Southern Comfort wrote:Eastern Promise wrote:"composers don't trust the process nor the panel"
Ooh, that's a bit harsh on Martin Foster, Paul. I thought we were all on the same side....
My comment has nothing to do with Martin Foster, who is simply administering a scheme under rather trying circumstances. I hear nothing but compliments about the way in which he has dealt with composers and publishers.
What I was referring to was the scheme itself. We all know that there are composers and publishers who don't trust the process, nor the panel. NT has said so himself on many occasions, and I think Colin Mawby's views are pretty well known to readers of this forum; and of course there are others. We can all think of one publisher who said he would boycott it (the grapevine says that he has since relented, but who knows?).
I am bemused by SC’s comments. He is aware of allegations of Liturgy Office incompetence in its framing and administration of the permission-to-publish process. In my own case, this is backed up by analysis of a fundamental flaw in its terms of reference, and by reports of specific instances of problems in the process, arising from failures of organisation and communication. On the face of it, responsibility for this car-crash lies with the Department’s Acting Secretary and those responsible for managing him.
Now, SC may believe my analysis to be flawed and my reports to be either inaccurate or not the whole picture. If so, he should say so, with appropriate explanation, which I would be delighted to read. Without this, SC’s implication that it’s all the fault of someone other than a hard-working and able Acting Secretary leaves one scratching one’s head for a possible motivation. Does SC know something we don’t? Has he worked through his own problems with the process, and it’s now a matter of “I’m all right, Jack, b****r you”? Or is he still in the midst of them and hopes that public praise will oil the wheels?
While we’re on the subject, have any of you noticed the apparent changes in the Panel’s terms of reference since they were published? I believe that one of those changes relates specifically to a matter which I have appealed, on the grounds that the Panel has gone beyond its stated purpose. I fear the change was made after I raised my objection, in advance of the hearing of the appeal (whenever that might be). Now if that’s so, it will look suspiciously like an attempt to pre-empt and influence the appeal by quietly ‘clarifying’ the terms of reference in a way that lends support to the Panel’s interpretation. Such an action would be underhand and an abuse of position, so I asked Mr. Foster for a version history of the document, in case my memory was playing tricks with me (if it is I'll be as public in my apologies as I have been in my criticism). When he got over his evident confusion about what that meant, he promised me a copy of the document as authorised, so that I could compare it line by line with the current version (this was the very conversation in which he admitted to me that he’d waited until receiving an appeal before thinking about how it might be organised). Since then all has gone quiet. I have not received the promised material. In fact, not a word have I heard, either from Mr. Foster or his Episcopal management, either about the promised information or my own appeal, which seems to have disappeared into a black hole somewhere between SW1 and Leeds.
It’s all very rum.
