Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture

We received our Royal Charter in 1946 and have spent more than 70 years funding the nation’s cultural life. Our first 10-year Strategy, published in 2010, was an important milestone on our journey as a development agency. Through it, we were able to move beyond a focus on investment in great work and organisations, important though this is, and build an evidence base and use it to direct our investments and develop partnerships, with the aim of benefitting more people.

But the research for this Strategy tells us there is further to go. In order to achieve our ambitions for the next decade, we will need to realise fully our role as this country’s national development agency for creativity and culture. We will need to invest strategically, both locally and nationally, and link our investment to outcomes that the public have said they want. We will need to grow the skills, knowledge and networks of our local and national teams, so we can build new partnerships and help establish the conditions in which creativity and culture can flourish across the country. We will need to identify the key challenges and opportunities facing the cultural sector and take the lead in bringing together people with bold ideas for addressing them. We will need to explain the value that creativity and culture bring to individuals, communities and the country in ways that move hearts and convince minds. In short, our job will be to work with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, the local authorities, and others, to support positive change and innovation in the cultural landscape, and to move everyone towards that vision of a country in which everyone can explore their own creativity and enjoy outstanding culture.

This Strategy is based on the need to recognise and celebrate the creative lives of everyone in this country, and its success will depend on our ability to understand and champion a wider range of culture than we have before, including in the amateur, voluntary and commercial sectors. Much of this work will not necessitate our financial investment, but over the coming decade, in our development role, we will help to make connections between the culture and creativity that people enjoy in their daily lives, the organisations that we fund, and the commercial creative industries.

We will work in partnership with cultural organisations, media companies, healthcare providers, charities and the voluntary sector, local and national government, and other National Lottery distributors, to speak directly to the public, in order to raise awareness of the creative and cultural activities on offer and the benefits that taking part in them can deliver.

Creating opportunities for children and young people to reach their creative potential and to access the highest quality cultural experiences

Children and young people were at the heart of our first Strategy and it was clear from our consultation that the public places tremendous value on our support for them. So over the next 10 years, we will focus a large part of our development role on ensuring that children and young people are able to fulfil their creative potential, and access the highest-quality cultural experiences where they live, where they go to school and where they spend their free time. Our partnership with the Department for Education will remain central to our work in this area. We will continue to advocate – to the Department for Education, and to the public and teachers – for the value of creativity in education as well as the importance of a rich curriculum that includes art and design, dance, drama and music. Securing the creative and cultural lives of all our children and young people is critical to realising this Strategy’s vision for 2030.

We believe in the inherent value of creativity and culture: in their power to delight and move us, and in their capacity to help us make sense of the world. But we also know that investment in creativity and culture can deliver broad social benefits, through the skills they offer to young people and workers, the economic growth they generate, and the part they play in building healthy, closeknit communities.

Over the next 10 years, we will work to improve the way we make the case for the social and economic value of investing public money in culture. To strengthen the country’s creative industries, which make up one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, we will promote research and development, and support the adoption of new technologies. Given the persistent lack of diversity across the creative industries, we will push to ensure that the cultural workforce is representative of contemporary England. We will take steps to support the cultural sector to set the pace in coming up with imaginative new approaches to promoting environmental responsibility.

At a local level, we will work with partners to support inclusive economic growth through investment in libraries, museums and arts venues to ensure that they are fit-for-purpose and able to meet the needs of their communities and the people who work and create within them. We will also make the case for investing in appropriate new cultural buildings to drive local economic regeneration. In all of this work, Arts Council England will use data to build and share a more sophisticated picture of local investment, and to operate effectively as an expert national development agency that is able to invest at scale in order to seize opportunities and deal with big challenges.

In 2011, Arts Council England took on national responsibility for the development of libraries and museums, with core funding of public libraries remaining the statutory responsibility of local library authorities. We believe that England’s network of public libraries provides a vital resource for the development of creativity and the promotion of culture across this country. They are the country’s most widespread and well-used cultural spaces, sitting at the heart of communities and often providing the first point of access to cultural activity. They help to build stronger, happier communities, support social prescribing, develop readers and promote digital literacy. They will be central to our delivery of this Strategy, and over the next 10 years we will increase our investment in them.

Museums play an essential role in helping us understand and shape culture. They connect us to the past and encourage us to think about the future. Museums themselves have evolved into cross-disciplinary institutions, connecting science, history and art, developing knowledge through research, making space for education, debate, creative and artistic activity and sustaining a spirit of place in communities. Alongside our role in supporting and developing museums, we also have a series of statutory UK-wide roles for the development of the country’s collections and cultural property. We deliver the Government Indemnity Scheme, which offers a crucial alternative to commercial insurance, meaning that museums can afford to put important cultural objects on display, and the Acceptance in Lieu and Cultural Gifts Schemes, which bring objects into public ownership, allowing us all to enjoy them.

We work with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport to deliver export controls which enable cultural objects to move across borders, and provide opportunities to retain national treasures for this country. All of this work plays a key role in ensuring that England’s collections and objects are developed, protected and enjoyed, both now and in the future. A dynamic museums sector will be at the heart of this Strategy: over the next 10 years, alongside our statutory functions, we will go on expanding public access to their collections, to ensure that they continue to delight and inspire as many people as possible.

Looking into the future, as this country’s relationship with Europe changes, our role in helping artists and organisations to work internationally will become even more important. International activity brings major cultural and financial benefits to the country: it promotes understanding and knowledge exchange, develops the skills of the cultural workforce, and provides a vital stream of income to many cultural organisations. Over the next 10 years, we will extend the international profile of the cultural sector, helping those organisations already working internationally to strengthen their activity, and developing new opportunities for individuals and organisations to build global partnerships.

We will support cultural organisations to present the best of world culture, to excite and inspire audiences in this country. We will maintain our support for international showcasing opportunities and touring, and work to evolve new international exchange programmes and networks. We will continue to work with the British Council, the GREAT campaign, and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, and we will seek out new partners, in order to maximise the benefits of this activity.

The Outcomes that this Strategy sets out are ambitious. We cannot achieve them alone – and nor would we want to. Partnership working is essential to the development of a creative and cultural country: it allows all of us to work together, learn from each other and, ultimately, reach further. Our current partnerships with local authorities and higher education institutes are among our most significant and valuable assets.

Over the next decade, we will use our national perspective to strengthen these existing partnerships and build new ones: identifying others who share our vision and want to work with us to grow creative and cultural opportunities in towns, cities and villages across England. By 2030, our network of partners will be drawn from inside and outside the cultural sector: from local and central government; from further and higher education and schools; from the commercial, public and not-for-profit sectors; and from patrons, private donors and trusts and foundations. Our ambition is that public, private and commercial investment in culture and creativity will all have increased by 2030.