Roy Clare's move comes as the MLA's transfer of key responsibilities to Arts Council England is confirmed for 1st October. Corporate services director Paul Lander will take charge of the body in the last months as it moves towards closure.
Clare, who has led the organisation since 2007, has faced strong criticism from library campaigners during his tenure, and particularly over councils' library closure proposals in recent months. His description in December of Oxford council's plans to stop funding nearly half its libraries as "political courage" was termed "extraordinary" by campaigner Desmond Clarke, while Independent literary editor Boyd Tonkin numbered Clare among the "appeasers" in the national struggle to save the library service.
But MLA chair Andrew Motion paid tribute to Clare's "amazing transformation" of the MLA and to the "exceptional blend of diligence and consideration and visionary clarity that he brought to his work". In a message to staff, Clare said signs for the handover to the Arts Council were "promising", with ACE showing "great enthusiasm for the task and considerable skill in managing recent decisions about funding for the arts".
The former admiral added that he was looking forward to delivering an "ambitious plan of action" for the Auckland museum, saying: "Auckland is a vibrant, confident place with international prestige and a global perspective."
4 comments:
Why do we in NZ continue to recruit people from overseas to lead our major cultural institutions? First it was Vanda, then the Te Papa appointment and now Auckland Museum again. We need to be growing the capacity within NZ to ensure that we can appoint locals in the future.
Yes, THE Roy Clare...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/culture-cuts-blog/2011/feb/25/libraries-cuts-roy-clare-apology?INTCMP=SRCH
We're so full of ouselves when Helen Clark gets a job at the UN or some academic gets a comfy berth at Oxbridge. Come off it! The talent trade works both ways, especially these days...
We're so full of ouselves when Helen Clark gets a job at the UN or some academic gets a comfy berth at Oxbridge. Come off it! The talent trade works both ways, especially these days...
-Maybe so, but these are the institutions that define our culture and heritage. We are no longer a colony of the UK. I think we can quite easily define our own culture and heritage. Perhaps we need to ask why NZers aren't competitive for the jobs in our own country.
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