What does a public art consultant do? And can you run a commission without one?
A public art consultant is a paid intermediary who runs a commissioning process on the commissioner’s behalf, and no, a commission does not require one: a commissioner with project management capacity, a clear brief and access to technical advice can run a commission without a consultant, and many councils, developers, health boards and schools do. The consultant’s value is process, not taste. They write the brief, run the call, service the panel, draft the programme, coordinate the technical roles and close the project out. What they do not do is decide, because the decisions belong to the commissioner and the panel.
Setting Out rates nobody and recommends nobody. No consultancy, agency or individual consultant is named or recommended anywhere on this site, and this page describes the role rather than any provider of it. That holds for the whole page, including the sections on cost and on conflicts.
What a public art consultant actually does
The role covers eight tasks, and a real appointment will name which of them are in scope and which are not.
- Draft the brief, including the site description, the constraints, the objectives and the criteria the panel will score against.
- Test the budget, by pricing the fee, fabrication, engineering, installation, contingency and maintenance as separate lines before the figure is committed.
- Run the call, meaning the advertisement, the eligibility checks, the enquiries and the administration of submissions.
- Service the panel, by preparing scoring sheets, minuting the decision and producing the record that makes it defensible.
- Coordinate the technical roles, meaning the engineer, the fabricator, the contractor and the planning submission.
- Manage the programme, including the artist’s payments against milestones and the interface with a construction schedule.
- Handle consultation, where the brief requires community involvement, and evidence it for the planning file.
- Close the project out, by assembling the handover pack, the maintenance information and the final report to the funder.
Two things sit outside the role in almost every appointment: choosing the artist, which is the panel’s decision, and holding the artist’s contract, which normally runs between the commissioner and the artist directly. A consultant who holds it has become a main supplier with the artist as a subcontractor, which changes payment and copyright, and it should be a deliberate choice rather than a drafting accident.
How consultants are paid
Consultants are paid three ways, and the three are not interchangeable.
| Basis | How it works | What it suits | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed fee | A stated sum for a stated scope | A defined commission with a known site | Anything outside the scope is a variation |
| Day rate | Time charged against an agreed cap | Early advice, brief writing, a single stage | The cap is the only real control |
| Percentage of the commission budget | A share of the total the commission spends | Larger schemes with a settled budget | Whether the percentage is charged on fabrication as well as on the fee |
No standard scale for public art consultancy is published in the UK and this site gives no percentage of its own, because any figure quoted without a scope attached tells a commissioner nothing. What can be said about the shape of it is that percentage quotes run higher on smaller schemes, since the process does not get shorter when the budget gets smaller: the same brief, call, panel and consent are needed whether the work costs £15,000 or £150,000. A percentage on a small commission can therefore look expensive and still be the cheaper of two honest quotes. The question that separates comparable quotes is which of the eight tasks above are included and which are charged as extras.
When a commission needs one and when it does not
The test is the commissioner’s own capacity, not the size of the budget. Four questions answer it honestly.
- Ask whether anyone in the organisation has run a commission before and has the hours free to run this one.
- Ask whether the organisation already has access to procurement, contract and engineering advice internally.
- Ask whether the commission sits inside a construction programme, which multiplies the coordination and the consequences of getting the sequence wrong.
- Ask whether the decision is likely to be contested, since a scrutinised process needs a documented one.
Two yes answers to the last two usually mean the process needs someone whose whole job it is. A school commissioning a mural on its own wall, with a modest budget, a single approver and no planning issue, does not need a consultant and should not spend a meaningful slice of its budget on one. A local authority commissioning a permanent structure on adopted highway land, funded through a planning obligation, does need the process run properly, and can do that with an in house officer if it has one.
The conflict of interest to watch for
One conflict recurs and it is structural rather than personal. A consultant who also represents artists, sells work, or takes a fee from the fabricator has a financial interest in who is selected and in how the work is made, at the same time as advising the body that selects. The same applies to a consultant who curates a roster and is paid when a commissioner appoints from it.
Ask for the position in writing before appointing, and ask for it as a specific question rather than a general one: does the consultant represent, sell for, or receive any payment from artists, fabricators or suppliers who could be appointed to this commission, and how is that disclosed to the panel. Record the answer, and put the disclosure obligation into the consultant’s own appointment so that it continues through the project. Whether a disclosed interest is acceptable is the commissioner’s judgement to make, and this page does not make it.
What belongs in the consultant’s own appointment
A consultant is appointed under a contract of their own, separate from the artist’s, and six clauses do most of the work.
- Define the scope task by task, naming what is excluded as clearly as what is included.
- Fix the fee basis, the cap, and how variations are agreed before they are incurred.
- State who owns the shortlist, the brief and the documents produced, since a commissioner who has to abandon and restart wants to keep them.
- State the decision boundary in plain words, confirming that selection rests with the panel and the commissioner.
- Require professional indemnity cover at a level proportionate to the commission, and require it to be maintained.
- Require the disclosure of interests, at appointment and whenever a new interest arises.
Becoming a public art consultant
There is no accredited route and no licence in the UK, and the role is not a protected title. People arrive in it from four directions: from curating, from local authority arts officer or regeneration posts, from architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, and from construction project management. Each brings a different half of the job, and the half that is missing is the one that shows: curators who have not worked on site underestimate the programme, and project managers who have not worked with artists write briefs that specify the answer.
What the work demands is documented process. A commissioner is buying a defensible decision, a budget that holds and a project that closes out with a maintenance pack, and each of those is evidenced in paperwork rather than in taste.