they correct, in your view?
|
[20]
Mr Capaldi: Oh, I’m sure they are. I mean, I think if
Arts & Business have submitted that evidence, it will be true,
and certainly, I’ve been to enough Arts & Business events
to know that they are very vigorous in business, so I don’t
doubt that. I think, in a different age and a different
environment, perhaps we could simply give Arts & Business
£70,000 to do this. I have to say that, from the Wales Audit
Office to the Welsh Government, there has been lots of research
done into what is the best way of supporting professional services,
which is what we’re talking about here, and the very firm
view is that one gets best value for public funding if you procure
those services on an open and competitive basis. Again, I repeat:
there’s absolutely no reason why Arts & Business
shouldn’t be part of that. We’ve already had a round of
procurement for other services, and Arts & Business have
successfully been taken on board for another contract. You’re
right; there doesn’t appear to be a meeting of minds, and
I’m saddened, actually, that we seem to have reached that
point.
|
[21]
Lee Waters: The kernel of it is that you feel you’re
going with the grain of what’s being asked of you, in moving
to a procurement model, and they are wedded to an old model of core
funding—that’s the case we’re making.
|
09:15
|
[22]
Mr Capaldi: That appears to be the case, you know. Again, I
refer back to the letter that we sent to Arts & Business back
in 2015, where I think we were as clear as we possibly could be
that things were changing and that in the future it would be on a
procurement basis. I can entirely understand why they would wish
simply to be allocated a sum of money and no doubt that they would
use that well, but we do have to go through the proper processes of
procurement, we do need to be able to reassure the Welsh taxpayer
that we are getting the best value for the public pound.
|
[23]
Lee Waters: Isn’t there a danger, though, that you
obsess with process and in doing that you lose the outcomes?
Because the evidence that they’ve submitted to us, in terms
of the added value they provide, both to creating a professional
infrastructure that has all sorts of other benefits in terms of the
ecosystem that we all want to see created in terms of a vibrant
artistic sector and the skills they bring to bear in terms relating
to the private sector, which you said earlier your organisation
doesn’t have, and other organisations have been encouraged to
have, is that there’s a risk of killing something that
is valuable to the overall ecosystem just so that you can comply
with best practice and procurement.
|
[24]
Mr Capaldi: There’s a real risk of that and we work
hard to try and avoid that, which is why we’ve been clear in
our advice to Arts & Business, have met with them to explain
what it is we’re trying to do, and I can’t speculate,
obviously, about the outcome of a procurement process yet to
conclude, but given the track record and the achievements that Arts
& Business is able to marshal, I would say they’re in a
very strong position to make a very persuasive case for
support.
|
[25]
Lee Waters: But their fundamental argument is that they have
done what’s been asked of them, they’ve tried
developing their business model but when it comes down to it, they
need a core bit of funding as a charity to keep that infrastructure
in place in order to do those other things, and by sticking to your
new model of working you risk destroying that model.
|
[26]
Mr Capaldi: No, I think that in any procurement of services
that in any way that an organisation bids for support, it will want
to ensure that the contract it’s putting forward includes
within it the necessary element to support its core costs. So, we
would be entirely expecting to see, as part of a bid, an element
within that that would be necessary for the establishment costs of
the organisation.
|
[27]
Lee Waters: Have you considered whether moving to such a
model would be beneficial for the Arts Council of Wales?
|
[28]
Mr Capaldi: I think that it’s difficult to imagine how
the Welsh Government would procure the services of an arts council.
I mean, I suppose it’s entirely possible, but we are a royal
charter body, we are a designated lottery distributor—
|
[29]
Lee Waters: You need core funding to survive.
|
[30]
Mr Capaldi: —and those two things make us unique. We
do depend on core funding—
|
[31]
Lee Waters: So, what’s good for the goose isn’t
good for the gander in this case.
|
[32]
Mr Capaldi: Well, what I would say is that we work very hard
to make sure that the majority of our funding is given directly to
the arts. Our running costs are 7.3 per cent of overall total
expenditure, which is very low in terms of charitable
organisations.
|
[33]
Bethan Jenkins: Diolch. Neil Hamilton.
|
[34]
Neil Hamilton: Yes. To follow that up, Arts &
Business’s running costs as a proportion of their total
expenditure is even smaller than 7.3 per cent. So, if the model
isn’t broken, why try to mend it?
|
[35]
Mr Capaldi: I’m not sure that we are trying to mend
it. Again, I come back to the fact that we must procure services.
We have set out the process for procuring those services and we
have invited Arts & Business to be part of that. We are having
to look at the balance of public funding to the costs of an
organisation. As Arts & Business say in their submission, there
are two slightly different figures; in one note they say that 27
per cent of their overall income is public subsidy and in another
area it’s 17 per cent.
|
[36]
Neil Hamilton: Yes, I’d noticed that.
|
[37]
Mr Capaldi: Whichever one of those—27 per cent or 17
per cent. You know, we are all having to reduce our running
costs.
|
[38]
Neil Hamilton: Yes, but they’ve reduced theirs in a
very short time frame, from 83 per cent to either 27 per cent or 17
per cent, whichever is the correct figure and—
|
[39]
Mr Capaldi: Yes, I think what they’re talking about
there is the balance. Eighty-three per cent is what they’re
saying they deliver through earned income and commercial. If I
understand it correctly, 17 per cent is what they are receiving in
terms of public subsidy. I mean, that is impressive. If you look,
for example, at last year’s statutory accounts, then the
amount of money identified in their accounts as, as I think
it’s described, national arts Government grants, which I
presume is synonymous with public subsidy, is 49 per cent. So,
clearly, they’ve made very significant progress in the
current year.
|
[40]
Neil Hamilton: Nobody could be more sympathetic than I am to
the general principle of what you’ve put forward this
morning. I’ve done this as a Minister in the UK Government
myself, so I probably understand the process and its justification,
but it does seem to me, in this case, that the sums of money are so
small that the process you’re now going through is
disproportionate to the potential gain, even on the most optimistic
basis. Given that the charity does have a need, which you’ve
acknowledged, for some core funding—because people, generally
speaking, give money to good causes to be spent on good causes, not
on the people who are raising the money, essential though that is
to the process—it’s not the sexiest of appeals. Given
that we’re only talking about £70,000 here, is it
really necessary to go out to tender on something of that scale,
given the—? You’ve acknowledged that you think
it’s a reasonable projection that they will raise £1
million-plus from their activities. That seems, to me, to be a very
good return on investment. Given that that has been acknowledged as
working at the moment, why change that? I’m somewhat in the
dark, really, as to who else is going to come forward to be part of
this tendering process. So, perhaps you could help us on both of
those points.
|
[41]
Mr Capaldi: On the first point, the £70,000 is a
lot—a large sum of money. It would be to some people, and
some—
|
[42]
Neil Hamilton: It is to me, but then I’m not bidding
for this. [Laughter.]
|
[43]
Mr Capaldi: So, I think that it’s right that we do
have processes that are fair, that are equitable, that apply to
all, and that have the interests of the taxpayer at their heart.
Again, I repeat—
|
[44]
Neil Hamilton: I’m sure that’s correct, but it
doesn’t answer my question.
|
[45]
Mr Capaldi: There is nothing disbarring Arts & Business
from applying—
|
[46]
Neil Hamilton: No, but I’m asking why they should have
to be applicants—why there should be a process. It seems to
me, to follow up the point that Lee made, that you’ve decided
that regardless of the size of the nut, we must have a
sledgehammer, and you’ve gone out and bought a sledgehammer
and now you have to apply it to everything under your command.
|
[47]
Mr Capaldi: Yes, under the framework that we operate, which
is a legally binding document, which I, as accounting officer, am
responsible for, for figures under £25,000 we could proceed
on what’s called the basis of a single tender.
|
[48]
Neil Hamilton: I see. So, you’ve got a de
minimis—
|
[49]
Mr Capaldi: So, I could go straight to Arts & Business
and say, ‘Can you provide these services for
£25,000?’ Above that, then we start to get into rules
where public procurement requirements apply, and that’s
simply how it is.
|
[50]
Bethan Jenkins: Can I just ask quickly for clarification?
