Culture company budget taken over by Derry City Council.
The body charged with delivering Londonderry’s UK City of Culture celebrations in 2013, has been ordered to hand over some of its multi-million pound budget to Derry City Council. Plus latest .. The Director of Communications at the Culture Company has been suspended by the organisation. Garbhan Downey was informed of the decision yesterday.
Council Chief Executive Sharon O’Connor said the company’s marketing function is “not performing.” She ordered it to hand over those responsibilities to the council and to move staff to council offices. The move will not include the Director of Communications, Garbhan Downey.
Mr Downey said he is “devastated” by the move and has now called in lawyers to clarify his position. “I can confirm that my staff are being ordered to report to council offices on the Strand Road and the CEO of Culture Company has been advised that this transfer doesn’t include me. “This is happening because we are refusing to allow council to spend our budget on non-city of culture projects.
“The reason I am speaking publicly now is that despite Council statements, I have a genuine fear that our budget will not be spent in areas for which they were intended by DCAL, (Department of Culture Arts and Leisure), and that this would be a specific break of our contract with DCAL.
“Council have repeatedly told us that they have no money for marketing the city next year, so now they are taking ours.”
But the Chief Executive of Derry City Council Sharon O’Connor has defended the move. “The plan is that we maximise our resources and that is where all this has stemmed from. It is unfortunate that it has happened in this way. “It is very important to point out that I am personally responsible with making sure that the £12.6 million DCAL has provided for the City of Culture project is delivered per the letter of offer they provided to Derry City Council.
“We are the signatories of that contract. So to suggest that finances would be used in way other than those anticipated by DCAL for the benefit of City of Culture and for the benefit of the city is factually incorrect.”
Sharon O’Connor
Next Monday the Culture Company is due to launch its full marketing strategy to the Culture Board for the 2013 year of culture, which included 148 events. Sharon O’Connor rejected claims that the timing of changes to the Culture Company undermined that.
“The very fact that this has happened in the way that is has happened is as much a surprise to me as everyone else. “The exploitation of opportunities is a plan that needs to be supported by a broader group of people than three of four people within City of Culture.”
The Chief Executive of Derry’s Playhouse theatre, Niall McCaughan, supported Ms O’Connor’s actions. “There needs to be more marketing regionally, nationally, and internationally. “This is the UK City of Culture it’s not the Derry City of Culture and we need to up our game. “The product is happening at the moment but I think the marketing needs to step up into fifth gear.
“I know from Garbhan Downey’s point of view they needed to have the product 100 per cent there in order to market it, but I think it is good that it is going to be centralised now.”
DCAL have declined to comment on the matter.
This whole development is alarming in its timing to say the very least. I watched a business programme last night on television and a point that was repeated several times was that `the product has to be right and in place’ before the marketing can be implemented. The Culture Company has been at pains to give time to people to make their submissions and even then people complain. There has to be a deadline to give the marketing a chance and I see that the Programme and the Marketing Strategy was about to be rolled out so the intervention by the Council in advance of that has caused me to raise my eyebrows very high indeed.
I see how hard people have been working and this shenenigans – which presumably has been going for some time – must be a desperate drain on their time and energy.
What is the role of the Board of City of Culture now? Has it been over-ridden? Are we taking it for granted that DCC’s marketing performance is exemplary? The way this has been done appears, on face value, to be one disaster of a performance. I for one speak out for Garbhan Downey and the work he has committed to the project and to the arts and to this region. His integrity is unimpeachable. I certainly hope there will be no more moves to re constitute the Culture Company executive at a time when we need to be moving forward in perfect unity.
As a supporter of UK City of Culture 2013, a rate-payer and active citizen in Derry-Londonderry-Legenderry-MerryDerry I am alarmed and disappointed at what has happened. The timing is interesting – just as the full programme of events is ready to be announced and in the natural flow of things – marketing increased.
I am more than concerned about how Garbhan Downey has been treated. This man eats, lives and breathes the city he comes from. He has been it’s cultural and social champion on many occasions.
I also know that CoC staff have been working around the clock to pull together a fabulous year of events, they have consulted to the enth degree. They have had to handle the brick-bats who simply want them to hand over money and to hell with the substance, people who have no idea of the processes a task like this involves.
I hope the right questions are asked of Derry City Council and I, as a person of that place am waiting for answers like many others.
Partnership working and collaboration are often a struggle, but with the right motivation and people everything is possible. I hate to see good people scapegoated and I fear that is what may be happening.
For those who enjoy watching christians thrown to lions then this is entertainment , it makes me sad and mad in equal measure.
Peace Up…..Always!
Citizen Greer