TaitMail Happy Days?
Timely, just as Margaret Hodge rolls up her sleeves to examine the entrails of Arts Council England, that ACE’s CEO, Darren Henley, should reissue his 2016 overview of the cultural landscape, The Arts Dividend. Even more timely that it should emerge just as his new boss at DCMS is commemorating Jennie Lee’s first White Paper of 60 years ago with her own affirming speech about the importance of the arts.
But it’s not so much a revision as a total rethink, so much has changed since that first assay of the cultural topography. A hint at the sea change is in its subtitle, from “Why Investment in Culture Pays” to “How Investment in Culture Creates Happier Lives”. It’s not about money anymore, it’s about people; not number crunching but communities.
Succeeding the life-long civil servant Alan Davey as chief executive in 2015 Darren Henley had come from the private sector, running the supremely successful enterprise that is Classic FM. The iteration nine years ago of his book was a reflection of his first year in the job, but it had to be rehashed in 2020 to take account of the pandemic and the rescue package Rishi Sunak conjured as the Emergency Response Fund. That was a sudden confirmation that government thinking, which had largely tolerated the arts as a kind of necessary luxury that had its own very vocal lobby but which it kept safely underfunded, had changed. The way creatives sprang to life in 2020-21 across universally accessible computer screens was the dawning of a new age of enlightenment. And now, to coin a phrase much loved by tech-hungry opinion formers, the tectonic plates have shifted again.
Jennie Lee’s famous white paper - in which she said she wanted arts policy to be “a more coherent, generous and imaginative approach” – was Lisa Nandy’s opportunity to echo it in a lecture at Stratford-upon-Avon. As it happens, Henley’s 2016 edition coincided with the second, and so far only other, culture white paper, produced by Ed Vaizey when he was arts minister, in which he spoke of his “vision of culture in action – of culture that is rejuvenating our society and our national and local economies”.
The main change this time round has been the acceptance by the Treasury of the monetary value of the creative industries, thanks to the Creative Industries Federation, now Creative UK, spelling out the sums that showed the sector, including TV, film, video and gaming, being worth more to the economy than any other – it’s around £24bn a year at the moment. So suddenly it had become political, it’s soft power, making it awkward for ACE and Henley who as frequently as they can declare themselves at arm’s length from government (despite taking direct funding orders from Nadine Dorries when she was culture secretary). And Henley duly references arts minister Chris Bryant, his boss Nandy and even Keir Starmer, better to be safe…
Since 2010 arts subsidy from central and local government has been cut by roughly half, according to the Campaign for the Arts, but - and this is the main theme of Henley’s book – it isn’t subsidy. “Personally, I can’t abide the term” he writes sententiously. “The Arts Council doesn’t use public money to subsidise arts and culture. It invests public money for the benefit of the public” and the book proceeds to report on how that investment has returned dividends, in the elusive categories of Creativity, Opportunity, Happiness, Innovation, Place-Shaping, Enterprise and Reputation.
Um, Happiness? “Happiness and kindness are at the very heart of lives that are well-lived… they should be central to public policymaking”. Soft power.
There have been ups and downs for arts funding over the last 25 years, always following political moods rather than tangible cultural change, but this time the politicians seem to be following public taste, and Henley is rejoicing. Nandy used the Stratford platform to announce her new £270m Arts Everywhere fund as “a fitting legacy for Jennie Lee’s vision”, and to publish the Hodge Review’s terms of reference.
That review will not, as a Tory commission would have, consider whether ACE should exist, but it will go pretty deep nevertheless: whether its mandate is still relevant after 80 years, what its role in the “wider cultural ecosystem” should be, whether its structure is right and appropriately skilled, whether it’s using regional wisdom well in its deliberations, how it operates and how it’s leading the exploration of new technologies. Those are just the broad headings. It will also examine ACE’s relations with the organisations it funds, those it doesn’t, and the government - whether the arm’s length principle is working and “how decisions about arts and culture funding can be protected from short-term political expediency”.
Everything depends on the spending review in April, but there’s even a hint that there might be more funding.
It looks good, then, but the fundamental conundrum remains: there can be no creative industries without creative and cultural education and training, and although the arts, culture, creativity, are firmly ensconced in public schools, they are not part of the state curriculum. “All of our children should be given the kind of education that was the monopoly of the privileged few” Lee said – to the arts, sport, music and culture “which help us grow as people and grow as a nation”. And Henley is unequivocal: “Every child should benefit from the opportunity to study cultural subjects to a high level in the classroom throughout their schooling”.