Have you been guided or directed by Welsh Government to change this
into a procurement process, as opposed to a core funding process,
just so we understand, as a committee, the rationale behind why
you’re doing this?
|
[51]
Mr Capaldi: No, we’ve not been directed by the Welsh
Government. The Welsh Government does not direct us over any
individual funding decisions. It operates on the basis that funding
decisions are a matter for what’s euphemistically called the
arm’s-length principle.
|
[52]
Bethan Jenkins: So, what discussion did you have to come to
this point where you changed how you were funding?
|
[53]
Mr Capaldi: Public procurement rules are what they are. So,
they exist. We have a framework document with the Welsh Government,
as all public bodies do, which defines how we should behave. It
would be unprecedented—well, not unprecedented, but it would
be very, very difficult for us to be, kind of, bending the rules,
and saying, ‘For this area of service we’re not going
to follow procurement rules’.
|
[54]
Bethan Jenkins: Okay. Dawn just has a small question on
this.
|
[55]
Dawn Bowden: On that point, just so that I can be absolutely
clear: so, what you’re saying is that it wasn’t that
Welsh Government was telling you that you had to necessarily do
this, but Welsh Government were saying that you had to move to a
procurement model, and once you had to move to a procurement model,
as opposed to an allocation of grant model or a core funding model,
you were then compelled by National Audit Office rules to procure
for anything over £25,000—applications over
£25,000.
|
[56]
Mr Capaldi: The Welsh Government didn’t compel us to
do this—
|
[57]
Dawn Bowden: No, sorry, they didn’t compel you to do
what you’re doing, but they asked you to move to a
procurement model, as opposed to—
|
[58]
Mr Capaldi: No, they didn’t ask us to move to a
procurement model.
|
[59]
Dawn Bowden: That’s what I thought I read in
the—
|
[60]
Mr Capaldi: Sorry, what they said was that the funding
arrangements that the Welsh Government had previously had with Arts
& Business ended at the end of 2015-16. The remit letter does
refer to, and I think I quote in my submission about the need to
procure certain—
|
[61]
Dawn Bowden: Yes, but that was your decision, then, to move
to that model, basically.
|
[62]
Mr Capaldi: Yes, it’s our decision, but it’s a
decision taken on the basis of following the guidance that applies
to public service funding.
|
[63]
Neil Hamilton: So, did the £25,000 figure come from
you or was that a figure that you have to accept as an external
constraint?
|
[64]
Mr Capaldi: There are specific guidelines in terms
of—
|
[65]
Dawn Bowden: Sorry, Chair, I was just trying to understand
why we’ve moved from the arrangement that applied previously
to the arrangement that we’re in now. I must have misread
what your submission was saying, because I thought you were saying
that it was because the Government was saying that you had to now
approach this in a different way, but that’s not the
case—you’ve decided to do this.
|
[66]
Mr Capaldi: No, no—it is our compliance with public
funding requirements.
|
[67]
Dawn Bowden: But it wasn’t what you did
previously.
|
[68]
Mr Capaldi: No, what we did was we received money from the
Welsh Government, and we passed that on—
|
[69]
Dawn Bowden: And you just allocated it.
|
[70]
Mr Capaldi: And we did allocate it. There was a funding
agreement, don’t get me wrong. I mean, Arts & Business
had to provide a range of services, but that was funding made
available from the Welsh Government for us to pass on to Arts &
Business—different environment, though.
|
[71]
Bethan Jenkins: Thanks. Jeremy Miles.
|
[72]
Jeremy Miles: Just two questions: have you made an
assessment of the cost in time and management time and staff costs
to you of operating this new system?
|
[73]
Mr Capaldi: No. We don’t think it’s a huge
additional burden in terms of cost, because whether we are
assessing grant applications or whether we’re going through a
procurement process, in some ways a procurement process is more
straightforward because there are very specific, if you like, rules
and regulations, which rely less on subjective judgment.
|
[74]
Jeremy Miles: Okay, so the process is not causing a big
increase to your bottom line anyway.
|
[75]
Mr Capaldi: No. In fact, our bottom line is decreasing. We
are reducing the costs of our organisation. We’re currently
going through a cost-cutting process of restructuring at the
moment, which, at the conclusion of that process, will have seen
our staff numbers reduced by 25 per cent.
|
[76]
Jeremy Miles: And what will that mean in terms of numbers in
the budget?
|
[77]
Mr Capaldi: What that will mean is that we hope and expect
to be able to remain around the 7 to 8 per cent mark in terms of
our running costs as a proportion of overall expenditure.
|
[78]
Jeremy Miles: So, that’s the running rate—7 per
cent, roughly—of what you would describe essentially as your
core costs.
|
[79]
Mr Capaldi: As total expenditure, yes.
|
[80]
Jeremy Miles: Okay. So, you mentioned in your response to
Lee that Arts & Business could include in the procurement
process an element that covers their core cost. Did I hear you
correctly?
|
[81]
Mr Capaldi: Yes. I mean, I don’t think they would be
able to deliver the service unless the costs of providing that
service were factored into that—
|
[82]
Jeremy Miles: I’m sure that’s true. What sort of
assumptions would you make about what level of provision within
that process would be appropriate for their core costs, in
comparison with the £70,000 figure, or whatever is the actual
figure for—?
|
[83]
Mr Capaldi: I don’t think that we’ve made any
assumption about what that figure would be. It is one of the
advantages of a procurement model that you can compare. You can
look at what a range of organisations are saying, and clearly the
cost of providing the service becomes one of the criteria on which
one assesses the procurement process.
|
9:30
|
[84]
Jeremy Miles: You’re not simply going to be applying a
cheapest-cost base to the test of which procurement bid succeeds,
you’re going to have other criteria. So, my question is:
what’s your tolerance for core costs within that bid?
|
[85]
Mr Capaldi: We don’t have a stated tolerance, but what
we do have is we have criteria, and there is more of a weighting on
the quality of the proposals and the outcomes than there is on
cost. Cost is an important function, but we can award a tender to a
more expensive bid if we believe that the quality and the outcomes
justify that.
|
[86]
Bethan Jenkins: Dai Lloyd.
|
[87]
Dai Lloyd: Diolch, Gadeirydd. Roeddwn i eisiau
ehangu’r drafodaeth ychydig bach i edrych ar graffu ar waith
Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru yn fwy cyffredinol, ac i ofyn i chi
amlinellu pa weithgareddau datblygu busnes a chodi arian a
chynhyrchu incwm mae cyngor y celfyddydau ei hun yn eu
gwneud.
|
Dai
Lloyd: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to expand the discussion
a little bit to scrutinise the work of the Arts Council of Wales in
general, and to ask you to outline what business development and
fundraising activities the Arts Council of Wales itself
undertakes.
|
[88]
Mr Capaldi: As I said earlier on, we do little directly
ourselves because we prefer to play to the strengths of those
organisations that are expert in this area. There are sources of
funding that we can access, so traditionally what we’ve
tended to do is to look for opportunities either through European
funding or through partnerships with other organisations to
increase the money available to the arts in Wales. In some ways,
that’s very similar to the sort of role that Arts &
Business plays with the private sector, except in our case we would
be working with partners like the National Trust, with the Canals
and Rivers Trust, with the Football Association of Wales, with the
Baring Foundation, who have supported projects that we’re
doing with older people—a very long list of other partners
who are providing additional funding that goes into the arts.
|
[89]
Dai Lloyd: Ymhellach i hynny—diolch am yr ateb
yna—a ŷch chi’n gallu rhoi unrhyw syniad i ni o
faint o arian yr ydym ni’n delio â fe fan hyn? Faint o
arian ychwanegol neu fudd ychwanegol ydych chi’n cynhyrchu
o’r gweithgareddau yma fel cyngor y celfyddydau?
|
Dai Lloyd: Further to
that—thank you for that response—can you give us any
idea of how much funding we’re dealing with here? What
additional funding or additional benefit are you generating from
these activities as the Arts Council of Wales?
|
[90]
Mr Capaldi: I can’t off the top of my head, but, if
the committee would find it useful, I’d be very happy to
provide you with a note on that.
|
[91]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch. Lee Waters eto.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thanks. Lee Waters again.
|
[92]
Lee Waters: Yes, I’m interested in the implications of
this approach. So, do you work on this basis with all the
organisations you fund, so every organisation you fund is done on a
procurement basis?
|
[93]
Mr Capaldi: No. We differentiate between those activities
that are creating art—commissioning, producing works of
art—and those activities that are directed at the public, so,
opportunities for people to see, to participate and take part in
the arts. So, that would be everything from the activities of, say,
the Wales Millennium Centre to our network of theatres, art centres
and galleries across the country, where what they are doing is they
are commissioning, making, presenting work, and they are engaging
the public directly in arts activity.
