Saturday, December 10, 2011

Philip Deverell, Director of Grants for the Arts, writes to Peter Robertson

Re Interlitq’s recent unsuccessful funding application to Arts Council England, Philip Deverell, Director of Grants for the Arts, writes this afternoon (December 9th, 2011) to Peter Robertson, the President of Interlitq, “I am satisfied that the application was assessed on a fair and reasonable basis, in accordance with our assessment process”.
 Peter Robertson states: “Mr. Deverell already appears to have made up his mind, and in the light of his comments, it would appear that ACE’s reassessment of this funding decision is a cosmetic exercise only, with a second negative decision being a foregone conclusion. Let us glimpse beyond the officialese, and we will see the smokescreen”.  
By Ana de Biase
Philip Deverell, Director of Grants for the Arts, writes this afternoon to Peter Robertson, the President of Interlitq, “I am satisfied that the application was assessed on a fair and reasonable basis, in accordance with our assessment process”.
Philip Deverell goes on to say in today’s letter, “Following receipt of your email, I thoroughly reviewed the assessment of your application and interviewed the assessor concerned, Nicholas Garrard. Following my review of your application and interview with Mr Garrard, I am satisfied that the application was assessed on a fair and reasonable basis, in accordance with our assessment process. 
Notwithstanding my finding, I accept that there may be a perception of a conflict of interest with the assessment of your application, given Mr Garrard’s involvement with an online literary publication. To assure you of the transparency of our processes I have asked the Senior Manager for Combined Arts and Literature to reassess you application. This will be presented at the decision meeting on 20 December and you will be informed of the outcome of your application shortly after that date.
I have discussed these issues with Nicholas Garrard and he has informed me that he was a Contributing Editor for 3:AM in 2009 but has not contributed to this publication since that time. I have searched the 3:AM website and he is not currently listed as contributing to the publication. Nicholas also assured me that he worked only on a commission basis and was not aware of any dispute between Interlitq and 3:AM or of any connection between the two organisations.
As you are aware Twitter is a viral network. 3:AM have set up a list of links to people who contribute to Twitter and who have at some point been Contributing Editors to their publication. Nicholas Garrard was not asked whether he would like to be on this list and has no control over its compilation. I do not therefore believe there was any intention on his behalf to identify with any specific organisation or role.”
For his part, Peter Robertson states: “Mr. Deverell already appears to have made up his mind, and in the light of his comments, it would appear that ACE’s reassessment of this funding decision is a cosmetic exercise only, with a second negative decision being a foregone conclusion. Let us glimpse beyond the officialise, and we will see the smokescreen”.
Robertson goes on: “Of course, it goes without saying Mr. Deverell was always going to maintain that there was no conflict of interest in this case, and Mr. Garrard was always going to say that he was completely unaware of a less-than-cordial relationship between 3am and Interlitq dating back to early 2009. It doesn’t remotely surprise me that they have said these things. What else were they going to say?”
“Also interesting is the fact that there are no hard facts given that relate to the background to this case, including the fact that on Wednesday March 18th, 2009 a Contributing Editor for 3am wrote to me, “I am still awaiting the go-ahead on the interview with you (relating to Interlitq) for 3AM. Hopefully this shouldn't be long” but that the decision to run this interview was revoked summarily, without any reason being given. Nor ,interestingly, is there any mention made of the very voluminous correspondence between 3am and Interlitq, dating back to January 2009, when Mr. Garrard was, in fact, a Contributing Editor for 3am and here I cite only one of a great many email exchanges relating to Interlitq and 3am, when an email from a Consulting Editor for Interlitq elicited this reply from me: ‘I'm sorry to hear that (Contributing Editor for 3am) is upset but I never at any time said that this interview (Toussaint interview) would definitely run in Interlitq. As it happens, I did write to (Contributing Editor for 3am) yesterday  indicating that we could include the interview in Issue 10 and suggesting that we meet.... to discuss this face to face, at the end of November.  But no reply so far to the e-mail that I sent yesterday, a silence which is hardly going to help his cause, and instead he writes to you to tell you how upset he is about the whole thing. Why, I wonder, did he not simply write to say ‘yes’, and then we could.. have discussed the matter... and, I am sure, reached a positive conclusion? Strictly between us, I think that (Contributing Editor for 3am) could work on public relations because writing to you intermittently and then sending me either curt two-line messages, as he did yesterday, or not replying at all, as is the case this morning, is obviously going to be counter-productive.
I greatly admire flexibility and I always strive to build constructive relationships with everyone but in this particular case whether (Consulting Editor for 3am) is upset or not is not going to make any difference to my decision. As I say, having written to (Consulting Editor for 3am) yesterday (a message which I am about to send you) I don't know why he did not reply---- instead of choosing to implicate you again, which I tend to think is completely unnecessary. I think you will agree that it could all have been so simple.’”.
Peter Robertson winds up, “It is clear that the fact that Interlitq was turned down for funding by Arts Council England on the first occasion has stultified our chances of being accepted at the reassessment stage. In any case, there is nothing transparent about this funding decision. Let us see beyond the officialese, and we will see the smokescreen”.

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