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Funding for Waygood Gallery has been axed
Feb 18 2010 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
A controversial Art Gallery has had its funding axed after city leaders hit out at management "deficiencies".
Bosses at the Waygood Gallery have been told they are unlikely to receive further cash from the Arts Council North East and Newcastle City Council.
The decision comes three months after an employment tribunal revealed claims of failed management practices at the gallery.
Waygood’s senior team were responsible for taking forward a multi-million pound project to open a gallery on Newcastle’s High Bridge.
But the venue’s leadership saw the project hit long delays which saw costs rise by at least £2.7m – and the taxpayer has had to foot the bill.
Newcastle Council last night said the gallery team no longer provided “value for money”.
Despite handing in a new business plan last month, Waygood have been told there is no confidence they can be trusted with public funds after the overall bill went up by £6m.
In November an employment tribunal ruled that gallery chief executive Helen Smith had wrongly dismissed a member of staff who had claimed he was fired for personal reasons.
Following that civic bosses asked for a full review of the gallery’s business plan.
Last night the decision was taken to drop the gallery and find a new partner to run the project.
In a statement Newcastle Council said: “The city council shares the concerns of Arts Council England over deficiencies in Waygood’s strategic and management capability. Also, its capacity to deliver the business plan as highlighted by the independent governance review.
“The plan lacks robustness and does not adequately demonstrate a capacity to deal with risk, future uncertainties or to generate the growth required in the long term to ensure value for public money.
“Therefore the city council has decided that it cannot move forward with Waygood as the operator.
“We will seek to negotiate a resolution with Waygood that will allow us to move forward and make alternative arrangements for operating the gallery and studios.” And Arts Council North East bosses added to the gallery’s troubles.
A spokeswoman said: “The Arts Council have formally notified Waygood that we are considering withdrawing revenue funding from the organisation. This is because we consider that Waygood has failed to adequately address our serious concerns about their governance, business planning ability and capacity to work in partnership.
“We have a duty to carefully monitor the organisations we invest in to ensure that they are performing well and delivering best possible value for the public. It is because we take these responsibilities seriously that we are taking this action.”
A final decision on gallery funding will be made by Arts Council bosses at a regional meeting on March 31.
Last night gallery sources indicated they may have been the “fall guy” for failings elsewhere in the project. The council has previously admitted failings leading to a spending overrun were in part down to their handling.
A Waygood spokeswoman said: “Waygood staff and board are very disappointed to learn that Newcastle City Council and Arts Council England, North East have, at this late stage of a five-year relationship, chosen to not continue to support Waygood. The independent review, which they commissioned, recommended the low-risk option was to work pro-actively to build capacity within Waygood to create a thriving arts organisation on High Bridge.
“Neither have they followed the review’s recommendations to offer immediate business planning support, management, training and assistance with board renewal, despite Waygood complying with the recommendation of change of chair of the board, who has now been confirmed as Ivor Stolliday, previously acting director of BALTIC.”
Newcastle Labour councillor Nick Kemp last night said the decision brought “sad end to a very sad affair”.
He added: “It would seem that there have been significant problems throughout, and now finally the Waygood Gallery face the full blame. I can see no attachment of blame placed at the City Council, which is amazing as they were the project managers.”