|
[94]
There is a separate and smaller category of activity where we are
commissioning services for the benefit of the arts that are not
about directly providing arts activities, and Arts & Business
and their activities fall into that category.
|
[95]
Lee Waters: That seems to me a rather arbitrary distinction,
and you have discretion in where this line sits, do you not?
|
[96]
Mr Capaldi: It’s a very well-established principle
that we give grants to organisations that are promoting,
commissioning, making work or engaging with the public. Where it is
a service—. If we were to take, for example—yes, we
could procure, I suppose, for a nationally significant opera
provision across Wales based at the Wales Millennium Centre, but I
think we’d only have one applicant for that, so—
|
[97]
Lee Waters: I’m just interested in where the line
sits, because you’re saying it’s about directly
commissioning art, whereas, of course, the work that Arts &
Business does is—it’s a facilitation role, for sure,
but the work they do, for example, their CultureStep programme,
which they’ve told us about, working with socially
disadvantaged groups and business, that creates art.
|
[98]
Mr Capaldi: Yes, but I don’t think they are the direct
providers of that activity. What they are doing is they are
providing funding, which they have raised from other
charities—
|
[99]
Lee Waters: My point is: there is discretion here. You said
earlier that you must procure; you’ve now said it’s not
a question of ‘must’, or it’s a question of how
you do it. And there is discretion that you surely have in when and
where this applies, and you also said that you prefer to play to
the strengths of organisations that are active in the field of
engaging with the private sector, of which this is one.
You’ve said several times you don’t have the skills in
this area.
|
[100] Mr
Capaldi: Yes.
|
[101] Lee
Waters: And they’re telling us—and I take your
point, no organisation has a right to exist, and we are not deaf to
special pleading, we understand that people are fighting for their
organisations in austere times, so we’re not naïve about
that; however, it does seem in this case that they are providing a
specialist skillset you don’t have. You and the Welsh
Government want to encourage in this sector, and your response to
it is a rather bureaucratic, if you don’t mind me saying so,
obstinacy about what you regard as direct creation of art or not.
It’s an arbitrary distinction that you have the discretion to
apply differently, and there’s a real danger, is there not,
of you being stubborn about this and a skillset that doesn’t
exist easily elsewhere disappearing.
|
[102] Mr
Capaldi: We certainly don’t want to be stubborn or
bureaucratic about anything. I would maintain that there is a
material difference in type of activity between organisations that
are directly engaging in the creation and production of art and
those—
|
[103] Lee
Waters: Potato, potahto.
|
[104] Mr
Capaldi: —who are providing services. So, to that degree,
is it a matter of discretion? Perhaps. We don’t agree. We
feel that there are, for very good reasons, public procurement
processes that are in place that we should comply with. I think
it’s also important—
|
[105] Lee
Waters: When it suits you.
|
[106] Mr
Capaldi: Well, it’s not about suiting us. I
mean—
|
[107] Lee
Waters: Well, you don’t have to—. You have the
discretion of when to decide those procurement processes apply.
|
[108] Mr
Capaldi: Yes, but what I would argue is that—
|
[109] Lee
Waters: You said earlier that you must do it and you—
|
[110] Mr
Capaldi: —public procurement rules don’t exist to
make our life easier—
|
[111] Lee
Waters: But you have discretion over when to apply them.
|
[112] Mr
Capaldi: —they are there to provide security and
assurance for taxpayers.
|
[113] Lee
Waters: But you have discretion over when to apply them, and
you told us earlier that you must apply them in this case, and
you’ve not persuaded me that you must apply them in this
case.
|
[114] Mr
Capaldi: I’m sorry. I mean, that’s—. If,
again, the committee would like, I can provide you with a note on
the guidance that applies in the areas around the provision of
services.
|
[115] Lee
Waters: Indeed, and you’ve talked us through that, and,
from what I’ve heard, there is a judgment to be made about
the appropriateness of applying these guidelines in what is or is
not the original production of art.
|
[116] Mr
Capaldi: I understand the point you’re making. Yes, of
course, and we have made a judgment based on the
requirements—
|
[117] Lee
Waters: So, there is discretion.
|
[118] Mr
Capaldi: We could ignore the rules, yes.
|
[119] Lee
Waters: Well, you can choose to interpret them differently.
|
[120] Mr
Capaldi: I think we are scrutinised very carefully by the Wales
Audit Office, and they look at the basis upon which we make
decisions and they expect us to follow the guidelines.
|
[121] Lee
Waters: All right. So, you’re doing this to avoid
criticism from the Wales Audit Office, with a real, great danger
that the baby goes out with the bathwater.
|
[122] Mr
Capaldi: No, we are doing this, as I’ve said
consistently, to secure best value for the Welsh taxpayer, using
the processes that have been established.
|
[123] Lee
Waters: Well, the danger is £1.4 million of private
sector investment is lost to the artistic economy of Wales for the
sake of a £70,000 public subsidy.
|
[124] Mr
Capaldi: Well, all I would say—
|
[125] Lee
Waters: Because the Wales Audit Office are interested in risk
management, aren’t they? And you do have to balance it
against that risk.
|
[126] Mr
Capaldi: There are a very wide range of organisations that will
provide different types of business service. There is not a
comparable organisation to Arts & Business, but there are a
wide range of needs now. If one looks at the arts sector, it is
changing and has changed dramatically. There are a large number of
microbusinesses, a large number of small partnerships of
individuals who are working on the margins between the cultural and
the creative industries. These will be organisations that are
working at the forefront of exploiting digital technology. These
are new business skills and new areas of activity, which,
traditionally, have not been part of Arts & Business’s
core offer, for which we need to go out and test the market,
because those are the skills that are needed. If Arts &
Business comes through and can demonstrate that it’s able to
meet that need, we will happily fund that activity.
|
[127] Lee
Waters: Okay, thank you.
|
[128] Bethan
Jenkins: Jeremy Miles.
|
[129] Jeremy
Miles: I’m interested in a different kind of boundary
from the boundary as to what’s procured and what isn’t
procured within your portfolio of support. Arts & Business
Cymru provides a commercial service in the sense that it accesses
private money to supplement the core public money that comes from
the arts council. You’ve described a scenario where those
skills don’t exist within the Arts Council of Wales. So, you
have an organisation sitting outside the arts council where,
essentially, the point of the collective endeavour is to raise
money for the arts in Wales, effectively. So, is there a model in
which you could set up a subsidiary organisation of some sort in
which you had a controlling stake, where they would do the
commercial activity for the arts council? We’re obviously
discussing in other contexts how heritage organisations effectively
raise money from private sources to supplement the public purse.
Why aren’t you doing that?
|
[130] Mr
Capaldi: We’ve considered that and looked at it, but we
believe that the additional cost involved in that in terms of the
overheads that you’re concerned about wouldn’t justify
such an approach, and, since there do exist organisations such as
Arts & Business, we should make use of what exists.
|
[131] Jeremy
Miles: But those, again, are judgments, aren’t they,
essentially? You know, you could decide that you have the ability
to do this and have a different kind of relationship with Arts
& Business Cymru than you have at the moment, because other
organisations are being asked to consider how they joint venture,
or whatever, to do exactly this.
|
[132] Mr
Capaldi: Oh, I see what you mean—
|
[133] Jeremy
Miles: So, it seems to me that you’ve gone to the far end
of the spectrum here, haven’t you—there is a range of
options for you along the route.
|
[134] Mr
Capaldi: —that we would join services with Arts &
Business as some sort of joint vehicle.
|
[135] Jeremy
Miles: Well, the detail is to be discussed, I guess, or
negotiated, but my point is you’ve gone from one model to the
very furthest possible part of the spectrum from that. Essentially,
what’s happening on the ground is the same set of activities,
effectively; you’ve just chosen to interpret it in a
particular way.
|
[136] Mr
Capaldi: We’ve certainly not had any discussions with
Arts & Business about folding them into some sort of joint
arrangement with us, no. I’m happy to say, ‘No,
we’ve not’.
|
[137] Jeremy
Miles: Thank you.
|
[138] Neil
Hamilton: Can I just come back on one point?
|
[139] Bethan
Jenkins: Yes. Neil Hamilton.
|
[140] Neil
Hamilton: I’m still not absolutely clear about where this
£25,000 de minimis figure comes from—whether
that’s within your discretion to select or whether
that’s imposed upon you by external procurement
rules.
|
[141] Mr
Capaldi: There are external procurement rules and I will
provide—
|
[142] Neil
Hamilton: That’s where the £25,000 figure comes
from? Right. Thank you.
|
[143] Bethan
Jenkins: Suzy Davies.
|
[144]
Suzy Davies: Apologies; you may have already answered this
question, as I was late, but what I’m not 100 per cent clear
about from what I’ve read is whether, when it comes to risk,
your main worry is about what Arts & Business Cymru offers in
terms of services or its own financial model. Which worries you
more?
|
[145] Mr Capaldi: I
think we have had concerns about the financial model, and I want to
choose my words carefully because I don’t want to imply
negative connotations about what Arts & Business do and how
they structure themselves. But we have been trying to encourage
them through the businesses process that have been going on to look
at how they might sustain themselves more, and, to be fair,
they’ve been working away and doing that. Now, your question
about future risk, yes, it’s there. I think, in one of their
submissions, they talk about generating and bringing in, I think
it’s £350,000 of additional income next year.
