RESOURCE ARTICLE
THE ARTS COUNCIL PLAN 2011-15
CONTENTS
1. WELCOME....................................................................................... 3
2. GOALS AND PRIORITIES............................................................... 6
3. MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES......................................................... 14
4. OUR CONTEXT............................................................................. 15
5. AREA PLANS................................................................................. 17
6. OUR ROLE..................................................................................... 27
7. MEASURING SUCCESS................................................................ 32
8. OUR ORGANISATION................................................................... 33
1. WELCOME
This Plan sets out what we will do to deliver our goals and priorities over the years 2011-15.
Determined to support excellence and innovation
Money is tight for the arts, but the Arts Council remains determined to support excellence and innovation. As our National portfolio process showed, we’re thinking about how we can use our full range of investment to have the greatest possible impact. This will extend to our use of our new strategic funding, which we will invest over the coming years in areas we feel need extra support to help achieve our 10-year goals for the arts.
The Arts Council aims to add value to the work of arts organisations, working as an impresario, developer, advocate, critical friend and advice service, providing the kind of sensitive support that allows artists and arts organisations across the country to fulfil their potential.
Ensuring the Arts Council continues to do this will be a challenge, following the Government’s requirement that we reduce our administrative costs by 50 per cent. A cut of this size will mean significant change and Council remains concerned about how the organisation could continue to fulfil the obligations set out in its Royal Charter. Arts Council staff are just beginning to study our approach to finding this reduction in a way that means we can continue to play our crucial role in the wonderful cultural life of this country.
Despite these constraints we are delighted to be offered the challenge of our new responsibilities for the development of both libraries and museums. There are limits to our role, but we are determined to do everything possible to support these important institutions, their proud histories and unique collections, and to seize the opportunities presented by the wider cultural remit coming our way. Though we face internal challenges, we continue to look to the horizon. The coming years certainly present some fantastic opportunities to celebrate and attract new audiences to our world-class artistic talent, not least when the eyes of the world fall upon our country during next year’s Olympic celebrations.
The primary role of the Arts Council will always be to celebrate and support the extraordinary achievements of the arts, museums and libraries across the country. Whatever else changes, our commitment to doing this remains steadfast.
Dame Liz Forgan
Chair, Arts Council England
Uniting the cultural sector
Last year’s publication of Achieving great art for everyone set out the Arts Council’s 10-year vision for the arts in England; this plan is the first time we have set out how the Arts Council will work
to achieve these aims between 2011 and 2015, proposing how
we can use our role as an investor, developer and champion of the arts to ensure the arts play an even greater role in our national life.
At the heart of it is our desire to support and enable artistic excellence to flourish; ensuring everyone has access to high quality arts experiences and promoting debate and discussion about what excellence really means. We want to unleash a greater range of England’s artistic talent, firm in our belief that better art is created when opportunities to experience the best in art are open to all in society.
Our commitment to excellence will extend to our new responsibilities for museums and libraries as we look to understand how these important areas can become central to the Arts Council’s work. We see this uniting of the cultural sector as an unprecedented opportunity, giving culture as a whole a greater voice at both a national and local level. The transfer of these functions is the beginning of a process not an end. We will continue to work with the sector over the next four years to enable all parts of our cultural life to thrive.
If we are to achieve our aims it is going to be more important than ever for the entire cultural sector to unite around a shared purpose, supporting each other in creative, generous and mutually beneficial partnerships. That’s why the Arts Council will continue to reach out to a broad coalition of public, private and community organisations that we feel can help us achieve our goals as we work to create the conditions for talent, ambition and innovation to prosper.
Alan Davey
Chief Executive, Arts Council England
2. GOALS AND PRIORITIES
Our mission is great art for everyone
Achieving great art for everyone, our strategic framework for the arts, sets
out five goals for the arts over the next 10 years. These goals are supported
by 13 priorities that will direct our work in 2011-15.
