Arts expert asked to review theatre trust's performance

THE former head of England's main arts quango has been called in to review the performance of a council-backed trust that runs two of Edinburgh's main cultural venues.

Graham Devlin, a respected authority on theatres and the former chief executive of the Arts Council of England, was commissioned by council chiefs to carry out a review of the Festival City Theatres Trust, which runs the King's and Festival Theatres for the council.

The consultant, who has also directed theatre and opera productions for a range of companies, is expected to make recommendations on the way forward for the trust, which is facing a financial crisis.

He is also expected to assess whether the current management team, including trust chief executive John Stalker, has been running the venues properly.

Among the options to be considered is whether the council should take the venues back from the trust and run them "in house", or whether they should be sold off to the private sector.

Councillor Gordon Buchan, culture and leisure spokesman for the Conservative group on the city council, said: "We must make sure that the King's and the Festival Theatre are in the best possible hands and if there are improvements he can suggest, or ideas we can take forward, then we need to look at that.

"They have got some issues at the moment and there are potential redundancies in the offing, so it is good to get someone in that can look at some of the options for improvement."

It is not known how much Mr Devlin, who ran his own touring company, Major Road, for 25 years and is a board member of the Royal Court Theatre in London, has been paid to carry out the work, or when the report will be presented.

The trust was set up in 1998 to operate and manage the King's and Festival Theatres.

Earlier this year, the trust announced it was to cut 300,000 from its wage bill, after revealing that audience numbers had fallen by up to 15 per cent. It is also scaling back the programme at the King's from 24 weeks of productions a year to only 15.

It also emerged that the council had to provide 400,000 of funding early in order to help the trust pay its bills.

A new council report has warned that the trust's current operational costs are "not sustainable".

Jim Inch, the council's director of corporate services, also revealed in the report that the council had insisted on taking greater control of the trust.He said: "It is a condition of the early payment that the trust continues to work closely with the culture and sport division and other stakeholders to ensure that the most robust business model is in place."