I’m not doubting that that might well be possible and that,
in the current year, they might well be en route to doing that, but
in previous years the amount of money that they’ve generated
through earned income above and beyond the public subsidy directly
to the operation itself has been around £190,000. So,
£190,000 to £350,000 is a big stretch, which I think
must have an element of risk in it.
|
09:45
|
[146] Suzy
Davies: Okay. And if you’ve got, shall we say, mixed
levels of confidence about what they would promise for the
forthcoming year, can you tell us a little bit about how you would
measure your confidence on some of these other organisations, which
I haven’t named, but, of course, have not been tested in this
particular field?
|
[147] Mr
Capaldi: Well, we would go through the procurement process.
These processes are very clear. They define the outcomes that one
is looking for. They specify that we require information about
track record and about achievement, and it’s relatively
straightforward through these procurement processes to be able to
focus on the outcomes of what’s likely to be achieved.
|
[148] Suzy
Davies: Okay, well, you mentioned track record. All right, I
know I haven’t been an AM very long, but the only group of
people I know that have done this work have been ABC during my
time, locally. How would you assess the track record of somebody
who hasn’t actually done this before?
|
[149] Mr
Capaldi: As I was explaining earlier on, what we’re
looking at is a very broad range of business services that we think
are needed for the sector, of which Arts & Business fulfils a
particular niche in terms of the services that it provides. But,
we’re looking for a broader range of services, some of which,
actually, Arts & Business might decide it’s in a good
place to provide.
|
[150] Suzy
Davies: Okay, so, there’s a potential for more than one
organisation meeting the needs you’ve identified.
|
[151] Mr
Capaldi: Potentially, yes.
|
[152] Suzy
Davies: Okay, thank you.
|
[153] Bethan
Jenkins: We have some time left. I just wanted to ask
briefly—. Obviously, you commissioned the Cultivate report,
and you said that you’re waiting to see the MetaValue work,
which Arts & Business Cymru commissioned. Would you be
minded—you haven’t seen it yet to know what it
says—if there was something in there that was minded to be
positive and constructive towards what they’re doing, to look
at them in a different light, or is that just going to aid you in
how you would view any potential new application to a new
procurement process from them?
|
[154] Mr
Capaldi: I think that we already view Arts & Business in a
positive light, and I think we are very familiar with their
achievements and what they do. So, I would be surprised if the
MetaValue report told us anything in that regard.
|
[155] Bethan
Jenkins: So why did you commission them—you gave them a
one-off payment of £25,000 specifically for that—if you
already knew what they were doing and how well they were doing
it?
|
[156] Mr
Capaldi: Because it was about the future business model.
|
[157] Bethan
Jenkins: Sorry?
|
[158] Mr
Capaldi: It was about the future business model. It was about
drawing on the strengths of the organisation, what it did well, and
how it might respond to a different world where there was less
public money around—how they might develop their range of
services, how they might respond to the new and developing
requirements that arts organisations and artists are identifying.
We have verbal feedback on the MetaValue review, and, I think, as
I’ve said in my note, it appears to have gone very well.
We’re aware of some cost-cutting measures that Arts &
Business have already taken as a result of the MetaValue report.
That sounds to me good and encouraging.
|
[159] We’ve not
seen the report. I mean, we would be interested to see it. I think
we will see it, I’m sure, because there is a proportion of
the grant outstanding for payment, and our usual practice is that
once a piece of work is complete and the report is produced, then
we pay that outstanding money. So, I’m sure that Arts &
Business will be sending it to us very soon.
|
[160] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. Just as Dai mentioned earlier about expanding
some of the questioning, I think it would be remiss of us not to
ask, just with regard to our current inquiry on music in education,
whether you could give us your opinion as to the current situation
and your role in it, if anything, and how you could see a potential
solution for the future, if you do have one, and whether
there’s a role for you as an arts council.
|
[161] Mr
Capaldi: I hope there will be a role for us in the future. We
were part of the task group that commissioned the report and we
have been following the proceedings of this committee with great
interest because it’s a hugely difficult and hugely important
area of work. We have a range of different ways that we engage with
arts in education and, with your permission, I wanted to offer, if
the committee would find it useful, for us to come along and give
you evidence specifically on these matters as part of your inquiry,
because we’ve heard, during the course of various
discussions, conversations and evidence about organisations like
National Youth Arts Wales and we’ve heard about the music
services and what’s been happening there. These are all
things that we’re involved with.
|
[162] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay, thank you.
|
[163] Mr
Capaldi: The task and finish group came up with a series of
recommendations and they are going to be challenging because
we’re not talking about more money coming into the system at
local authority level to support these really important activities.
I suppose what we’re looking at is the next best option,
which is that local authorities, where they can, come together on
either a regional or a sub-regional basis to provide expert
services. I think that, unless new money can be brought into the
system, that’s what we’re going to have to do. I was
the product of a schools music service. That’s how I got into
the arts. I feel very strongly about that and there are large
numbers of young people who are being denied the opportunities that
I had.
|
[164]
Bethan Jenkins:
A oes gan Aelodau gwestiynau?
Lee.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Any more questions from Members? Lee.
|
[165] Lee
Waters: Just briefly, the irony of that last statement—.
The challenge facing funding the ensembles in particular is to
lever in private sector investment. It’s a huge challenge for
the sector. What we’ve just been discussing this morning is
the paucity of the skillset that exists to do that and the
challenge of it. So, what lessons do you think can be drawn, for
the people who are now trying to set about drawing in private
sector money, from the experience of Arts & Business?
|
[166] Mr
Capaldi: I think that the skills do exist and they do exist
across the sector as a whole. If you look at some of our most
successful national companies such as Wales Millennium Centre,
Welsh National Opera, National Theatre Wales or Theatr Genedlaethol
Cymru, these organisations are fundraising millions of pounds of
private sector and trust support each year—
|
[167] Lee
Waters: And they have a devil of a job doing it and they have
large, experienced teams to do it.
|
[168] Mr
Capaldi: Indeed. But what I think—
|
[169] Lee
Waters: We’re comparing apples with pears here.
|
[170] Mr
Capaldi: What we are starting to see, though, are instances
where large organisations are mentoring and supporting smaller
organisations as part of partnerships. I think that in terms of
looking at the future of music services, which you specifically
asked about, I hope that if new partnerships and new organisations
do emerge, they will take advantage of that kind of expertise that
is available to them from existing organisations, whether Arts
& Business or anybody else.
|
[171] Lee
Waters: If it still exists.
|
[172] Mr
Capaldi: I’m pretty confident it will exist.
|
[173] Lee
Waters: Okay, thank you.
|
[174] Bethan
Jenkins: And just to follow on from that, therefore, do those
organisations have the same style of procurement processes as Arts
& Business Cymru, for example, or the WNO? Or would you give
them core funding based on the fact that you know that they are the
best at what they do and that that wouldn’t be required?
|
[175] Mr
Capaldi: This was the point that I was exploring with Mr
Waters—that we differentiate between those organisations that
we grant fund, of which Welsh National Opera and Wales Millennium
Centre are two. We fund 67 organisations—which are described
as our arts portfolio of Wales, across Wales—that are
providing arts activities.
|
[176] Bethan
Jenkins: That’s where you were saying about the clear
difference, then.
|
[177] Mr
Capaldi: This is the distinction that we’ve been
debating.
|
[178] Bethan
Jenkins: Right. And you’ve got that in a sort of format
then to make that distinction.
|
[179] Mr
Capaldi: Yes, it’s very clear whether an organisation is
commissioning and creating work and providing and those services
direct to the public. We monitor that work very carefully.
