The eyes of the world's largest film industry were turned on Sheffield last month when it played host to the Bollywood Awards. Here Birmingham's former poet laureate Roshan Doug explains why we have much to learn from our Yorkshire rival.

This year - only last month, in fact - Bollywood's equivalent of the Oscars was held not in our vibrant city of Birmingham. It wasn't even held in the trendy oasis of Manchester, nor in the lovely festival city of Edinburgh.

And, let's be honest, all these international cities have the experience of hosting such prestigious events and are perfectly capable of rising to the occasion.

It was held, rather surprisingly, in the relatively subdued and, some might say, drab city of Sheffield, something no media pundit had envisaged or predicted. 

So how come? How did that city entice the loud, flamboyant and glitzy Bollywood world to congregate there?

The answer is quite straightforward and, incidentally, also the reason why Birmingham wasn't successful in its Capital of Culture bid two or three years ago: it's all to do with the distinct lack of communication between various factions within the cultural arts world in our city. Birmingham is missing co-ordination, co-operation and a proper, well-defined, campaign. At the moment arts groups and key players exist almost in isolation and not in harmony or in collaboration with one another for the advancement of our city or the greater good.

And this, rather annoyingly, has been the state of affairs for a number of years as far as our city is concerned.

Even in 2000, for instance, when I was Birmingham's Poet Laureate, I noticed how little co-ordination and co-operation there was between different cultural arts groups in the city. And you didn't have to be an artist or an acute onlooker to observe how true this was - and still is. Competition for arts funding has been rife and the rivalry between one organisation and another means there is a great deal of secrecy which inadvertently perpetuates a closed door policy. No one really knows what the other is doing or planning, which might be good for the furthering of management careers of key players but it does very little for the city as a whole.

Naturally this climate - the arts gladiatorial arena - breeds antagonism and frustration at all levels not only for the artists but for the Council and the city as well. I would go as far as to say this present state of camouflaged attrition enables other cities and towns to take away the potential investment. Sheffield had got its act together by coordinating a well planned marketing package - mobilising and using a number of organisations including Yorkshire Screen, Yorkshire Forum, Sheffield City Council and an array of individual artists, businesses and arts organisations - for the ultimate goal. And, believe it or not, they

"worked on it for years sending groups of business and arts delegates to Mumbai to clinch that deal. And they achieved it through a meticulously planned and coordinated marketing programme. It's the reasons why the city came up trumps this year.

Without undermining Sheffield's achievement, I can't help feeling Birmingham should have hosted that event. The Bollywood Awards should have been held here. Our city has so much going for it, not only in terms of the geographical position - in the heart of the country with an excellent air/train/road network - but also because we are the balti capital, with a truly multicultural base. Together with the numerous temples, mosques, arts centres, theatres, community organisations and - not forgetting - the very large Bollywood fan base that crosses faiths, generations and

ethnicity, our city is the ideal place for such an event. Instead we and our city, are continuously let down by the sheer lack of vision, vigour, energy and drive amongst our councillors and arts managers, their inability to coordinate a marketing programme and their failure to devise an effective communication network between organisations (the palaver concerning the plans for the Central Library is an example of the monumental embarrassment our leaders have engineered). Their existence as arts 'leaders' and councillors has hindered rather than enhanced progress for such has been their lame input.

Take another example: the Artsfest of which our Council is, supposedly, so proud. As a matter of principle it seems no artist taking part gets paid for his/her time and effort. And yet inexperienced and at times, incompetent, organisers - employed by the city's great and the good - responsible for the administration, are paid. It's absurd as far as I'm concerned. But such is the jaundiced way in which our leaders think. And yet, for years the Artsfest has been featured in council literature as one of the main cultural events in our city's calendar. It's pure lip-service.

And I would also add our cultural/arts 'leaders' don't make it easier for artists to work

here especially as arts funding has, essentially, been exhausted. The Arts Council and the National Lottery are no longer looking at the popular cities in which to support projects - or at least not exclusively. Birmingham has had an enormous amount of funding for hundreds of projects and community arts groups for years, if not decades. Instead, for the immediate future, the funding bodies are widening their cultural scope to take into account social/economic areas that have been culturally impoverished due to years of neglect and lack of support. These, quite rightly, include rural and urban areas looking for rejuvenation - it's all about widening participation. But it does mean that new artists in Birmingham - especially poets - won't stand a chance because there will be very little in this city to support them financially?

And the Council's 'arts and culture' section's innovative response is to ignore the potential cultural deficit - which is hardly an incentive for future investors or artists.

I suggest our arts leaders, both in the public and private sectors, stop being so lame and ineffectual. Instead I would urge them to learn from Sheffield and start using, what they would regard as dirty, c-words - coordination, cooperation and campaign.