Essential read: Inclusivity & Relevance
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The Inclusivity & Relevance Principle is based on three pillars that define the change we want to see.
1. Communities
Our ambition:
We want to ensure the sector is actively listening to, and taking account of, the views of the local community. We want organisations to actively form relationships with under-served communities. As a result, publicly funded culture will matter more to more people.
Ideas and actions to consider:
- How can you build stronger and more meaningful relationships with your community? You can achieve this by:
- Recognising under-served communities and taking action to actively develop and grow relationships with them.
- Reaching out, listening to and involving local communities to inform your work and practice. For example, specific demographic or stakeholder groups such as children and young people or artists and creative practitioners.
- Working in partnership with creative practitioners and organisations who can help you build a meaningful relationship with those communities.
- Building trust and a sense of belonging for under-served communities through removing barriers and increasing access, opportunity, participation, and involvement.
2. Workforce, leadership and governance
Our ambition:
The sector will create access and career opportunities for people from all parts of society. It will have a workforce, leadership and governance which fully reflects and represents all communities and organisations with inclusive cultures, who value and develop their people.
Our commitment to realising this ambition within the Arts Council itself is set out in our Equality Objectives.
Ideas and actions to consider:
We want to ensure the opportunity to pursue and progress a career across the cultural sector is fair and open to everyone. We recognise that structural inequality (e.g. recruitment biases or access barriers) has meant that has not always been possible.
Collectively, we need to:
- Actively nurture inclusive organisational workplaces which value and develop the talent of all the people we work with, including freelancers and employees.
- Foster safer workplaces where harassment and discrimination are challenged and eliminated.
- Identify and remove biases and barriers in our organisational cultures and structures that reinforce inequality and block opportunity.
- Adopt a data-led approach to identify and respond to under-representation across governing bodies, leadership roles and the workforce in relation to protected characteristic groups and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
- Identify actions and set targets to drive and monitor change.
3. The Creative Case for Diversity
Our ambition:
The sector’s programmes and activities reflect the culture and talent of creative practitioners drawn from all backgrounds.
Ideas and actions to consider:
We remain committed to advancing our work on the Creative Case for Diversity. At the core of the Creative Case is the belief that arts and culture have greater vibrancy, innovation, richness and quality when they include stories and perspectives of artists and creative practitioners from all backgrounds. This commitment extends to supporting development for people from under-represented groups to ensure fairer access to creative roles in our sector. We want the cultural sector to:
- Recognise the creative value of diversity by committing to work that is representative of and relevant to more people.
- Commit to inclusion and better representation across all creative practitioner roles. For example, curators, directors, producers, writers, choreographers, composers, etc.
- Invest in creating opportunities for a more diverse range of people to join the talent pipeline into the sector. This will include ensuring programming and talent development activity is designed to recognise and remove barriers to participation.
- Provide better access to resources and cultural spaces to empower under-represented creative practitioners to share their stories.
In conclusion
We have expectations of marked progress around this Investment Principle, and we will be asking organisations who apply for regular investment from us to agree on actions and targets to drive change as part of their funding agreements with the Arts Council.
By embracing the Inclusivity & Relevance Principle we believe we will be better placed to deliver the vision of Let’s Create, helping enrich lives through the power of creativity and culture.
We will continue to share best practice and learning and celebrate pioneers in this field. The Arts Council is on this journey with you. We are committed to embodying Inclusivity & Relevance across every aspect of our organisation.
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Read more
To learn more about our expectations, and particularly those in receipt of, or with the ambition to apply for, regular funding please read Inclusivity & Relevance and Regular Funding. To ensure you get notified of new material, you can sign up to our newsletter.
Relevance resources
You, your colleagues and trustees may find the below tools and exercises from OF/BY/FOR ALL useful when thinking about inclusivity and relevance in your organisation.
Existing & Desired Communities Guide >
Quick Community Mapping Guide > (PDF, 61.72 KB) (PDF, 61.72 KB)
Creating a Vision of a More Inclusive, Relevant Future >
Inclusivity resources
Inclusivity is about creating safe, welcoming and equitable environments; where everyone is valued no matter their background, identity or circumstances; and where everyone is supported to realise their full creative potential with an increased sense of belonging.
To help you start to think about inclusivity in relation to your organisation or your individual practice, we’ve designed a set of activities specifically to help you, your colleagues and board members reflect on and embed inclusivity in your organisation and programming.
They can also be used to assist you when focussing on Inclusivity & Relevance in your forward business planning.
Inclusivity in workforce, leadership and governance: Preparing to reflect >
Reflecting on inclusivity in your organisation >
Reflecting on inclusivity in your programming activities >
In addition to these resources, you can also listen to an interview around Inclusivity with Amy Vaughan, Director of Touring, Arts Council England, and Sarah Holmes, Chief Executive of New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.