|
[180]
Bethan Jenkins:
A oes unrhyw gwestiynau eraill gan
Aelodau? Rŷm ni wedi clywed eich barn ynglŷn â dod
i mewn ar gyfer yr ymchwiliad arall, a byddwn yn cymryd hynny i
ystyriaeth. Diolch yn fawr iawn ichi am ddod i mewn heddiw i roi
tystiolaeth. Rwy’n siŵr y bydd cysylltiad gennym ni ar
hyn. Os ydych yn gallu anfon y nodyn ar procurement atom,
byddai hynny’n ein helpu i ddeall yn fwy sut rydych yn
cydlynu’r gwaith yn hynny o beth. Diolch yn fawr am ddod i
mewn heddiw.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Are there any other questions from Members? We have
heard your comments about coming in for the other inquiry, and we
will consider that. Thank you very much for coming in today to give
evidence. I’m sure we will be in touch with you on that. If
you could send the note on procurement to us, that would be a great
help for us to understand better how you co-ordinate the work in
that regard. Thank you very much for coming in today.
|
[181]
Eitem tri—. Rydym yn mynd i
gael brêc am bum munud a wedyn dod nôl am 10 o’r
gloch.
|
Item
three—. We are just going to have a short break for five
minutes, and then we will come back at 10 o’clock.
|
Gohiriwyd y cyfarfod rhwng 09:55 a 10:06.
The
meeting was adjourned between 09:55 and 10:06.
|
Cyllid ar gyfer Addysg Cerddoriaeth a
Mynediad at yr Addysg Honno: Sesiwn Dystiolaeth 6
Funding for and Access to Music Education: Evidence Session 6
|
[182]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch yn fawr. Rydym ni’n
symud ymlaen at eitem 3, sef ariannu addysg cerddoriaeth a gwella
mynediad ati, sesiwn dystiolaeth ragarweiniol rhif 6. Diolch yn
fawr iawn i Deborah Keyser, cyfarwyddwr Tŷ Cerdd, am ddod i
mewn heddiw. Rydym ni’n gwerthfawrogi’r hyn yr ydych
chi’n ei wneud yn y maes yma. A oes modd i chi roi golwg
gyffredinol i ni o’r hyn rydych chi’n ei wneud yn
Nhŷ Cerdd? Gwnes i sylwi bod adroddiad y grŵp gorchwyl ar
wasanaethau cerddoriaeth yn nodi fod y trefniant lle bo CBAC yn
rheoli un maes a’ch bod chi wedyn yn rheoli maes arall yn
anarferol. A allwch chi ehangu ar hynny a dweud wrthym ni sut
rydych chi’n meddwl ei fod yn gweithio a sut rydych
chi’n gweithio gyda’r bwrdd interim sy’n mynd i
gymryd at y gwaith ar hyn o bryd?
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you very much. We are moving on to item 3, which
is funding for and access to music education, introductory evidence
session number 6. Thank you very much to Deborah Keyser, director
of Tŷ Cerdd, for coming today. We very much appreciate what
you do in this area. Could you give us a general view of what you
do in Tŷ Cerdd? I notice that the report from the task and
finish group on music services noted that it is an unusual
arrangement where the WJEC controls one area and you then control
another area. Could you expand on that and tell us how you think it
works and how you work with the interim board that’s going to
be taking on the work at present?
|
[183] Ms
Keyser: Sure. First of all, I should tell you a little bit
about Tŷ Cerdd and what the rationale is for us delivering the
five National Youth Arts Wales ensembles. We exist to promote the
music of Wales, especially the contemporary music of Wales. So, we
support the development of composers and we have a membership of
non-professional societies around Wales that will perform Welsh
music and other music. We support that amateur music-making. We
also have a recording studio and an extensive archive and library
of music of the past and music that’s been commissioned. So,
working with young people, supporting them to engage with Welsh
music of now and the past, is bang in our remit and supporting
audiences to connect with that music. Yes, we deliver the National
Youth Choir of Wales, brass band, wind orchestra, training choir
and training band. So, that’s five of the ensembles. Those
historically come from Tŷ Cerdd having been born through the
ages and, yes, we do operate very separately from the WJEC. The key
member of staff that is involved with delivering those ensembles,
Matthew Thistlewood, couldn’t be here today, unfortunately.
He is paid by the WJEC and is on their payroll but he works from
Tŷ Cerdd and works very much as part of our team and with our
resources—human and physical resources. The operation is
quite distinct from the operation in the WJEC and there’s
very little working together, if you know what I mean. There are a
couple of members of staff—Pauline is the manager over the
whole team—but, in effect, Matthew works to us.
|
[184]
Bethan Jenkins:
A beth sy’n digwydd nawr
gyda’r weinyddiaeth interim o ran y celfyddydau ieuenctid? A
ydych chi’n rhan o hynny a sut wedyn ydych chi’n mynd i
gael mewnbwn i sut mae hynny’n mynd i ddatblygu a gweithio yn
y dyfodol, er enghraifft o ran codi arian a sicrhau ei bod yn
llwyddiannus ac yn y blaen?
|
Bethan Jenkins: And what happens now with the interim
administration in terms of youth arts? Are you a part of that and
how then are you going to have an input into how that develops and
works in future, for example in relation to fundraising and
ensuring that it is successful and so on?
|
[185] Ms
Keyser: Okay. I only came into post in November, so I’m
very new, but my predecessor, Gwyn L. Williams, was part of that as
an observer on the interim board, and I have been since my arrival
in November. We’ve been supporting the board to move forward
and giving them evidence. This year, we’re going to be
contracted, well, the WJEC is going to be contracted—you may
know all of this already—to deliver the 2017 ensembles. We
will be working in partnership with them, in effect, to deliver the
ensembles. We’ve put the five programmes in place and
recruited around 260 young people from across Wales to be part of
those ensembles. It was a really difficult timeline because that
work started in October and, obviously, even now, we haven’t
had anything in writing to say, ‘Go ahead’, but we have
an understanding and a good relationship with the new board of
National Youth Arts Wales, and so we’ve moved
forward—we’ve had to move forward—in a certain
amount of confidence.
|
[186] We’ve
actually committed some funds to make the work happen this year
because we had a great concern that if there was a lull or any sort
of hiatus, the young people would drop out, lose confidence or find
other things to do. We did take that decision in the autumn to
advertise the ensembles and to recruit. So, all of the auditions
have taken place and the young people are all in place, and that
happened well before there was actually the commitment. We took
that financial risk, if you like. So, that is all in place for
2017. We have a composer-in-residence, Rhian Samuel, who we
fundraised for from the Colwinston Trust. One of the reasons that
we’re so passionate about the ensembles is that connection
with living composers. So, we nailed our colours to that mast for
this year and made sure that that’s happening. She’s
delivered the pieces; they’ve all been written, and so
that’s all in place. The timeline is, as you can
imagine—. It happens really early, and so, for this year, it
had to be a fait accompli well before Christmas, really. So,
we’re delivering 2017 and, from then on, we don’t know
what’s going to happen. We’re working with the new
board. We really want to continue delivering the ensembles.
We’ve developed a really efficient model, and a model of
excellence. I mean, excellence, security and efficiency are the key
pillars of the way we deliver the work, but we don’t know
whether we’ll be delivering this work after 2017.
|
[187] Bethan
Jenkins: Did you say at any point, just so I’m clear,
that you could actually take on that work, or was it never within
your capability to say, ‘Look, instead of creating this new
organisation, we could carry on with doing what we’re doing,
because we do it well’?
|
[188] Ms
Keyser: Oh, absolutely. Yes, that has been evidenced all the
way through the process. There’s a document, which I can send
on to you, which has been given to the interim board to show the
efficiency of the operation. We run five of them. They’re
really—I was about to use the word ‘cheap’, but
they’re very cost-effective. We’ve had some great
plaudits from Paul Mealor, for example—a very prominent Welsh
composer. He was the conductor on our choir course last year, and
he said it was the best course he’s ever been on. We’ve
got bagfuls of credits. It’s good work. I do understand
absolutely that there needs to be a new set-up that is cohesive
across the whole delivery.
|
[189] Bethan
Jenkins: So, you’re supportive of it actually existing,
then.
|
[190] Ms
Keyser: I’m absolutely supportive of there
being—
|
[191] Bethan
Jenkins: An overarching—
|
[192] Ms
Keyser: Yes. A more combined delivery model, but I think there
are certain strengths that should be played into that new delivery
model.
|
[193] Bethan
Jenkins: And you haven’t had any problems with people
trying for auditions or not going for auditions because
you’ve organised it quite early on in the process.
|
[194] Ms
Keyser: No, we haven’t had that issue. I guess that could
have been a problem if we’d gone later. I think that is a
problem waiting to happen with—this is probably another part
of the conversation—the music services being in such
straitened circumstances at the moment. The feed of young people
coming through the music services to the national ensembles will be
affected. I know the orchestra has had fewer applications than
usual. At the moment it’s not a crisis—absolutely
not—and we have been able to recruit good-quality
ensembles.
|
[195] Bethan
Jenkins: And the standardisation of fees—is that
affecting students in any way?
|
[196] Ms
Keyser: You mean with the music services.
|
[197] Bethan
Jenkins: No—
|
[198] Ms
Keyser: Oh, fees across our ensembles. Our ensembles are
actually quite a lot cheaper than the National Youth Orchestra of
Wales. They’re quite a lot shorter. They’re seven days;
the national youth orchestra is two weeks. So, they are shorter.
