To: Albert van Zetten <mayor@launceston.tas.gov.au>
Subject: QVMAG ACCOUNTABILTY AND TRANSPARENCY
Dear Mayor and Councillors,
I write to communicate my utter dismay in regard to council’s apparent abdication of the trust invested in you as the default governors/trustees of the QVMAG and its collections.
It is also a matter of dismay that in your collective capacities as the default trustees, on the available evidence, you have collectively:
- Abdicated your governance role, function and obligations relative to the QVMAG as a public cultural institution and community cultural asset;
- Allowed the operation’s management to be essentially self-referential, self-assessing and by-and-large self-serving;
- Allowed the operation to function without critical oversight – yours in particular – and critical review thus rendering it functionally unaccountable to those who fund its operation and support its recurrent budget and collection building – the city’s ratepayers, the State’s taxpayers, donors and sponsors, et al.
- Allow the operation to function without meeting credible reporting standards to its governance thus opening it to unwelcome speculation;
- Allow the operation to function largely without being exposed to independent external expertise and peer review thus limiting its professional standing;
- Allowed council management to commission expert advice at significant expense to ratepayers and consequently disallowed any kind of public access to it, again opening the operation up to unwelcome speculation and functionally reinforcing its opacity;
- Allowed the operation’s management to blur and amalgamate the functions of governance and management thus allowing for rudderlessness and discretionary accountability;
- Allowed the operation’s management to determine self-serving strategic priorities – the function of governance not management;
- Supported the notion that as a council that you as the QVMAG’s governors – representing the institutions constituency – support the notion of conscripting funds from ratepayers, and without open disclosure, for the recurrent cost of the QVMAG operation. And you do so without providing access to credible fiscal reporting or indeed any kind of meaningful access to critical review;
- Allowed the operation to dispose of assets without credible public or appropriate oversight. And you also support an accession and deaccession policy that is far removed from ‘best practice’;
- Allowed the operation to acquire collection material, and/or dispose of it, without appropriate independent oversighting or indeed any meaningful reference to you as ‘trustees’ – trust invested in you by ratepayers, taxpayers, donors, et al; and
- Allowed the operation to function without credible and measurable performance indicators.
Moreover, against this concerning background there are reports that ‘Council’ is entertaining a notion that the State Govt. might take over, or fully fund, the operation thus saving ‘Council’ the obligations you, collectively have essentially renounced already.
It would be extraordinary for any funding institution to fund an institution such as the QVMAG – government or other – given the operation’s:
- Record of discretionary accountability; and
- That the operation has – reportedly and recently – been essentially been restructured to maintain and essentially reinforce the status quo.
It is particularly disturbing that the city’s recent AGM, you collectively, had nothing to say about future plans and aspirations for the operation let alone open up any kind of critical discourse relevant to the operation and its relevance – socially, culturally and economically.
You would be aware that a ‘network of concerned citizens’ has facilitated a review of the QVMAG’s Annual Report – See https://qvmag20182019.blogspot.com/
.
That as the operation’s ‘governing body’ you have not openly responded to either the QVMAG’s Annual Report or the ‘citizen’s review’ is a clear and unambiguous demonstration of your disinterest and abdication.
All this said, it needs to be acknowledged that arguably the QVMAG is one of the region’s most significant cultural assets – especially so in regard to cultural tourism. The support the institution receives from Launceston’s ratepayers is justifiable just so long as the operation delivers commensurate dividends – social, cultural & economic – and it is truly accountable to its constituency in a 21st C context. Indeed, given appropriate governance, such ongoing support would be justifiable.
I look forward to your considered response in your role as the QVMAG’s ‘trustees’ and as its current governing body.
Yours sincerely,
Ray Norman
Ratepayer, cultural producer, owner of intellectual property held in QVMAG collections and researcher with a professional interest in ‘musingplaces’
Ray Norman
<zingHOUSEunlimited>
The lifestyle design enterprise and research network
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” Thomas Paine
“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept” David Morrison
No comments:
Post a Comment