Peter Hewitt, Chief Executive of the Arts Council of England (ACE), recently spoke at the first National Summit for Local Government and the Arts. In Part 2 of his address, Hewitt points to examples of how the arts have been used as a catalyst for social and economic change in England – but emphasises these foundations can be built upon, if local governments and organisations like the ACE examine ways of working together to achieve greater impact.
To read Part 1 of this article, CLICK HERE
I am sure we can all point to existing success stories that show how the arts already contribute to the creative economy, to healthy communities, to vital neighbourhoods and to ways of engaging young people. Those stories will span rural, coastal and urban areas and cover all age groups and diverse communities. Let me give just a few examples that show what can be achieved when the arts are placed at the centre of policy, and when local government and bodies such as the Arts Council work hand in hand.
A development such as the West Yorkshire Playhouse is one example. The vision of a new repertory theatre for Leeds, was very much driven by the City Council, with the backing of neighbouring authorities. It shaped the inclusive ethos of a theatre for everyone in the city and the region. The Arts Council met that ambition not just with resources, but with the creative expertise to support the award-winning team that made a theatre out of a building. Together, we created a centre of excellence and access, which can stand beside anything in the country.
What we achieved in Leeds, we have done and continue to do throughout the country. Some of these joint initiatives, like the Lowry in Salford or the Baltic in Gateshead, are well known. Others, like the Quay Arts Centre in Newport on the Isle of Wight, Ocean in Hackney, or the Electric Theatre in Guildford, deserve equal recognition. They were conceived by councils [which] saw the opportunity to use the arts as the catalyst for social and economic renewal and are highly valued as such in their own communities.
These are all building-based initiatives. But let us not forget what we have done together in supporting Council arts development posts, and the regeneration and community initiatives made possible by National Lottery funding. Together, we support hundreds of projects, which offer people opportunities to see or take part in the arts in their own communities and neighbourhoods.
There are many more examples of the arts contributing measurable benefits to the quality of life in communities of all kinds: rural touring networks, the regeneration of former coalfields, contributions to local economic development through the New Deal programme, to health, to youth and education services for disaffected young people, disability arts initiatives and activities that promote cultural diversity.
Every Council area in the country has its own good news story about how the arts are transforming even those communities where the challenges are toughest. The arts are proving their worth in promoting economic development through the creative industries, employability through training and personal skills, social inclusion, and neighbourhood renewal. The commitment of cities as different as Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, Newcastle-Gateshead and Oxford to putting culture at the heart of development as part of their recent Capital of Culture bids is compelling testimony that the message has been well understood.
All of this work has been, and will remain, the foundation of our partnership. It shows what can be achieved through partnership at local and regional level.
But foundations exist to be built on. I would suggest that, to date, a sometimes opportunistic, project-by-project culture has not always maximised the potential impact of our best work. In other words, the whole hasn’t always been greater than the sum of the parts. Also, we have yet, together, to make the most of our success stories through joint advocacy activities. Today we have the opportunity to look at that afresh and ask ourselves: how can we work together to achieve greater impact? How can we join up our thinking to produce more highly visible initiatives that will win national acclaim for the arts?
If you look at some of the most successful local authority driven projects it is clear that they have certain things in common. You will tend to find that the political leadership of those councils, the Leader and the Cabinet, have an awareness and understanding of the contribution of the arts to their agendas. You will find active advocates and champions for the arts among their membership, and a vision for the local authority area that makes specific reference to culture and the arts. You may well find that, within the Council, there is an active culture of collaboration across departments and services. The arts development officer may act as a positive gatekeeper and broker of relationships and not only as a direct promoter of arts activity. The arts will operate flexibly and their intrinsic usefulness across the whole portfolio of services will be widely accepted. Indeed, the arts will be expected to contribute to the full range of policy priorities held by the Local Authority.
We want to be of help to you with this approach where it does not already exist. The Arts Council’s new structure, linking regional and national agendas into a strategic vision for the arts in England, gives us the starting point for a new way of working together. We’ve made our changes because we believe that the arts must speak with one voice if they’re going to fulfil their promise and be taken seriously beyond their own world.
We need to bring a new coherence in our response to the huge range of issues that concern local government and the arts. Our task, at this National Summit, is therefore to take our four strategic themes and brainstorm the practical activities we can undertake together, with our shared investment, to raise the impact of the arts and win support for them at the heart of local government. Emphasising that cultural diversity and social inclusion will be integral to our success, and will be at the heart of all our future plans.
Change is never easy, and the Arts Council’s programme of modernisation is no exception. We are making good progress though, and you will be aware by now of the new framework for our future partnership agreement, which was agreed between the LGA and the Arts Council through the Arts Liaison Committee in July this year. This will replace the former system of subscriptions with a new arrangement that better expresses how we can work together, operationally and strategically, as partners in the local, regional and national context. At its heart is our shared ambition to achieve growth for the arts. The new framework supports equity and transparency. It sets us on the right track to achieve better communication and representation, joint planning and strategic development, the sharing of information and expertise, the dissemination of good practice, and strong advocacy for the work we can do together.
In the past, partnerships with the so called ‘arts funding system’ have tended to be formed on an authority by authority basis, with local impact. This must continue but the new partnership framework enables additional partnerships to be formed by drawing together clusters of local authorities, to have a different impact at regional and sub-regional level. This can be one key to our being able to unlock resources, locally, regionally – through partnership with Regional Development Agencies, for example – and nationally.
We appreciate the patience of all our partners, and especially the constructive engagement of local authorities and the LGA, throughout this period of re-organisation. But…our aim now is to win more resources for the arts across the country, supporting ever-richer opportunities for people in communities large and small to benefit from active engagement with the arts.
This is my key message. The Arts Council is now a single, whole organisation, nationally and regionally. We want to relate to all local authorities as whole organisations. We want to help you embed the arts in the very fabric of your Authority, just as we want to embed the arts in the very fabric of national policy and thinking. We can influence national policy, and you are the principal deliverers. Our ability to influence national policy will be immeasurably strengthened by direct knowledge of your experience at the sharp end, in a virtuous circle of experience and energy.
We want to do better, but we also want to do more. Today, we are setting a course for growth in our partnership, in the scale and quality of what we can achieve. Turning that ambition into reality depends on us all: artists, arts organisations, council officers, elected representatives and the Arts Council.
Individually, we all have parts to play. By the end of today we will have been stimulated by examples of practical ways for the arts to bring about transformation, in communities, in the environment and in people’s life chances. Together we have the investment to back the best ideas we can come up with. Together we can achieve the results to which, as individual bodies acting alone, we can only aspire.
Together we can do great things.
This speech is reprinted on Arts Hub with the kind permission of the Arts Council of England and the author.