10-year goal
Priorities for 2011-15
TALENT AND ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE
ARE THRIVING AND CELEBRATED
· using our investment to ensure excellent
art happens
· establishing a coherent, nationwide approach
to the development of artistic talent, particularly
for emerging and mid-career artists
· supporting an artistically-led approach to diversity in the arts
· responding to major opportunities such as the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
to showcase talent and build audiences for excellent art
MORE PEOPLE EXPERIENCE AND ARE INSPIRED BY THE ARTS
· developing arts opportunities for people and places with the least engagement
· strengthening the distribution of excellent art through touring and digital platforms
· encouraging funded organisations to be even more focused on attracting new audiences
THE ARTS ARE SUSTAINABLE,
RESILIENT AND INNOVATIVE
· promoting greater collaboration between organisations to increase efficiency and innovation
· strengthening business models in the arts, helping arts organisations to diversify their income streams including private giving
THE ARTS LEADERSHIP AND WORKFORCE ARE DIVERSE AND
HIGHLY SKILLED
· building a network of arts leaders who value sharing their knowledge and skills, for the benefit of the arts and civil society
· creating equal opportunities to enter the arts workforce
·
EVERY CHILD AND YOUNG PERSON HAS THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE THE RICHNESS OF THE ARTS
· improving the delivery of arts opportunities for children and young people
· raising the standard of art being produced for, with and by children and young people
In October 2011 Arts Council assumed some of the functions of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The five 10-year goals in our strategic framework have been adapted to reflect the needs and priorities for museums and libraries in Culture, knowledge and understanding: great museums and libraries for everyone, which was published in September 2011.
Our approach to the 13 priorities
We have developed a national approach to the 13 priorities over 2011-15. The following summaries serve to amplify how we will achieve the goals and deliver the short term priorities of Achieving great art for everyone, the strategic framework that drives our funding programmes and operational plans, and how we translate our strategy into regionally distinctive action.
Museums and libraries
Culture, knowledge and understanding: great museums and libraries for everyone, sets out how the Arts Council sees its role in museums and libraries in the short term, and the ways in which we will champion, develop and invest in these sectors. It also provides details of the programmes the Arts Council will run from 2011-15.
Arts at the heart
Our strategic framework is informed by our knowledge of artistic practice and the needs of different artforms over the next four years. The evolution and growth of theatre, visual arts, literature, music, dance and combined arts is vital to the health and future success of the arts and our goals and priorities will guide our work to support this. Visit the artform pages on our website to read more about our support for artform development.
Talent development
Supporting artists and creative individuals to develop their talent is vital to the future success of arts and culture. We will focus our energies and resources on emerging and mid-career talent, since we know through our public consultation that these stages are where more support is needed. We will develop a coherent, nationwide approach in partnership with arts and cultural organisations, artists and others including the British Council, broadcasters, higher education and the charitable and commercial sectors. We will have a strong focus on targeted support for diverse talent, and for those least able to access current opportunities, and Grants for the arts will continue to have a key role across many aspects of talent development. Lastly, we will celebrate and promote the achievements of England’s artists, recognising the great contribution they make to national prosperity and wellbeing.
Diversity
We continue to address the legal, moral, ethical and business cases that underpin our commitment to equalities. But increasingly we are interested in the artistic aspect of equalities and diversity described as the ‘Creative Case’. This is the recognition that artistic excellence relies on the richness and innovation that diversity brings. We will forge a new relationship with the arts sector on issues of diversity and equality, characterised by shared discourses and the sector taking the lead with our support, facilitation and, where appropriate, provocation to prise major questions into the open.
We will create the conditions for diverse artists at all levels to work in well-established, high-profile organisations and create work in these places for public performance or presentation. We will support a wider range of national and international artistic collaborations where emergent companies share artistic and, where appropriate, operational resources with larger mainstream companies.
