Improper governance? Looks like it. Holland Festival expresses justified anger at Culture Council's arbitrariness (edited to make criticism of Oerol and lobby insightful)

The Council for Culture acted contrary to all policy agreements, its own advice and rules when it reduced the subsidy for the Holland Festival by over five hundred thousand euros. The Holland Festival, which is in serious trouble as a result, now expresses its anger in a letter that went to the House of Representatives today. The organisation even speaks of 'improper management': a heavy legal term that also seems appropriate in this case. Should the letter from the Netherlands' most prestigious festival lead to a court ruling, it could even sway minister Ingrid van Engelshoven.

What is going on? In its arts plan opinion on festivals, the Council deviates from the opinion of its own advisory committee. The wording is peculiar. We quote: 'In accordance with the scheme, the committee recommended the inclusion of seven festivals in the BIS. However, the council decided to honour all current festivals in the BIS and to distribute the available funds among eight festivals for this purpose. In doing so, it has made the choice to recommend cutting two festivals from the current BIS in the grant. Oerol's grant amount is lower because of the festival's content assessment; the council recommends granting the Holland Festival a lower grant to create financial space for an eighth festival in the BIS.'

Timeframe

What happened? Minister van Engelshoven has spoken on 15 May with the Council, after which there were May 27 a letter lay, in which the festival sector was allowed to expand in the BIS. By 15 May, of course, the opinions of the expert committees were ready. So the Council knew then that only seven festivals would be allowed to go ahead for 2021-2024, the new Arts Plan.

From the experts' assessments of the festivals, you can tell that Oerol was out of the running. Rarely an advisory committee seeing so negative judgments On an application from an institution. [amended 18 June to make arguments transparent] The policy plan calls the Council 'little distinctive and hardly concretely substantiated', rewarding companies that play needs ''More active improvement', the Council 'lacks reflection' on the fact that many intentions from the previous period have not been implemented and notes that 'the concern expressed by the council in its previous opinion about the varying level of different editions' has not been removed in the recent period either.

Hollow promises

If that were not enough, the advisory committee also caught the festival making hollow promises: 'It aims to be a reflection of society, offering new perspectives and building a liveable future. An urgent starting point, of which the council would have liked to read how the institution intends to give this a concrete artistic translation, other than by presenting performances, as in recent years. This lack of clarification and elaboration of plans is expressed at several points. For instance, of some new elements, such as the pop-up performance, it is unclear how these differ from the other performances.'

There is more: 'In this so-called new programming, the landscape becomes the substantive starting point for new art. However, it is unclear to the council how this differs from existing practice with landscape and location as distinctive, strong points of the festival.'

Defenders

Should we continue? To make it clear how negative the council is, perhaps? After all, the festival has a passionate core of supporters who thoroughly enjoy the island event every year. However, the Council doubts the festival's ambitions to make that audience broader, younger and more diverse. Education is also below par, and the plans do not make clear why - for example - a new education officer is needed.

But the defenders are strong, of course, with presenter Song festival fan Cornald Maas as the clearest example. Maas, also Director of the VandenEnde Foundation, made it clear during a TV broadcast from Oerol in 2018 that he is good friends with the chief guest, culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven, by tutoring her.

Lobby

Anyway, Oerol was saved thanks to a lobby. Whether that was with the minister, or with the Council itself, which then asked the minister to stretch the rules, we will probably never know. Off-the-books lobbying did take place, the timeframe suggests. Worse is, how subsequently saving Oerol was financed: simply a grab of the Holland Festival's coffers. The action was taken without any substantive consideration, only on the basis that there was the most to be gained from this smallest, but bravest of all major international festivals. In fact, they say it verbatim.

That not only looks like arbitrariness, it simply ís. On top of that, the cut is illegal. The Basic Cultural Infrastructure, now nicely killed by the current Council for Culture, was meant to secure essential functions in the Dutch art world and provide relative peace of mind. For instance, it was agreed that - in case of cuts - no more than 10 per cent should ever be cut from institutions located in those BIs. The 555,000 euros the Council is now unceremoniously taking away from the Holland Festival is more than 10 per cent of the subsidy amount.

The so-called punitive rebate, or rather lifebelt for Oerol is also more than 10 per cent lower than what the festival has been getting so far. For both institutions, this is a gross violation of legal certainty, and thus official discretion. Unlawful, probably.

Last Minute

Apparently, there was no time to still ask the minister to arrange for this additional rebate via a last-minute letter as well. That the Council furthermore refers to a letter written by the minister on 27 May is not really neat. Such a letter merely announces something that only acquires policy force after publication in the Government Gazette. That publication was on 3 June. One day before the publication of the opinion.

So here we have a second rush job within the same opinion, in addition to the action overflowing with demonstrable conflicts of interest to MuscalMakers admit as a 'Development Institution'. That business is still growing.

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