Professor Frances Ruane:

What is really important now is to get into a space with a good dialogue where we see exactly what is happening. There has been much change going on. Anybody who has had the experience of being through change management knows that things do not always get communicated as clearly as they should and not everybody is affected equally positively by the change. This has been a significant change.

On behalf of the board, I must say we are absolutely committed to having stronger communication with the whole of the sector. There have been parts of the sector with which we have had strong communication but it has not been even. It is the board’s view that this communications system must be in place. When one is making changes, setting up new departments and hiring people, there is a time before somebody can be put in place. We are very much in place with the people whom Mr. Murray and Mr. McLaren have hired for the new works department, the dramaturg and other people who have come into the theatre in the past 18 months.

I would like to hope that, if we were having this conversation in six months’ time, we would all be in a much better place with a much wider understanding of the issues and a shared information base that will mean we are speaking to exactly the same numbers, as well as understanding them in the same kind of way. It will take a little bit of time. There is a whole range of questions. The Abbey’s approach is correct to bring them together as a system rather than deal with one issue here and another issue there. The danger with a single set of issues is that one ends up with other unintended consequences. Nobody ever intended the consequences which have arisen with the change in the model. It is important if we take the whole system together, we work with the sector. Subsequently, we can work in a wider way on those issues which go well beyond the Abbey. That is what we should be planning to do.