Making the case for arts and culture

Our advocacy toolkit is designed to help you make the case for arts and culture. It describes how you might engage with your MP or local councillor, so they can better understand the value that arts and culture bring to your local area.

It gives advice about working with the media and about how you can develop stories that connect with a public audience, showing the extraordinary return we all receive for a modest public investment.

You can create your own story about the unique contribution you make to your local community. That story becomes even more powerful when you place it in the context of all of England’s rich cultural life.

This leaflet sets out the story that the Arts Council is telling about the contribution that arts and culture make to our economy, society, culture and education. Please use any of these arguments, facts or figures to help you make the case.

If we want people to support arts and culture, we need them to understand why the arts are essential to them, to their communities

and to their nation. Collectively, everyone working in the sector can tell a powerful story about this.

www.artscouncil.org/toolkit#culturematters

0845 300 6200 @ace_national

facebook.com/artscouncilofengland @aceagrams

The arts and culture sector contributes to economic growth as the R & D, or risk capital, of our creative industries. It adds to our reputation as a global creative leader. At home, it is driving the regeneration of our former industrial regions.

All of our children should learn, see or take part in art in and out of school. A cultural education will not only enrich young people’s lives now, but will also equip them with the capacity to be empathetic citizens and creative workers in the future.

Many of the benefits the arts bring for the taxpayer come from the taxpayer’s purse. These widely shared benefits come from less than 0.1% of overall government spending – a tiny amount.

During this period of austerity, the government has endorsed and supported the arts through an increase in Lottery funding and tax breaks. However these initiatives cannot replace the loss of government and local investment in the arts, which has now been under pressure for several years.

Maintaining current levels of funding would allow the Arts Council and local authorities to sustain the ecology of England’s arts and culture. But we want to be more ambitious. To see growth in the economy and in the cultural life of places outside London (without damaging the capital) will require a modest increase in grant in aid. The benefits will be felt by everyone in England.

We need to make the best possible case for public investment in arts and culture. They benefit us economically, socially and educationally. They bring us joy, help us to reflect and develop

personally, and teach us how to empathise.

Why support arts and culture?

In our collective moments, we show we are a cultured nation – even if we aren’t ostentatious about it. Think how many millions were enthralled by the display of 888,246 poppies by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper at the Tower of London. This work of art became the focus for an act of commemoration.

• Art and culture are worth over £7 billion to our economy. Rapidly growing economies such as China, Qatar and South Korea are copying us and investing in culture as part of their future vision.

• Culture plays a vital role in enriching the lives of the next generation through education. It yields benefits for society – for example, protecting our health and wellbeing and promoting social inclusion.

• As well as all these measurable benefits to our country, the very best arts and culture challenge us, give us joy, and help us find meaning in our lives.

• Figures show that arts and cultural institutions have made great progress in terms of increasing revenue streams and attracting donations. However, public investment encourages (and demands) artistic ambition and support for talent. Work of the highest artistic quality would not exist without this investment.

Every citizen in this most diverse of nations – young or old, black or white, rich or poor – contributes to our unique and rich cultural life.

We all take part, as spectators and visitors, artists (professional and amateur), producers, curators and entrepreneurs, policy makers and

investors. We should all benefit from this national resource.

The benefits of arts and culture

meeting government agendas• Our theatres, galleries, libraries,

museums and arts centres make up a powerful interconnected ecology. People, ideas, money and content flow beyond to the wider creative industries – the fastest growing part of our economy. Consider the success of Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen, whose career was supported initially by public money. Our great museums and collections of industrial and scientific heritage also inspire contemporary technology, research and design.

• Culture supports tourism. Over a quarter of London’s international visitors go to the theatre at least once. The British Museum is the UK’s top visitor attraction.

• Our culture and creativity are a vital part of our soft power and influence, for example through sector leaders taking part in international trade missions.

• New ecologies of culture are burgeoning in our former industrial regions, strengthening communities and economies outside the capital. Alongside political devolution for ‘The Northern Powerhouse’, the government is investing in its cultural life, with £78m for new world-class performing space The Factory. In Hull, the Arts Council is investing alongside partners in the UK City of Culture. A new wave of cities, towns and communities are collaborating with us to make culture part of their future plans.

the benefit to children• A cultural education should be a right,

not a privilege. The arts are essential to childhood – they broaden a child’s horizons and bring them laughter and happiness. They teach confidence and give children the chance to shine as performers now, as well as the skilled creative workers and leaders of the future.