They’ve worked really well at that. But, I mean, the fees are
£330 for a seven-day residency and we do give bursaries. So
far this year, I think we’ve given about a £1,000 in
bursaries.
|
10:15
|
[199] Bethan
Jenkins: So, people haven’t seen that as a barrier,
then.
|
[200] Ms
Keyser: A barrier, no. But then of course, probably the
barriers are further down the system.
|
[201] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay, diolch yn fawr. Jeremy has questions.
|
[202] Jeremy
Miles: I was going to ask you about the future picture. I just
want to get clear in my mind the current set of arrangements and
just to develop some of the points you’ve already made. So,
National Youth Arts Wales is essentially a joint venture between
WJEC and Tŷ Cerdd—just put simply. For this summer
season, if I may put it like that, National Youth Arts Wales has
contracted WJEC, I think you said.
|
[203] Ms
Keyser: Yes. Well they’re about to; they haven’t
done yet.
|
[204] Jeremy
Miles: Okay, but that’s the basic structure. And there
will be a contract then, presumably, between WJEC and you to
provide the ensembles that you provide for.
|
[205] Ms
Keyser: That’s right.
|
[206] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. So, what’s the sort of funding flow between
yourselves and the new joint venture, if I may describe it like
that? Previously, you would have been funding the ensembles to the
tune of about £100,000. Is that roughly right?
|
[207] Ms
Keyser: Roughly, yes.
|
[208] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. So, this year, because of that contractual
structure I’ve described, how does the money flow around that
system?
|
[209] Ms
Keyser: In the same way as before, actually. Because the Arts
Council of Wales has been historically giving the money to WJEC,
and then we’ve been—. No, actually, there is a massive
fly in the ointment for us now, because the arts council
has—this is currently a dispute with the arts
council—misunderstood. They give us £80,000 a year,
which they believe to be for the delivery of—.
|
[210] Jeremy
Miles: There’s quite a lot of that going on at the
moment.
|
[211] Ms
Keyser: Sorry? Yes. They believe it to be for the delivery for
the National Youth Arts Wales ensembles. That’s
not—that’s our core; that’s what we’re
working on, our core work. But, the way we deliver the National
Youth Arts Wales ensembles is through around
£60,000—early £60,000s—of income from the
young people, and a sum of around about £17,000 from WJEC
that tops that up.
|
[212] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. So, the money’s going in both directions in
that model, effectively. You’re putting some income
direct—
|
[213] Ms
Keyser: That’s right, and then getting the
rest—
|
[214] Jeremy
Miles: And there’s some coming down the contract
route.
|
[215] Ms
Keyser: That’s right, coming through, exactly. So, yes,
in another part of the picture, we are desperately fighting to get
that money back from the arts council, because that has really
clipped our wings in terms of our delivery of our core work. But as
to that relationship with WJEC this year—so, 2016-17—in
the current financial year, that money’s already gone from
the arts council but it’s been given to WJEC to give back to
us. So, we are getting that £80,000 through WJEC at the
moment, but we won’t, as of April, be getting that money.
|
[216] Jeremy
Miles: I haven’t quite followed, if I’m honest, why
that would be. So, could you just take us through that again?
What’s the April time—?
|
[217] Ms
Keyser: So, the April is the end of—
|
[218] Jeremy
Miles: The next financial year.
|
[219] Ms
Keyser: Exactly. The end of the relationship with National
Youth Arts Wales, and the beginning of the new National Youth Arts
Wales. So, they’re contracting WJEC to deliver 2017, but, in
those sums, that £80,000 is history. It is £80,000 from
the arts council, which is, in effect, gone. So, we’ve put
£15,000 into the pot to say, ‘We want to make this
happen.’ We were worried about the decision that was made in
the autumn when we were worried about whether 2017 delivery would
go ahead.
|
[220] Jeremy
Miles: And those are from your general funds, as Tŷ
Cerdd.
|
[221] Ms
Keyser: Yes, exactly. So, from our reserve, we put
£15,000 in, to say, ‘We want to make this
happen’. So, now we need to have a conversation once that
contract is made between WJEC and National Youth Arts Wales. We
need to negotiate with WJEC to get the rest of the money that we
need to make 2017 happen.
|
[222] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. So, just on the structure, before we move on to
other questions—
|
[223] Ms
Keyser: Sure.
|
[224] Jeremy
Miles: So, you have a joint venture, effectively, which has two
parties, both of whom are significant providers of services to that
new organisation. There’s quite a lot of potential for
conflict in there, isn’t there?
|
[225] Ms
Keyser: Between ourselves and WJEC?
|
[226] Jeremy
Miles: Between the new organisation and its general obligations
and the partners within it who are both also contracting partners
to deliver various services. Is there not a conflict inherent in
that structure?
|
[227] Ms
Keyser: Yes, I would say there is.
|
[228] Jeremy
Miles: What thoughts have there been about how that is managed
in practice?
|
[229] Ms
Keyser: Well, I would say—from what I can see at the
moment—the delivery of 2017 is remaining quite distinct from
National Youth Arts Wales. They’re not involved. They are
looking forward. They are setting up their new organisation and
trying to define what their new model of delivery will be, and I
don’t think they know that yet. I met with Peter Bellingham
yesterday. They’ve got a lot of work that they want to do to
define that, but 2017, they have a rough idea of what we’re
doing in terms of—
|
[230] Jeremy
Miles: So, it’s early days is the point at this
stage.
|
[231] Ms
Keyser: It’s early days.
|
[232] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. In terms of part of the overall operations of
Tŷ Cerdd, which are represented by the work that ultimately
gets flowed, in some way, through National Youth Arts Wales, how
will you describe what goes into National Youth Arts Wales and
what’s left in Tŷ Cerdd? How will you describe the two
separate categories of operation?
|
[233] Ms
Keyser: Yes, okay. So, outside of the work of National Youth
Arts Wales—the arts council has encouraged us to look at the
National Youth Arts Wales work as separate from our core, so, if I
do that—we have a memorandum of agreement with various
organisations, including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. So,
we’re supporting them to programme and perform Welsh music.
We are supporting our network of member organisations and
societies. We have a library; so, we support them by hiring a Welsh
repertoire to them and other repertoire to them. We have recording
studios, and we record music by Welsh composers and Welsh
performers. We are a publishing house as well. So, some of that
more niche, less populist Welsh music—the work that needs
supporting—we will publish some of that work as well. So, our
engagement with young people specifically, and our participatory
work with young people has all been channelled through National
Youth Arts Wales ensembles. So, that’s an area of work that
we now need to develop, separate from—.
|
[234] Jeremy
Miles: But in terms of staffing, say, do you have half your
workforce dedicated to what’s now coming into the new body
and half into the retained—?
|
[235] Ms
Keyser: In terms of the ensembles, we just have one full-time
equivalent working on that, and the rest of us work on the rest of
the business.
|
[236] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. And do the changes affect your capacity to deliver
any aspect of your remit?
|
[237] Ms
Keyser: Yes, only in that we have lost that money from the arts
council. So, we’ve lost staffing capacity as a direct result
of that.
|
[238] Jeremy
Miles: Right. Yes. Okay. What does that mean in practice in
terms of capacity? How many posts is that?
|
[239] Ms
Keyser: Well, over the last year, two posts have gone. One has
completely gone and one was being partially replaced. So,
we’re quite down on staff. Because we’re a very small
organisation.
|
[240] Jeremy
Miles: Yes, sure. Okay. You’ve obviously committed your
own funds to this summer’s activities, and we heard from the
WJEC that they are effectively—they didn’t use this
word—sort of gifting, effectively, a whole package of
services.
|
[241] Ms
Keyser: As are we. Yes.
|
[242] Jeremy
Miles: Right. That’s my question. So, what does that look
like for you?
|
[243] Ms
Keyser: That looks like about £15,000-worth of
back-office in kind.
|
[244] Jeremy
Miles: Is that just for this summer, or are you assuming that
that will—?
|
[245] Ms
Keyser: No, that’s a sort of annual figure that
we’ve calculated, but not ever invoiced to.
|
[246] Jeremy
Miles: Okay. So, it’s services in kind, effectively,
which you would assess as being around that value.
|
[247] Ms
Keyser: Services in kind. Exactly. Yes.
|
[248] Jeremy
Miles: And you’re going to make those available on an
ongoing basis.
|
[249] Ms
Keyser: Yes. Absolutely. Yes.
|
[250] Jeremy
Miles: Right. Okay. Thank you.
|
[251]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch yn fawr. Mae gan Suzy Davies
gwestiynau.