The Cultural Olympiad
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a global event with enormous potential to help deliver our mission of great art for everyone. We have been closely involved in the development of the Cultural Olympiad programme since the bid stage. As a result of our investment, we hope to achieve three things: increased participation in the arts; increased profile for our artists on the world stage; and new collaborations that push boundaries, and leave a legacy of a strengthened sector. Key projects include: flagship national project Artists taking the lead, which features 12 artist commissions, including one in every region and nation; Unlimited, a unique programme to commission high-quality, ambitious work by disabled and Deaf artists; and the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad featuring more than 1,000 events with an estimated audience of three million people. We are also responding to the sector’s own aspirations for celebrating this momentous year. Many National portfolio organisations are developing programmes for 2012 as part of their core work, and Grants for the arts has provided further support to a huge range of projects across the country.
People and places with the least engagement
We know there are parts of the country where people’s involvement in the arts is significantly below the national average. We want to increase the likelihood of people taking part in the arts, irrespective of where they live or their social, educational or financial circumstances. In addressing this priority we seek to increase attendance and participation by supporting the public to help shape local arts provision and by increasing choice and opportunities for people to experience and be inspired by the arts. We believe it can help improve the quality of life for individuals and their communities in many different ways. The National portfolio organisations have been asked to consider the contribution they can make to reaching the least engaged as they develop their business plans.
We will also use arts, museums and libraries strategic funding to invest in areas where attendance and participation levels are low. We will also invest in a small number of places of greatest disadvantage to establish action research areas called creative people and places. These will encourage long-term collaborations between arts organisations, museums, libraries, local authorities and local communities to develop the kind of inspiring, sustainable arts and cultural programmes that audiences in those communities want to get involved in. Our wider cultural remit offers an opportunity for the arts to learn from the success of museums and libraries in reaching audiences that the arts find it difficult to reach and vice versa. We hope that what we learn through this targeted action research can be used in many other places to help increase attendance and participation in the arts and culture across the country.
Touring
Our national approach to touring will help us achieve our goal of more people in England experiencing and being inspired by the arts. We will strengthen access to high-quality work for people and places that rely on touring for much of their arts provision, including those with the least engagement. We will work in partnership with those on the ‘demand’ (promoters, curators, audiences) and ‘supply’ (artists, producers) side of touring, and encourage better collaborative working. We will develop and support a wide range of networks for touring across different infrastructures, including arts venues, outdoors, schools and community spaces. We will encourage National portfolio organisations and, through strategic funding, a wider range of organisations that tour to give equal importance to how and where they tour and the work they produce. We will develop and support more
high-quality work on tour by and for children and young people, and by and for people from diverse backgrounds. Find out more about touring on our website.
Digital innovation
Digital technology has huge potential to support and accelerate the delivery of all of our goals and priorities and offers exciting opportunities for artists, audiences and the broader sector. We will work with partners, including National portfolio organisations, to build capacity and increase skills sharing. We will encourage distribution of excellent art through digital platforms and archiving to extend its life and reach. We will encourage an approach that promotes openness, generosity and sharing for the public good, working with partners to develop policy and support with regards to intellectual property – a key building block and challenge to growth and innovation in digital media. We will seek to open up opportunities that lead to new revenue streams and align our investment with other partners to increase impact and public value.
Becoming more audience focused
We want more people to experience and be inspired by the arts, museums and libraries. In order to help make this happen, we will encourage our funded organisations to be even more focused on audiences – to reach more people, to broaden audiences, and to improve the quality and depth of audience experience. We will provide support to develop affordable ways of collecting and sharing audience data and intelligence. We will support collaborative action, marketing and audience development activity, to increase audiences, remove barriers to attendance and participation, and drive up public demand. We will learn from those who are best, nationally and internationally, building upon existing success and sharing best practice. We will take the opportunity to develop new cross cultural approaches to marketing and audience development across the arts, museums and libraries.
