An overview of cultural policy in the UK A Tale of Coalition, Cuts, Creative Industries & Cultural Olympiad

In March 2011, the House of Com­mons Select Com­mit­tee on Cul­ture, Media and Sport released a study on fund­ing arts and her­itage. The report’s sum­mary begins with a state­ment which can be con­strued as this government’s cul­tural pol­icy platform:

“Arts and her­itage in Britain are among our great­est assets. They bring great cul­tural and eco­nomic ben­e­fits and every­body should have access to them.”

“Since the Sec­ond World War, most arts and her­itage organ­i­sa­tions have oper­ated on a mixed fund­ing model, whereby their income is made up partly of pub­lic sub­sidy and partly of pri­vate invest­ment and earned rev­enue. This model has worked for them, and we sup­port mixed fund­ing.”

The Committee’s report sum­ma­rized the government’s aus­ter­ity mea­sures while also estab­lish­ing the government’s pri­or­i­ties in this sec­tor. Not unlike other coun­tries, the UK is mov­ing towards a model of public-private-partnerships, away from tra­di­tional fund­ing mod­els, and towards invest­ment schemes.

This arti­cle will exam­ine the pri­mary mech­a­nisms charged with devel­op­ing cul­tural pol­icy and dis­sem­i­nat­ing fund­ing at the national (ie. Fed­eral) level in the UK. Beyond estab­lish­ing the con­text and frame­work for cul­tural pol­icy and fund­ing in the UK, I will explore the Olympics as an exam­ple of place-making, cul­tural infra­struc­ture and brand­ing for fos­ter­ing a cre­ative econ­omy. I will end by look­ing at what kind of legacy the Olympics have left behind and whether the Games estab­lished a par­a­digm shift for imple­ment­ing inno­v­a­tive cre­ative sec­tor policies.

Cul­tural Pol­icy in the UK: mov­ing towards an eco­nomic model

In the UK, there is no offi­cial def­i­n­i­tion for cul­ture, though now it is often asso­ci­ated with mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and diver­sity. The Depart­ment for Cul­ture, Media and Sport (DCMS) defines cul­ture in very broad terms – encom­pass­ing many art forms, cul­tural expres­sions, and insti­tu­tions. What is of note is that increas­ingly the gov­ern­ment has asso­ci­ated cre­ative indus­tries, includ­ing fash­ion, adver­tis­ing, and soft­ware devel­op­ment with cul­tural sec­tors like arts, muse­ums, and her­itage. In Cul­tural Poli­cies and Trends in Europe coun­try pro­file on the UK, author Rob Fisher claims this amal­ga­ma­tion of indus­tries and sec­tors is tied the government’s per­spec­tive that the com­mon denom­i­na­tor is eco­nomic potential.

Pri­or­i­tiz­ing the eco­nomic ben­e­fits of the cul­tural sec­tor has been a sub­tle pil­lar estab­lish­ing itself in stone over the past decade. Notably, in 2008, an inter-governmental report was pub­lished on the cre­ative indus­tries titled: Cre­ative Britain: New Tal­ents for the New Econ­omy.[1] Fur­ther­more, in 2010, Dr Dave O’Brien pub­lished Mea­sur­ing the value of cul­ture, com­mis­sioned by DCMS. The report calls for increased col­lab­o­ra­tion between cul­tural pol­icy mak­ers and econ­o­mists study­ing cul­ture. Ori­ented towards gen­er­at­ing a larger mar­ket share for cul­ture, the report devel­oped the con­cept of using datasets and eco­nomic indi­ca­tors for a more robust analy­sis of cul­ture. (Fisher p.21)

A com­po­nent of the cur­rent government’s pol­icy plat­form is to reform the rela­tion­ship between cen­tral (national) gov­ern­ment and local com­mu­ni­ties. The inten­tion is to cre­ate more stream­lined func­tions and community-focused ini­tia­tives. Under­stand­ably, many of the tar­gets are region­ally spe­cific. For exam­ple, the Local Gov­ern­ment White Paper: Strong and Pros­per­ous Com­mu­ni­ties, pub­lished in 2006, estab­lished a frame­work where pri­or­i­ties for national depart­ments, were locally based. The result of these poli­cies is a reduc­tion in bud­get and staffing at a national level, in favour of del­e­gat­ing the juris­dic­tion of cul­ture to local deliv­ery part­ners (Fisher, p13). The other con­se­quence is a diverse and frag­mented cul­tural pol­icy frame­work, led by local ini­tia­tives rather than a cohe­sive national cul­tural pol­icy platform.

The Depart­ment for Cul­ture, Media and Sport

In the UK, the port­fo­lio com­pa­ra­ble to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage, con­tain­ing the cul­tural indus­tries, cre­ative sec­tor and the arts, is the Depart­ment for Cul­ture, Media and Sport (and recently: Olympics). When devel­op­ing its strate­gic objec­tives for 2008–2011, DCMS iden­ti­fied four tar­gets. Out of the four, one focuses on eco­nomic imper­a­tives, and the other solely ref­er­ences the Olympics (Fisher, p8).

• Oppor­tu­nity: Encour­age more wide­spread enjoy­ment of cul­ture, media and sport;
• Excel­lence: Sup­port tal­ent and excel­lence in cul­ture, media and sport;
• Eco­nomic impact: Realise the eco­nomic ben­e­fits of the Department’s sec­tors; and
• Olympics: Deliver a suc­cess­ful and inspi­ra­tional Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games with a sus­tain­able legacy.

Over 95% of DCMS’ bud­get is allo­cated to the bod­ies that deliver the department’s aims and objec­tives. This includes Arts Coun­cil Eng­land, Eng­lish Her­itage, Muse­ums, Libraries and Archives Coun­cil (MLA), and Sport Eng­land (Fisher, p8).

Full arti­cle com­ing soon for mem­bers only!

 

Jes­sica Litwin is a cul­tural pol­icy expert, art his­to­rian, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist. She cur­rently lives in Lon­don, UK where she con­sults for a range of clients as part of the team at  Polit­i­cal Lob­by­ing and Media Rela­tions (PLMR) Ltd. Prior to join­ing PLMR she was the Senior Cul­tural Pol­icy Advi­sor at the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) where she headed the research and pol­icy unit. With a pas­sion for all things arts, muse­ums, her­itage and design, Jessica has sat on the Sec­toral Com­mis­sion on Cul­ture, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Infor­ma­tion to UNESCO Canada, the Youth Advi­sory Group to UNESCO Canada, and the Arts, Cul­ture and Her­itage Com­mit­tee to the City of Ottawa. She has been a guest lec­turer at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­sity in Mon­treal and Som­er­set House in London.

As a free­lance con­sul­tant for Nordic­ity Group – Jes­sica worked on stud­ies for the dig­i­tal and tech­nol­ogy sec­tor, cul­tural indus­tries, and gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tors. She was for­merly a grad­u­ate fel­low at the Getty Cen­ter in Los Ange­les. Hav­ing earned an MA from the Cour­tauld Insti­tute of Art, Jessica also has a BA in polit­i­cal sci­ence and art his­tory from McGill University.

To con­tact Jes­sica: Jess (dot) Litwin (at) gmail (dot) com

Find Jes­sica on Twitter:

@JessLitwin

@CuratedConcepts

 

LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/jlitwin