How competitive funding harms the arts

Keeping a pool of flexible funds enabled some funding decisions to be made outside the constraints of the formal funding rounds. It was helpful to have a Minister who believed that if you want to exercise strategic influence, you won’t do it through grant rounds alone. However, this approach attracts allegations that the agency exercises too much power, or plays favourites. Long-standing Arts Queensland staff talked about being judged by government to be ‘too close to the sector’ and by the sector to be ‘too locked in their ivory tower’. Where does the optimum distance lie? Obviously, it shifts, depending on the client, the program and the matter at hand—and possibly needs to be re-examined for every interaction. Ironically, it may be that the more attentive the agency is to process issues, the less able it is to respond to its clients, and the more invasive its processes become in their work and thinking.