Organisational resilience
One of our priorities for this period is strengthening business models in the arts and helping arts organisations to diversify their income streams, including by encouraging private giving. We believe there is an opportunity to attract more private giving and help a wider range of organisations to benefit from it. We will introduce a match funding and capacity building programme. The scheme will support the sector’s fundraising efforts and provide an incentive for donors to give to the arts. We are also investing in a smaller one-off grants programme for capacity building, and a programme of advice and support for the arts sector about sharing best practice. We will also contribute to a broader, culture sector-wide endowments fund, jointly delivered by ourselves and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
We want to support a network of arts leaders who value sharing their knowledge and skills for the benefit of the arts and civil society and we will promote greater collaboration between organisations. Over the next four years we will build on the work of the Cultural Leadership Programme and organisational development programmes such as Thrive. We will develop and implement a new open access scheme inviting organisations to develop collaborative relationships and make joint bids for leadership and organisational development initiatives. The first round of the scheme, in 2012/13, will focus on opportunities for diverse leaders and for board development work.
Opportunities to enter the arts workforce
With our cultural and other strategic partners, we will champion the benefits of a more diverse workforce to the arts. We expect National portfolio organisations to recruit openly and pay interns, following employment law and best practice. We will work with strategic partners such as Creative and Cultural Skills, the National Skills Academy and through strategic partnerships with central and local government, enterprise agencies and further and higher education, trusts and foundations to identify financially sustainable interventions leading to more tailored entry-level opportunities in the arts to both graduates and non graduates.
Children and young people
We will fund a network of 10 ‘Bridge’ organisations that will focus on connecting schools and communities with National portfolio organisations and the cultural sector, including museums and libraries. The Bridge organisations will aim to increase the amount of art, cultural and commissioning opportunities for cultural organisations and artists, building on the legacy of Creative Partnerships and Find Your Talent and maximising the impact of the Artsmark and Arts Award schemes. We will also utilise our Bridge network to support the work of the new Music Hubs and National Music Plan.
We will also connect other key national providers of work for children and young people including Youth Music, the dance agencies and the National Youth Theatre. Our extended work with museums and libraries will embrace our major schools schemes, Artsmark and the young people’s Arts Award, ensuring the wealth of opportunities and expertise within these areas is harnessed to help increase the richness of cultural experiences for children and young people.
Together with the sector we will develop a set of principles to help us judge better the quality of the work being produced by, with and for children and young people. We will launch a revised Artsmark scheme to increase the take-up of the award by schools and develop it for wider education settings including museums and libraries. We will consider how the scheme might be extended for National portfolio organisations. We will develop a ‘kitemark’ scheme for practitioners in collaboration with Creative and Cultural Skills, which will provide recognised accreditation for artists working with children and young people.
3. MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
The year 2011/12 is a transition year for the Arts Council as we take on new responsibilities for museums and libraries. Most of the staff and programmes moving over from Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) to the Arts Council transferred in October 2011. The two organisations have been working closely together since January 2011 to ensure a smooth transition of those programmes without any change in scope (principally the standards programmes and statutory functions). In addition, MLA colleagues have been closely supporting us in the development of thinking towards the museum and library development work that we will put in place from April 2012. Arts Council will continue to deliver and develop the statutory and collections standards functions it inherited from
the MLA.
We have worked closely with the MLA to minimise the redundancies caused by the abolition of the MLA and to ensure that the necessary specialist knowledge and expertise could transfer to the Arts Council. A redeployment process was conducted, from May to July 2011, which saw 37 of 53 new or transferred roles being filled by staff from the MLA. In the main, those staff transferred on 1 October 2011. The 53 roles are distributed throughout the organisation and, in large part, bring specialist expertise to the relevant part of the organisation.
How we will work with museums and libraries
Culture, knowledge and understanding: great museums and libraries for everyone is our first attempt to integrate museums and libraries within our strategic framework. The companion document is designed to provide certainty as to the programmes the Arts Council will run from 2011-15 while soliciting further debate about the directions we should take in the longer term. In the long term we will use the same framework to drive all our programmes and inform all of our funding decisions; and as we continue to integrate museums and libraries within our framework, museums and libraries activity will begin to be incorporated into our area delivery plans.
