In January of this year Sheila Pratschke took up a five-year appointment as chairwoman of the Arts Council. Before her appointment by Minister for the Arts Jimmy Deenihan, Pratschke had spent seven years as director of the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, six years as director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, at Annaghmakerrig in Co Monaghan, and seven years as director of the Irish Film Institute.

The announcement was popular in the arts world, and it came at a time when a number of significant news stories were breaking. They included the many difficulties around funding and personnel at Limerick City of Culture, and the substantial coverage of the Abbey Theatre that followed this newspaper’s publication of an artistic evaluation of its productions. The information was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and came from a process that was commissioned by the Abbey and the Arts Council.

“Because I had been in Paris for seven years I was a bit out of the loop with what was happening in Ireland,” Pratschke, who grew up in Limerick, says diplomatically.

She is keen to stress that “there is an ongoing strategic review of the way the Arts Council works, especially how it has been functioning in recent years”.

The review, which started in January, is being overseen by a steering group led by Terence O’Rourke, the former managing partner of KPMG Ireland, who now chairs Enterprise Ireland (and is a director of The Irish Times Ltd). The group is expected to deliver its report at the Arts Council’s plenary meeting in June. “We won’t have a plan, but we’ll have a clear picture of where we are, some suggestions of how the model might change, and where we can carry those changes forward.”

Pratschke is the chairwoman of a council that has 12 other members, and she also works closely with the organisation’s director, Orlaith McBride. “I meet and talk to the director several times a week at least, sometimes more.” So who has the core role at the Arts Council, the director or the chairwoman? “Legally it’s the chair, as we sign off the accounts every year,” she says. “But the director is the most important person, I would say, and their vision is critical.”

Given that her appointment and those of the other council members are made via the Department of Arts, how autonomous can the Arts Council be? “I would say we are not at all directed by the department. Each person can’t help but come with their knowledge and a deeper knowledge of the sectors from which they come. A lot of our decision powers [regarding] funding are delegated to panels and peers.”

Conflict of interest
One of the first issues Pratschke had to address was a conflict of interest in Arts Council funding. A maximum grant of €16,500 had been awarded to Patricia Flynn, a singer from Co Armagh who spends time in Co Donegal; she had applied for funding for the Stray Leaf Folk Club and Slieve Gullion Festival of Traditional Singing.

Her son, Paul Flynn, is the head of traditional arts at the Arts Council, and he contributes to the selection of the panel that decides which projects to fund. “It was examined and a disciplinary process was engaged in, action was taken, and the offer of the grant was withdrawn,” Pratschke says. “The group can apply again in the future. It was in fact an extremely good project.”

One of the things the strategic review is examining is how panels assess funding applications. As part of this research, Pratschke says, they are looking at how arts councils in other countries, such as New Zealand, Finland and England, evaluate funding needs. “The idea of scoring is common to all,” she says. “We are the only council that currently don’t use a scoring system.”

The website of the New Zealand arts council explains to applicants how their project will be assessed for funding. Four core areas are examined: the idea, and how well developed it is; the process, and “how you plan to evaluate the completed project”; the people involved, and their “level of ability and experience”; and the cost.

At present the Arts Council distributes its annual funding, currently at €56.9 million, in two ways. “We give 80 per cent in recurring funding and 20 per cent in nonrecurring funding. I’m sure the strategic review is going to challenge us with that almost autopilot recurring funding,” Pratschke says. This may come as a shock to a system that hasn’t changed much in years.

Proceed with caution
In recent weeks the minutes of the Arts Council plenary meetings have been published on the council's website. The plan is to provide minutes for 2012, 2013 and 2014. Although the council intends to publish "only approved minutes following agreement by council", and parts of the documents have been redacted, this still amounts to more information about the meetings than the public has seen before.

The plenary minutes for March record Pratschke as having “highlighted the increased number of Freedom of Information requests received at this point and requested members to be careful of what is said outside the council room”.

So what does Pratschke consider makes a good chair of the Arts Council? “The person needs to understand the raison d’etre of the organisation,” she says. “The chair needs to be as nondirective as possible, to facilitate an exchange of views, and to ensure everything that’s decided is done in a manner that can be opened up to public scrutiny.

“I am personally asking the arts community to put their trust in me. I think there is a widely declared demand for leadership in the arts from the whole arts-and-culture sector. I have to definitely try and respond from that: if one is going to lead, the leadership must be clear and committed.”

She is defensive of Aosdána, the association of creative artists, and describes its Arts Council funding of €2.7 million, which it spends almost entirely on providing a cnuas, or stipend, for most of its 250 members, as “very small in terms of the contribution they make. I’m a great enthusiast for Aosdána. It’s a fantastic idea. It’s a very modest amount of money for what they contribute each year to society. But it is a big, unwieldy group of people, so it’s hard to call it an organisation. It’s 250 people who only meet once a year, so it’s hard for it to speak with any coherent voice. They need to find their other voice in which they can clarify their role.”

She says that “a stronger self-awareness on their part would be more helpful, but an awful lot of people are in receipt of public money, and they’re not being attacked about it.” Does she consider Aosdána as being under attack in the media? “At the moment, yes.”

What's the council for?
People might wonder what the function of the Arts Council is other than to distribute funding. "We need to conceive of our activities in a different way," says Pratschke. "We can't keep shrinking to fit the budget. We have to be more imaginative and proactive." Above all, Pratschke wants the council to be a strong advocate for the arts."We'd like to have a lot more influence than we have. We need to look at how we can bring the arts much more strongly into schools, communities and people's daily lives. We need to do some longer-term thinking.

“I would say that all of us in the arts sector have been talking to each other too much. We need to turn outwards, towards the citizen and the taxpayers, be more conscious of audiences and families. We need to think about partnership with other State bodies, such as Fáilte Ireland and the Higher Education Authority, so we can all gain.

“It’s a lot to want, but you have to start with some sort of big ambition. Unfortunately, in Ireland we’re still arguing about the value of culture in society. It would be better if we could just move on and take that as a given.”