'Ultimately, of course, it ends up on my plate,' sighed Jet Bussemaker, minister of culture in cabinet Rutte II, the other day. She was speaking at the presentation of a research report into the functioning of supervisors in the cultural sector, in Amstelveen at the end of April. Because, she summed up: if supervision fails, there is no one but the minister to repair the damage.
And even though very often the supervision of cultural institutions goes tremendously well, it also sometimes goes wrong. In all sorts of different ways. Recently, there have been the issues surrounding the Supervisory Board of The New Institute in Rotterdam, where the chief executive remarkably made assignments to his life partner and a supervisor fulfilled assignments. But, of course, we also had the issue of management failure at the Grand Theatre in Groningen, where the Supervisory Board intervened far too late, and of course the lingering affair surrounding the The orchestra of east, where likewise the Supervisory Board had no insight into issues that had long since been brought to light by this site, for example.
And these are only the cases that ended up in the publicity. Cases that damage the image of the cultural sector, and this at a time when it is already under a magnifying glass of not always subsidy-friendly media. This is also the reason why recent affairs, such as those involving the supervisor of The Hague Filmhuis and Theater Dakota, have been filtered out of Google's search results at the request of those involved, and can only be found in the paper archives of the local newspaper[hints]In short: the supervisor fired his director after criticism of his poor performance instead of resigning himself, which later happened due to political pressure[/hints].
The research report, commissioned by the Dutch Association of Supervisors in Culture (NVTC) and Culture + Entrepreneurship, appeared simultaneously with the tenth anniversary of the Cultural governance code. That code was drawn up in 2006 to combat excesses of failed supervision. It was the time when the Cultural Diversity Code was drafted, and the Tabaksblat Code was created to curb corporate executives a little with their exorbitant fees.
That the banking crisis was yet to come after the latter code was drafted, and it became clear that directors still like to give each other and themselves hefty bonuses, means that a code is no guarantee of improvement. Since the drafting of the Cultural Diversity Code, the Dutch cultural landscape has not exactly become more diverse either. No wonder, then, that the researchers had little positive to say about supervision in the cultural sector in their benchmark report. They report that a cultural change is desirable, while this feeling is not prominent in the sector itself. The sector therefore lacks self-critical capacity, according to the researchers. When appointing supervisors, people still too often look 'traditionally' at the political function such people have, from a lobbying or networking point of view.
The researchers' recommendations do not lie. We reproduce them here, in full, so you don't have to look them up yourself in the present report:
1: Assume profit as a thinking model
Work on a future scenario for your own organisation by demanding that the organisation should be a profitable company in five years' time. In doing so, think in terms of solutions rather than assumed impossibilities. What is not possible today is sometimes apparently possible tomorrow. Become 'master of your own destiny'.
2: Consider serious collaboration
Consideration is given to paying more and explicit attention to currently perhaps unimagined forms of cooperation when drawing up a future scenario. This could include cooperation within the sector, across the sector and also across local, regional and national borders. To this end, simply look at examples in other sectors, countries and regions. Several proven examples often already exist.
3: See the positives of ageing
Make ageing volunteer base an asset rather than a threat, taking into account demographic trends, for example. Do look at what should/can be done to retrain the volunteer base to make it fit for the demands of the times ahead. And extend this way of looking at things to thinking about the composition of staff, management and supervisory board. And then have a particular eye for a possible choice to determine to what extent the organisation benefits from choosing to reflect our society or to zoom in on specific target groups.
4: Don't just look at your own (sector)
For views on the fulfilment of roles of a supervisory board member and on those of a management board, look more at views in less obvious sectors and organisations and preferably also outside the sector. Partly in this way, try to increase self-criticism within the sector. As an individual member of a board or supervisory board, be critical of your own views in the sense of whether they do not reflect an unconsciously accepted/adopted historical image. And always try to determine the topicality of the thoughts and opinions in the light of the future vision/ambition of the organisation.
5: Deal with outdated habits
Can a SB properly fulfil its duties if it only talks to the management? What about the duty to retrieve information? And why should monitoring outside a management board not be allowed? And should talks outside a board always be reported to the board in advance? It is recommended that such slowly but surely somewhat dated views be jettisoned for the good of the organisation.
6: Select stricter
Consider the cost of appointing the wrong supervisor or manager. And include the results of that exercise in a discussion of the selection and/or evaluation procedure to be used for management and supervisory board.
The entire report is available at download on the site of the NVTC
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