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Thank you. Suzy has some questions.
|
[252] Suzy
Davies: Just on this point you mentioned, where you’ve
been encouraged to deal with this work that we’re talking
about today separately from your core work as Tŷ Cerdd,
inevitably, some of that work is done by the same people, I would
imagine. People working on this aren’t in a cupboard
somewhere doing just this work. We’ve heard from witnesses
last week that they are looking down the barrel of a huge funding
gap after 2017, and the chances are that the model—. They
don’t know what it will look like yet, but they will come up
with something. It’s going to have to be constructed with
that in mind. So, there is a risk to your organisation that
you’ll be doing this work at all.
|
[253] Ms
Keyser: Oh, absolutely.
|
[254] Suzy Davies: If that’s the
case—and obviously, I hope that doesn’t
happen—what is the risk to your organisation as a whole?
Because I appreciate that this work is separate, but would you find
yourself in the position that, in order just to be viable at all,
you would have to go and look for some other project to
service?
|
[255] Ms
Keyser: Well, we’ve created a budget that has extracted
the National Youth Arts Wales work, so we have an in-built
resilience, but that has been severely compromised by this loss of
the—it’s almost a separate issue, because it’s a
loss of money from the arts council, but it’s directly
connected to the National Youth Arts Wales issue. So, no, we can
continue, but we have very straitened resources—human
resources—as a result. But, no, we absolutely have had to be
realistic and, from last October, construct a budget that exists
without engaging with National Youth Arts Wales.
|
[256]
Suzy Davies: And if you found yourself in that situation, and
you’d have to contract out quite quickly as well, would that
curtail your ambition to do other things in the future?
|
[257]
Ms Keyser: Oh, absolutely.
|
[258]
Suzy Davies: I suppose what I’m asking is: would it hamper
you so much that you wouldn’t be able to exercise any
ambition? You’d just have to plough the core furrow, if you
like.
|
[259]
Ms Keyser: There absolutely is an element of that. I’m
meeting—you’ve just had Nick Capaldi here; I should
have grabbed him—I’m meeting with him next Thursday
about this specific issue, because it’s something that is
very much, for us, still live. We’ve had our remit letter,
our letter from the arts council, with that £80,000 missing.
It is, in a way, not National Youth Arts Wales’s problem,
but, yes, it does leave our wings very clipped, and the amount of
activity we’re able to generate is compromised by
it.
|
[260]
Suzy Davies: Okay, so it would be that serious. Okay, thank
you.
|
[261]
Bethan Jenkins:
Dai Lloyd.
|
[262]
Dai Lloyd: Diolch, Gadeirydd. Wel, yn rhannol, mae’r
pwyntiau yr oeddwn i’n mynd i’w gofyn wedi cael eu
gofyn ac wedi cael eu hateb, ond yn nhermau cynlluniau at y
dyfodol, o 2018 ymlaen, jest i fynd eto ar ôl yr un un
trywydd ariannol a’r peryglon ariannol, neu beryglon y bwlch
enfawr yma, achos, fel yr oedd Suzy yn cyfeirio ato, mae yna fwlch
mawr ariannol yn mynd i ddigwydd o’i gymharu â’r
presennol, yn ôl tystiolaeth CBAC wythnos diwethaf. So, sut
yn eich tyb chi mae’r strwythur newydd yma—ac nid ydw i
eisiau mynd mewn i’r cymhlethdod hwnnw eto—yn mynd i
allu llenwi’r bwlch ariannol? Pa mor ffyddiog ydych chi eich
bod chi’n gallu mynd a denu arian o ba bynnag
ffynhonnell— preifat ai beidio—i lenwi’r gagendor
ariannol yma ar ôl 2018?
|
Dai
Lloyd: Thank you, Chair. Well, partly, the question I wanted to
ask has already been asked and answered, but in terms of plans for
the future, from 2018 onwards, just to go back to the same
financial aspect and the financial risks, or the risks of this huge
funding gap, because, as Suzy said, there will be a big funding gap
compared to what we’re looking at at the moment, according to
what the WJEC have told us. So, how do you think this new
structure—and I don’t want to look at the complexity of
that again—will be able to fill that funding gap? How
confident are you that you can attract funding from whichever
sources—from private sources or otherwise—to fill that
gap after 2018?
|
[263] Ms
Keyser: Well, obviously that’s an issue for the new
organisation. They’ve got an enormous fundraising job to do,
and they’ve got a really good fundraiser on board, but
it’s not for me to say. I think they’d be very lucky to
raise £300,000 a year, or whatever it is they need to raise,
but they may do it. Certainly, if they continue some of the model
that they’ve already got, they at least have efficiency
there—well, they don’t just have efficiency, they also
have excellence—but they may want to have a completely new
model. If they want to have a completely new model, that might
cost—maybe it will cost less. Really, you know, if they move
ahead in 2018 without us, obviously they will be fundraising,
presumably in a completely new arena. I can’t say that I
would be confident to raise £300,000 a year for the national
youth arts ensembles, but maybe they will.
|
[264] Obviously, the
local authorities are a key potential player, but we haven’t
been part of that relationship with local authorities, and
certainly for our ensembles, because of reasons of recruitment,
particularly in rural areas, we haven’t been able to say that
our members need to be going through the local county music
services. So, therefore, we’ve had to have no formal
relationship with the local authorities. So, actually, that local
authority money hasn’t come into us anyway. It hasn’t
touched us. So, we are sort of slightly separate from some of the
rest of the operation, which is much more expensive by its nature.
Of course, the theatre and dance work is more expensive to deliver,
as is the orchestra, because it’s enormous. It’s a
fantastic thing, and it’s big. In a way, the fundraising is
slightly outside the territory that we’re operating in
because our operation is so much cheaper.
|
[265]
Dai Lloyd: Ocê. Wel, diolch am yr ateb yna. Hefyd,
jest er mwyn i ni gael rhyw fath o sicrwydd, i’r dyfodol, sut
fydd Tŷ Cerdd yn gweithio, felly? Wrth gwrs, rydym ni i gyd yn
meddwl am ddyfodol yr ensemblau yn gyffredinol. Sut fydd cyfraniad
Tŷ Cerdd yn mynd ymlaen flwyddyn ar ôl blwyddyn nawr ar
ôl 2018?
|
Dai
Lloyd: Thank you for that response. Also, just so that we can
have some sort of idea on this, how will Tŷ Cerdd work in
future? Because we are all thinking, of course, of the future of
the ensembles in general. How will Tŷ Cerdd’s
contribution carry on now year after year after 2018?
|
10:30
|
[266] Ms
Keyser: Do you mean, how will our contribution carry on to the
National Youth Arts Wales ensembles?
|
[267] Dai
Lloyd: Yes.
|
[268] Ms
Keyser: Well, we’ve made it really clear that we want to
support the work going forward, whatever that looks like. So, at
the moment they’re basically our ensembles. They won’t
be, and that is fine. We just want to make sure that the work is
delivered, and that, very importantly, Welsh music is really
present there for the young people, and that Welsh composers are
working alongside and are being commissioned. So, I really hope
that that’s the key way that we will be involved, because
that’s the most important part of our involvement.
|
[269] Bethan
Jenkins: This is quite a specific question, but I know you said
that you work with the BBC orchestra on the composers, on the Welsh
composers, but you don’t seem to have a very strong
relationship with the WJEC. So, do you work with the youth
orchestra in commissioning them to play Welsh pieces?
|
[270] Ms
Keyser: Yes, there is. I probably over-egged the not-strong
relationship; there’s a decent relationship, it’s just
we don’t deliver together. But there are lots of additional
collaborations that come through the calendar year through our
ensembles. For example, the youth choir will collaborate with the
youth orchestra on concerts at various points in the year, maybe
sitting side by side with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the
BBC National Chorus of Wales. Absolutely, there are collaborative
events and working on new music together, and certainly the
orchestra is also great at programming Welsh music, and so
that’s bang in our remit too. So, yes, there is a working
relationship, it’s just that we don’t deliver
together.
|
[271] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. You mentioned
earlier that the funding issue might be more—I don’t
want to quote you, but I’ll paraphrase—severe on a
local level. That’s why you don’t see that at the
higher level—the pyramid-structure level. Could you just say
what your feelings are on that? Because of course we’re
looking for solutions, and a lot of people have said, ‘Look,
we’ve had lots of reviews; what’s the solution?’