So, Nandy announced during her lecture, there is to be a review of the curriculum as part of the government’s Plan for Change, “to put arts, music and creativity back at the heart of the education system”.
Hodge will deliberate on where ACE stands in this heady, unsubsidised, investment future. This book might be a bit milky in its unalloyed Fotherington-Thomas delight in the arts and artists, but in its way it neatly matches her terms of reference and gets ACE’s voice in at the beginning of her forensic examination.
It will be 18 months before we hear what she thinks the Arts Council should be. Darren Henley has already told her: “You could say that our job at Arts Council England as custodians of public money is to make investment decisions that reflect the passions of as many people in as many places as possible” he says here. Not sure if that will do.
Jennie Lee’s famous white paper - in which she said she wanted arts policy to be “a more coherent, generous and imaginative approach” – was her latest successor’s opportunity to echo that first white paper in a lecture at Stratford-upon-Avon. As it happens, Henley’s 2016 edition coincided with the second, and so far only other, culture white paper, produced by Ed Vaizey when he was arts minister, in which he spoke of his “vision of culture in action – of culture that is rejuvenating our society and our national and local economies”.
The main change this time round has been the acceptance of the Treasury of the monetary value of the creative industries, thanks to the Creative Industries Federation, now Creative UK, spelling out the sums that showed the sector, including TV, film, video and gaming, being worth more to the economy than any other sector – it’s around £24bn a year at the moment. So suddenly it had become political, making it awkward for ACE and Henley who as frequently as they can declare themselves at arm’s length from government, despite taking direct funding orders from Nadine Dorries when she was culture secretary. And Henley duly references arts minister Chris Bryant, his boss Nandy and even Keir Starmer, better to be safe…
Since 2010 arts subsidy from central and local government has been cut by roughly half, according to the Campaign for the Arts, but - and this is the main theme of Henley’s book – it isn’t subsidy. “Personally, I can’t abide the term” he writes sententiously. “The Arts Council doesn’t use public money to subsidise arts and culture. It in invests public money for the benefit of the public” and the book proceeds to report on how that investment has returned dividends, in the elusive categories of Creativity, Opportunity, Happiness, Innovation, Place-Shaping, Enterprise and Reputation. Um, Happiness? “Happiness and kindness are at the very heart of lives that are well-lived… they should be central to public policymaking”.
There have been ups and downs for arts funding over the last 25 years, always following political moods rather than tangible cultural change, but this time the politicians seem to be following public taste, and Henley is rejoicing. Nandy used the Stratford platform to announce her new £270m Arts Everywhere fund as “a fitting legacy for Jennie Lee’s vision”, and to publish the Hodge Review’s terms of reference.
That review will not, as a Tory cmmission would have, consider whether ACE should exist, but it will go pretty deep nevertheless: whether its mandate is still relevant after 80 years, what its role in the “wider cultural ecosystem” should be, whether its structure is right and appropriately skilled, whether it’s using regional wisdom well in its deliberations, how it operates and how it’s leading the exploration of new technologies. That’s just the broad headings. It will also examine ACE’s relations with the organisations it funds, those it doesn’t, and the government - whether the arm’s length principle is working and “how decisions about arts and culture funding can be protected from short-term political expediency”.
Everything depends on the spending review in April, but there’s even a hint that there might be more funding.
So it looks good, but the fundamental conundrum remains: there can be no creative industries without education and training, and although the arts, culture, creativity, are firmly ensconced in public schools, they are not part of the state curriculum. “All of our children should be given the kind of education that was the monopoly of the privileged few” Lee said – to the arts, sport, music and culture “which help us grow as people and grow as a nation”. And Henley is unequivocal: “Every child should benefit from the opportunity to study cultural subjects to a high level in the classroom throughout their schooling”.
So, Nandy announced, there is to be a review of the curriculum as part of the government’s Plan for Change, “to put arts, music and creativity back at the heart of the education system”.
Hodge will deliberate on where ACE stands in this heady, unsubsidised, investment future. This book might be a bit milky in its unalloyed delight in the arts and artists, but in its way it neatly matches her terms of reference and gets ACE’s voice in at the beginning of her forensic examination.
It will be 18 months before we hear what she thinks the Arts Council should be. Darren Henley has already told her: “You could say that our job at Arts Council England as custodians of public money is to make investment decisions that reflect the passions of as many people in as many places as possible” he says here. Not sure if that will do.