Some New Year resolutions for Tessa Jowell

The degree of success or failure can be easily judged. That is why it will never catch on

"Kids, Community, Economy, Delivery." Heard that zappy little catchphrase before? No? Well, neither had many of the staff at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. And they were surprised to see it on every page of the Department's 2003 calendar, which has just been issued to all Department staff. So if you see civil servants hurrying across Trafalgar Square whispering that mantra to themselves, you will know where they are heading.

And that is not the only little gem in the Department's new calendar. January has two New Year resolutions attached. The first reads: "Plan one to ones, team meeting and divisional meeting for the next six months." Beats resolving to go to the gym, doesn't it? The second reads: "Discuss the business plan at the divisional meeting." That, too, is more achievable than the crash diet the rest of the population resolved upon. But it is worrying that those high-flying civil servants need to have a reminder up on the wall to talk to each other.

Personally, I remain surprised – as I wrote a few weeks ago – at the lack of concern by the Department and its ministers at the way leading arts organisations put out their annual reports without any press conferences or any attempt at proper scrutiny. So perhaps next year's calendar could also squeeze in Accountability.

Surely, there's room too in the DCMS mission calendar for the words "Ticket Price", even if just in brackets after Kids. Price, as I have gone on about for some time, is one of the bigger obstacles preventing Delivery not just to Kids but to much older Kids too. Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, could do worse than read up the Labour arts manifestos prior to the 1997 election victory. Mark Fisher, then the Labour culture spokesman, promised weekly "pay what you can" evenings. How audiences at theatre, opera, dance and classical music concerts might have increased, if the government had not completely forgotten all about it. As the success of the Lister experiment to offer theatre tickets at cinema prices for selected performances has shown, there is a new audience out there; but it is rightly wary of spending a small fortune on tickets.

Let's take another DCMS buzz-word: Community. No doubt, much is done to develop local arts in local communities. But shouldn't those communities outside the capital be able to see locally some of the national arts that they help to subsidise? What about bringing the best of the heavily subsidised national arts to local communities?

Here, we have to mention a word almost as taboo in government circles as price: touring. Why, the DCMS civil servants might ask each other in their one to one and team meetings, does the Royal Ballet tour as far as Japan and Australia, but never ventures outside London while in Britain? Why does the English National Opera also not leave London to get out into the communities of Britain? Those organisations will cite cost; but it is the job of government to help to prioritise arts spending; and touring within Britain should be given higher priority.

Accountability, Ticket Price, Touring. That's my recommended mantra for the next DCMS calendar. I think it even has more of a swing than Kids, Community, Economy, Delivery. It is also a lot less vague; and the degree of success or failure can be easily judged at year's end. Sadly, that is why it will never catch on at the DCMS.

*I went to see the stage musical Chicago over the New Year and was surprised to see that one of the new song and dance stars was Gaby Roslin, the BBC television presenter. In the farthest extreme from type-casting, she was playing a butch prison warder. Miss Roslin may not win any Olivier awards, though I thought she had a rather good singing voice. But what really intrigued me was that her programme note pointed out that she originally trained as an actress. She is not alone among TV presenters in having an acting background. Jamie Theakston started with the National Youth Theatre. But in Miss Roslin's case, her work on TV has often consisted of interviewing people – journalistic work in other words. How does training as an actress prepare you for this? Or, is all television a performance, even the conducting of interviews, and interchangeable with acting? Perhaps Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark will be playing Macbeth and his lady as a Christmas diversion in 12 months' time.

* The dancers of the Royal Ballet proved with their protest meeting about Ross Stretton, their former chief, that they could teach much of the trades union movement a lesson or two. Now, I hear, this exemplary industrial force have achieved another victory for the workers between exercise classes. It seems the Royal Opera House wanted to extend its bar and restaurant area at the top of the Floral Hall; but the space in question technically belonged to the Royal Ballet company. The company agreed to give up its space... on condition that the Royal Opera House management installed a sauna for the dancers. Yet again, the dancers won the day. And they will now have a sauna in which to soothe their industrial muscle.

* A wonderful example of the literary knowledge of BBC executives is contained in the current issue of The Stage. An independent production company submitted an idea for an adaptation of Jerome K Jerome's famous comic novel Three Men in a Boat. The BBC sent the producer a rejection slip that read: "Sorry, but the BBC are not considering any more game shows at this present time."

d.lister@independent.co.uk