Dear Lauraine:

This practice is quite common with grant-aided bodies in Britain.

However, it is interesting that some years ago the (national) Arts Council
started phasing out such ex officio Board memberships of its supported
arts organisations, replacing such Board positions with a right for Arts
Council staff or other advisors to attend and speak but not to vote (often
referred to in UK government as "assessors").  I think that this was
probably prompted by concern about the risk of a conflict of interest
under recent evolution of English law relating to both company
(corporation) boards and charity trustees. Basically anyone sitting on
such a Board is now required by law to put the interests of that
organisation first, middle and last during their period of service as a
Board member, even though this may conflict with the interests and
priorities of the public body or other organisation that they represent.

There is a very interesting case currently going through the French
criminal courts on a parallel point.  Last week the former Director of the
Theatre and Music Department in the French Ministry of Culture was fined
11,000 Euros (over US$10,000) for unlawful conflict of interest under
French Administrative Law between one ministerial ex officio appointment
(as chairman of the national body for artists' and performers' rights) and
another (as ex officio Board member of an arts organisation).

This is now going to appeal, but it was interesting to see that in
protesting his innocence Dominique Wallon pointed out that under French
cultural law he had been personally ex officio a full, voting, Board
member of more than TWO HUNDRED!! arts organisations, i.e. all of those in
receipt of substantial annual Ministry grants, and said that those
complaining should instead have gone to the Constitutional Court
challenging the legality of the laws that put him in the alleged conflict
of interest position, rather than pursue him through the criminal courts.



Patrick J. Boylan
Professor of Heritage Policy & Management
City University
Department of Arts Policy and Management
Frobisher Crescent
Barbican
London EC2Y 8HB

====================================

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Lauraine Armstrong wrote:

++++++ [CLIP] ++++++

> I am curious to know if any other museums out there have a Board of
> Directors where some of the voting members of the Board are appointed by
> virtue of belonging to a particular group (in our case, Town Council,
> Dept. of Education, bands (as in aboriginal)).

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