Notting Hill Carnival Strategic Review - Intelligent Space

Introduction
3.1 The folklore of the Notting Hill Carnival suggests that it ‘just happens’ and that it is an
‘unplanned’ event. This is not however, entirely correct. The series of activities and tasks
undertaken in the lead up to the August Bank Holiday weekend are the result of months of
detailed planning and organising by the Carnival performers and organisers. A communitybased
management committee of one kind or another has, from the very outset, always
overseen the Notting Hill Carnival. Over the years, these committees have been responsible
for the planning and co-ordination of the event, undergoing as many transformations as the
Carnival itself.
3.2 History has a tendency to repeat itself when issues about the Notting Hill Carnival are placed
under intense scrutiny. As far back as 1981, the Arts Council of England warned Carnival
organisers that it’s funding would cease unless a proper organising committee was established
and the management of the Carnival improved. In an attempt to facilitate the process, the
Arts Council commissioned a study to investigate the feasibility of setting up a new
management structure for Carnival planning and administration. In 1988, a management
review conducted by the consultants Coopers and Lybrand, criticised members of the Carnival
Arts Committee (CAC) for acting as though they ‘owned’ the Carnival, ignoring the wishes of
its own constituency, failing to properly manage the event’s finances and lacking the ability to
identify or take advantage of opportunities to ensure the Carnival’s development 75 .
3.3 The response to the Coopers and Lybrand Report was overwhelmingly in favour of change. In
an article in The Guardian Newspaper, John Wheeler, the then Member of Parliament for
Westminster North argued that the size of the Notting Hill Carnival had now outstripped the
competence of its local organisers 76 . The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) called for the
report to be made public whilst in a letter to The Times Newspaper, David Williams, chair of
the London Borough Grants Committee endorsed the report and its recommendations for
improving the management of the event 77 . Media coverage at the time also questioned the
future of the Carnival as the report’s findings sparked a ‘power struggle’ within CAC. Its chair,
Alex Pascall, although narrowly surviving an attempt to unseat him, later succumbed to a vote
of no confidence. The following year, Claire Holder, a local barrister, was elected as chair of
CAC, succeeding Pascall who had decided not to seek re-election. CAC members later voted
to go into voluntary liquidation and Holder was instrumental in establishing the organisation’s
successor, the Carnival Enterprise Committee Ltd (CEC).
3.4 Two years after the publication of the Coopers and Lybrand report, the Carnival organisers
were again headline news with the resignation of Colin Francis, the vice chair of CEC. Francis,
a civil servant and a former leader of the North Kensington Task Force, criticised CEC board
members for lacking the relevant management skills and financial experience necessary to
organise the Carnival, which he described as being run like a ‘poor voluntary organisation’ 78 .
75
Sunday Telegraph, 31 July 1988, p4.
76
The Guardian Newspaper 17 August 1988, p2
77
The Times Newspaper, 05 August 1988, p13.
78
City Limits 23 August 1990, pp8-12.
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