• We believe that the government understands what the arts can do for educational achievement; how they improve social mobility that will free our talent. This has been shown in the increased support for Music education hubs.

• The Arts Council believes it’s possible to offer a cultural guarantee to every child in England. Working with government and its other partners, we would like to make that a reality.

new thinking in social policy• There remains great potential to use

the arts and culture to tackle our society’s greatest challenges – from the isolation of our elderly and social inclusion, to rising levels of mental illness.

• From the isolation of elderly people to creaking hospitals, from social inclusion to rising levels of mental illness.

• As pressure increases on the NHS, healthcare providers are increasingly making use of arts based projects. Reduced demand for GP and mental health services as a result could already be saving the NHS £500 million a year.

• The Arts Council is working in partnership with the Baring Foundation in Nottingham, West Yorkshire, Hereford and Cornwall to use art to engage older people in residential homes, many often isolated from society.

The benefits of arts and culture

the unique role of grant in aid• Grant in aid is an investment in the core of

the nation’s cultural institution. It keeps our museums, theatres and galleries operating. It also underwrites the risks required to create world-class art like recent Tony winners The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Wolf Hall.

• It ensures we all get access to the arts, museums and libraries. This might be through accessible ticket pricing, free entry or a variety of work that appeals to a wide range of people.

• It ensures culture is part of our children’s lives, both through education and the many opportunities our funded organisations create for them to watch and participate.

a vital part of a mixed funding model• Grant in aid helps organisations to lever

and support other revenue streams.

• Local authorities are the largest single investor in culture. Investing in partnership with the Arts Council, their money is targeted to improve the social cohesion and wellbeing of their communities. Hull’s bid to become City of Culture 2017 is a recent example of this partnership.

• The Arts Council supports the arts and culture sector to grow new revenue streams, such as philanthropy income. Donors are given confidence by the bedrock of grant in aid. They are reassured that institutions are well-run, well-maintained and great places to visit.

Investing in arts and culture

The benefits of arts and culture need resources to be realised. The Arts Council has two sources of revenue – Lottery and grant in aid. They are

complementary and distinct. Our share of Lottery income has risen, thanks to the government’s decision to increase the proportion for the arts and culture. However, grant in aid has declined 37% since 2010. Grant in aid

has a unique role in supporting the nation’s cultural ecology.

funding under pressure• The arts and culture sector has become

leaner and been resilient in the downturn, but economic conditions are increasingly challenging.

• Donor income is flat-lining, despite efforts to stimulate giving. Arts Council and Local Authority investment are both reducing as a result of austerity measures. Lottery cannot make up the short fall.

• There is little fat left to trim off the sector. Reducing public investment will most likely damage its muscle. There will be fewer ‘Curious Dogs’ sniffing round Broadway, and in the long term our international reputation as a cultural force will be threatened.

an opportunity to support growth• The urgent demand to broaden the base

of the country’s economy is echoed in its cultural life. People should be able to see world class work in places outside London. Artists and creative businesses should be able to thrive everywhere.

• London should be treasured as a global cultural icon, but it is part of a related whole. Without damaging the capital, we must ensure our investment benefits the entire country.

• We have shifted our lottery income – from 60% spent outside London to a minimum of 75% in the next three years. However, to secure stronger production centres outside London we need to alter how we invest grant in aid income.

keeping up the momentum• Further reductions in government funding

would make it impossible for the Arts Council to shift grant in aid outside London, without there being significant implications for the health of the capital’s cultural ecology.

• If we can retain current levels of grant in aid, as well as maintaining local authority partnerships, we can keep the overall ecology of the country in reasonable health.

• Modest, targeted growth will enable us to support emerging clusters of excellence, such as the Chancellor’s ‘Northern Powerhouse’. Audiences and artists across England will benefit and we will contribute meaningfully to the wider balancing of the economy.

Investing in arts and culture