Do you have any—? Even though you don’t have direct
intervention or communication with the local authorities, what
would be your view as to how that could work effectively, so that
when you see the young people, there are more coming through, and
there are more coming through from non-traditional backgrounds, and
so forth? How do you see that working?
|
[272] Ms
Keyser: I guess that one of the keys has to lie in some sort of
consistency of delivery, and there is just a huge variety of levels
of funding, and sorts of delivery. So, there will be—. In
that document I was referring to, we’ve done some really nice
maps that show where the young people are coming from. It means
there will be gluts of young people from certain areas, and some of
that is about the obvious stuff, the well-heeled areas, but
actually also it’s about passions within local authorities or
within schools. So, for example, from Caerphilly we’ve got a
glut—‘glut’; that’s a really bad
word—but a lot of young people in the choir, which is
fantastic. It’s not a glut at all. We’ve noticed that
we have, across all of the ensembles, one young person from
Swansea. Now, that’s really surprising, and really quite
shocking.
|
[273] Bethan
Jenkins: Dai, sort it out.
|
[274] Ms
Keyser: I hope I’ve got that right. I’m pretty sure
I have. So, that consistency and continuity, and, yes, I’ve
been watching a few bits of evidence from this committee, and
obviously this argument about pyramid versus non-pyramid, and I
guess in an ideal world, absolutely, access is everything.
It’s so vitally important, and I’m not for one moment
arguing against access, but I think it’s the access that
provides that trajectory to the elite ensembles, and that’s
the way it should be.
|
[275]
I live in Carmarthenshire, and Carmarthenshire is great, but
it’s very difficult if you live in a rural part of a county
like Carmarthenshire to access the county ensembles. So, actually,
it’s much more difficult to take that route. So, more
grass-roots work, work in schools. I’m new in post, so I
don’t have a really nuanced picture of the local authority
delivery, but I do know that it’s just completely patchy.
Some of it’s really excellent and some of it’s just
really underfunded. That is absolutely reflected in the young
people who rock up to the elite ensembles.
|
[276] Bethan
Jenkins: Would you say there’s an argument for you and
the WJEC, perhaps, to step up in relation to how that’s
delivered locally? You deliver the top end, so to speak, but, if
you don’t have that grass-roots development happening, you
won’t have them coming through in the future. So, would you
see a role for you to say, ‘Right, okay, we’ll try and
intervene here also, as opposed to having that hands-off
approach’?
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[277] Ms
Keyser: Yes, there absolutely could be, and in fact, we do,
slightly. We’re sort of in that bit down from the top of the
pyramid as well, because the training choir and the training band
are open access, they’re not by audition, and they’re
absolutely developmental ensembles, and we do a lot of recruitment.
In fact, the friends of the choir have just put a lottery bid
in—that’s something else I should have told you about,
actually—to our lottery strand. We administer for the arts
council a lottery pot of money around music, around commissioning
music, music in the community, and music for youth, and
there’s some lottery money going into developing boy singers,
because it’s very difficult to recruit boys to the choir, and
also—
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[278] Bethan
Jenkins: Despite Only Men Aloud. [Laughter.]
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[279] Ms
Keyser: That’s fantastic, but it’s not SATB, of
course, so it is different from that. So, recruiting boys to SATB
singing. And also postcodes, chasing postcodes, really: going into
the places where we really haven’t got any coverage yet. So,
actually, yes, we get involved in that side, but, of course,
it’s resource-dependent.
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[280] Bethan
Jenkins: Okay. Diolch.
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[281] Suzy
Davies: Sorry, can I ask what SATB is?
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[282] Ms
Keyser: Oh, sorry.
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[283] Bethan
Jenkins: Soprano, alto, tenor, bass.
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[284] Ms
Keyser: So, there’s a lot of really good choir work going
on, but SATB singing is that particular—
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[285]
Suzy Davies: Okay, thank you.
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[286]
Ms Keyser: Sorry.
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[287]
Bethan Jenkins:
Because they’re more attracted to
the boys only-type, male voice choir tradition.
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[288]
Ms Keyser: Yes, sure. Exactly. There are two different genres,
basically. [Interruption.]
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[289]
Bethan Jenkins:
We’ve started a choir, now, in and
of itself. [Laughter.] Do
Members have any more questions, or do you want to sing a
question?
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[290]
Dai Lloyd: When’s the first choir practice?
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[291] Bethan Jenkins: I’ll e-mail you
later. [Laughter.]
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[292] Thank you very
much for your evidence. If you could send us the evidence that you
have on where people are coming from—
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[293] Ms
Keyser: Yes, I’d be delighted to.
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[294] Bethan
Jenkins: —so that we understand exactly how that works,
and any additional information that you have, as you’re new
in post, if you find glimmers of inspiration along the way, would
be helpful to us as well.
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[295] Ms
Keyser: Great.
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[296]
Bethan Jenkins:
Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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[297]
Ms Keyser: Diolch yn fawr iawn.
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10:37
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Papurau i'w Nodi
Papers to Note
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[298]
Bethan Jenkins:
Eitem 4, papurau i’w nodi: mae
papur gan y Llywydd ataf i am y panel arbenigol ar ddiwygio
trefniadau etholiadol y Cynulliad, papur gan gyfarwyddwr yr
Ymddiriedolaeth Genedlaethol yng Nghymru i’r llythyr gan y
Cadeirydd am Gymru Hanesyddol, papur 3, ymchwiliad i strategaeth y
Gymraeg newydd Llywodraeth Cymru—gohebiaeth gan Gyngor
Bwrdeistref Sirol Torfaen, a phapur 4, llythyr ataf i gan Gadeirydd
y Pwyllgor Materion Cyfansoddiadol a Deddfwriaethol ar llais
cryfach i Gymru. A ydy pawb yn hapus i nodi’r papurau
hynny?
|
Bethan
Jenkins: Item 4, papers to note: we have a letter from the
Llywydd to myself about the expert panel on Assembly electoral
reform, a paper from the director of the National Trust in Wales to
a letter from the Chair on Historic Wales, paper 3, inquiry into
the Welsh Government’s new Welsh language
strategy—correspondence from Torfaen County Borough Council,
and paper 4, a letter to myself from the Chair of the
Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee on a stronger
voice for Wales. Is everyone happy to note those papers?
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10:38
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Cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i Benderfynu
Gwahardd y Cyhoedd o Weddill y Cyfarfod Motion under
Standing Order 17.42 to Resolve to Exclude the Public for the
Remainder of the Meeting
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Cynnig:
|
Motion:
|
bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd ar gyfer eitem
6 yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 17.42(vi).
|
that the committee resolves
to exclude the public from item 6 in accordance with Standing Order
17.42(vi).
|
Cynigiwyd y cynnig. Motion moved.
|
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[299] Bethan Jenkins: Eitem 5, cynnig o dan Reol Sefydlog 17.42 i
benderfynu gwahardd y cyhoedd o weddill y cyfarfod. Ie? Diolch yn
fawr.
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Bethan Jenkins: Item 5, a motion under Standing Order 17.42
to resolve to exclude the public for the remainder of the meeting:
are Members content? Thank you very much.
|
Derbyniwyd y cynnig. Motion
agreed.
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Daeth rhan gyhoeddus y cyfarfod i ben am
10:38.
The public part of the meeting ended at 10:38.
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