4. OUR CONTEXT
Creative economy
Arts and culture are part of a broader creative economy and they make an important contribution to economic growth and cultural tourism. We will work with partners, including local authorities, Government departments, higher education institutions, and broadcast, skills and international organisations, to exploit opportunities in the creative economy and remove or reduce barriers that inhibit growth of the cultural sector. We will work with partners on a range of research and support a set of investment mechanisms that enable the sector to diversify income or leverage new investment from other sources.
International
England is a recognised world centre for artistic excellence. To maintain this, our artists need to work in an international context, be open to international perspectives and collaborate with artists from around the world. We want people living in England to experience the richness and diversity of international art and our diverse communities and to connect with work that is excellent and inspirational. We will support this ambition, in partnership with others such as the British Council, by: identifying which of our funded organisations can best support international talent development; encouraging the development of international networks and markets; supporting arts and cultural organisations to develop digital platforms to reach international audiences; and acting as a Designated Competent Body for UK Border Agency’s Exceptional Talent (Tier 1) scheme, which enables international artists to live and work in the UK.
Environmental sustainability
Arts and culture have a particular role in bringing to the fore the issues that a change in our climate will mean – and what a future might look like as we take steps to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. Through our behaviour and our investment, we will support creative responses to climate change and practical steps to embed environmental sustainability in the arts and cultural sectors. We will make environmental sustainability a core consideration when making grants for capital projects. We will publish guidance for our National portfolio and applicants to Grants for the arts and strategic funding on our environmental and carbon reduction expectations and how to achieve and measure them, and examples of good practice.
Administration costs
As an organisation we are committed to keeping administration costs down and finding new ways to ensure that all our resources deliver maximum value to arts and culture. We have a strong record of finding efficiency savings. During the period of the last Arts Council Plan, we generated savings of £6.5 million annually. Our staff numbers fell from 622 in 2008/09 to 491 in 2010/11.
As part of our settlement from Government, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport asked us to cut our administration costs by a further 50 per cent by 2014/15. This would have a significant effect on our capacity and on what we would be able to deliver. More than ever, we will need to work closely with partners and support others to take forward our shared goals. We will begin to develop early thinking on how we could achieve such a cut from the autumn of 2011. We plan to consult on a new organisation structure in 2012. We expect the new structure would need to come fully into effect from the autumn of 2013.
Despite the economic pressures we all face, this is an exciting time for arts and culture. By thinking long-term and working strategically with partners, we believe arts and culture in England can continue to go from strength to strength. Our job is to support and enable the sector to do so.
5. AREA PLANS
Arts Council England is a national organisation. Different parts
of the country have different characteristics, opportunities and challenges and we know that our activities need to be distinctive
and responsive to those differences. The following sections summarise work that is happening across the country in the arts, in: the East and South East; London; the Midlands and the South West; and the North, to deliver our mission, goals and priorities. Over the course of our Plan we will continue to shape our single vision
for the arts and culture.
EAST AND SOUTH EAST
Talent and artistic excellence are thriving and celebrated
The East and South East area’s distinctive strength is the individuals and organisations that nurture talent in some of England’s most exciting, innovative and in-demand creatives, with recognised national centres of excellence across
all artforms.
We will continue to support a cohort of excellent organisations that are able to take a leadership role for talent development as part of a national network. Many of these organisations have valuable experience that can be shared with their peers to increase the impact of new and mid-career artists and ultimately advance our shared goals. We will build on the area’s artform strengths by encouraging collaboration and links to key national organisations in London. We will prioritise the need for high quality workspace and encourage greater collaboration with organisations that have the resources and facilities to support smaller
arts companies.
More people experience and are inspired by the arts
Home to 28 per cent of the UK’s population, the East and South East has a number of places with limited or developing arts infrastructure, low levels of engagement, and major population growth. We will work closely with the sector, local authorities and other partners to strengthen arts and cultural activity in these places which delivers on our goals.
