We may have said it a bit bluntly, in the article Culture Council scathing about Cultural Governance Code, but a poll of cultural institutions also yields the same picture: the 'code of cultural governance' does not satisfy. The building, for which the foundation stone was laid at the beginning of this century, has now become a mishmash of extra floors, a ballroom here and there, an annex with frills and a few extra towers in unexpected places. An over time unlivable monument of frantic policy work that no one can make sense of.
According to respondents in the survey Cultuur+Ondernemen conducted among directors in the cultural sector, the code has become too complicated. People need concrete checklists and practical examples, and less official, legal formulation. This desire is also expressed in the advice of the Council for Culture, which therefore attaches some practical requirements. Indeed, the Council thinks the Code should be rebuilt from scratch. And then not by the current coordinator Cultuur+Ondernemen, but by the umbrella organisation of supervisors.
Two codes?
In the survey report, Culture+Enterprise does not respond to the Council's vote of no confidence. Is, of course, not yet an issue either. For now, the advice has not yet been adopted by a minister.
Instead of the current uninhabitable code, it argues that there should be two separate codes, as there are two dominant governance models: the director/manager under supervision, and the director with a separate board above him.
The latter model is usually advised to small institutions, but in practice almost every culture maker opts for the more dynamic director/ supervisory board model. This means that the institution does indeed have more freedom, but is also at the mercy of a supervisor who is both the employer and looks at the institution's performance from a purely business perspective. When this clashes, the position of the management is vulnerable in the face of a supervisor who is accountable only to the financiers. This has led to quite a few embarrassing situations.
Monitoring surveillance
The survey by Cultuur+Ondernemen, which came out today, thus confirms the desire for supervision of supervisors, but only the council gives concrete substance to it. It argues that the distance between supervisors and creators has become too great, and therefore advises that supervision of supervisors should remain within the cultural sector. Whether that supervision is also a real profession? Everyone agrees on that, and so those surveyed at Cultuur+Ondernemen also argue that supervision should be paid for. Also, like the sector, the Council wants a budget for training, and for it to be compulsory. There is no agreement yet on how high and how compulsory that should all be.
The fact that people say little of substance about this is further evidence that we are dealing with a woolly mammoth in the room here: who is going to pay for it all? In everyday life, a supervisor does not get out of his, her or their bed for less than €250 per meeting, excluding travel expenses. So if every small, medium and large institution has to have at least five supervisors, preferably some from outside the sector, that means that - with four mandatory meetings a year - 20 times 250, or €5,000 per institution is flying out of the sector. Because it is money paid to externals.
2.5 million
With 500 cultural institutions in the country, that leaves 2,500,000 euros of the existing subsidy money to be spent not on art, but on supervision. Add that to the more than 40 million needed to enable fair pay within the existing system, and there is damn little money left to make art with.
With an election just around the corner, with all parties on the right planning to keep spending on culture only on heritage, there is a good chance that very few institutions will be able to survive in 2029.
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