A stoush has erupted between a Christchurch MP and Creative New Zealand over claims the organisation is failing to meet legal requirements over funding allocation.
Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb took to social media to question whether Creative New Zealand was meeting the legal requirement to have guidelines governing how it distributes art funding.
His concerns came after South Island-based arts organisations were reported to have received just 10% of CNZ funding.
Webb also emphasised that “this is not a criticism of the good work that CNZ does", and said he understood the difficult position CNZ was in as “they are not funded enough to support all of the deserving projects that apply to them".
Section 7 (2)(a) of The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa Act 2014 states that in carrying out its functions, the Arts Council “must set guidelines for the allocation of funding”.
With this, Webb said the guidelines should provide an overarching framework for funding decisions and help ensure consistency, fairness, transparency, and accountability.
Webb made an Official Information Act request to CNZ, asking to see these guidelines.
CNZ redirected Webb to its website for funding guidelines, where Webb found they were programme-specific criteria. Upon clarifying that he was looking for the overarching guidelines, CNZ reported that it could not identify the documents he requested.
"Not only did CNZ not follow the guidelines that the law requires them to have – they have never adopted them," Webb said on his Facebook page.
In a statement to MetroNews, Creative New Zealand said it was following the law.
“We take our statutory responsibilities seriously and our funding decisions are made in accordance with this.”
CNZ said it met its statutory obligations required by the Arts Council, as it had specific rules for each funding programme.
“The Arts Council meets their statutory obligations through ensuring distinct criteria, eligibility requirements and assessment processes are established and applied for each funding programme and funding decision.”
This means that a particular grant might have rules about who can apply, what kind of projects qualify, how applications are assessed, and what criteria are used to decide who receives funding, all of which are publicly available.
CNZ said those programme-specific criteria and processes met its statutory obligations.
Webb disagreed, arguing the programme-specific criteria were not the overarching guidelines required by the Act.
“I am concerned that it has fallen short in one of its most fundamental tasks – which is to follow the rules set out in the statute which governs it.”