We will encourage collaboration between organisations to extend their reach into areas of low engagement. This is exemplified by our relationship with the Royal Opera House, High House Production Park, and the National Skills Academy. There is great potential to increase the digital capacity of arts organisations in the area, as this will become one of the primary means of increasing reach. The area has some of the UK’s most vibrant cultural new media and digital development sectors and is home to global digital businesses like Disney, Second Life and Microsoft. We have invited Lighthouse, Brighton to be the area strategic lead in digital arts research and development, exhibition, co-production and distribution.
We will use the area’s specialisms in festivals, outdoor arts and carnival to ensure that excellent art reaches large audiences. HOUSE is a new partnership of venues led by the sector to meet ambitions to increase audiences and improve the quality of touring theatre across the South East. HOUSE will build the intelligence and infrastructure of the growing touring network across the area, helping to broker strategic relationships and clarify the roles of key touring companies and venues.
Our support of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad will include innovative projects that are led by artists who have captured the public’s imagination, such as The Pacitti Company’s On Landguard Point and Lone Twin’s The Boat Project.
The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative
We will support a network of the chairs of boards of our funded organisations to share experience, best practice and new ways of working to increase resilience. The area has the opportunity to increase private giving to the arts, capturing the loyalty and passion many people hold for the high quality work created across
the area.
Through the national Catalyst programme we will support imaginative and sustainable approaches to private giving, encouraging new relationships and collaboration across the cultural spectrum.
Arts organisations in the East and South East have a strong track record of leveraging additional support through strategic alliances and collaborations. We will continue to encourage relationships with the wider public sector and encourage Local Enterprise Partnerships to support the area’s distinctive cultural assets as a key means of attracting inward investment and enhancing
community wellbeing.
The arts leadership and workforce are diverse and highly skilled
The area is home to the new headquarters for the National Skills Academy for creative and cultural skills. There are already 33 organisations that are member employers and five contributing colleges. We will encourage the benefits of a more diverse workforce and generate more tailor made entry-level opportunities and
key infrastructure for future prosperity and wellbeing.
The area has some strong examples of civic leadership, including the Citizen Power Peterborough programme, the work of the Creative Foundation in Folkestone, Metal in Southend, and People United in Kent. We will encourage
arts leaders to promote conditions in which art and artists are valued and visible
at the heart of their communities.
Every child and young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts
We will support organisations to develop new work with children and young people, particularly in places of low engagement. We will encourage partnerships for co-commissioning new touring products that bring together young people with venues and companies to develop innovative and relevant collaborations. We will encourage the Bridge organisations (Royal Opera House, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Artswork) to work together to broker the highest quality offer for
young people.
LONDON
Talent and artistic excellence are thriving and celebrated
London enjoys unrivalled prominence as a world leader in the arts. We will support excellence and innovation at all scales, including investing in emerging artists and experimental practice to maintain that position. We know that companies based in London play a role in the development of talent in London and beyond, and the capital draws artists nationally and from across the world, and we will work to ensure national access to benefit from this.
The London team coordinates the Arts Council’s national 2012 programme. In London, we want Londoners to experience and be inspired by the art that we fund, including Big Dance, the Olympic Park programme, the Mayor’s Outdoor Festival and commissions in the London 2012 Festival. We will also promote international work, recognising London’s role as a world cultural city, including working with partners to build relationships with Brazil from 2012 to 2016.
We will promote and support diverse artists and diverse programming, celebrating a strength in disability-led and focused work, with: organisations such as Graeae, Heart n’ Soul and Candoco; the excellent work of a number of culturally diverse artists and arts leaders including Akram Khan, Autograph led by Mark Sealy, and Mahogany led by Clary Salandy; and the best practice demonstrated, for example, at Theatre Royal Stratford, the Albany in Deptford and Action Space. We will want to ensure that the full value of these companies’ work is accessed nationally.
More people experience and are inspired by the arts
Artists and arts organisations based in the capital make a significant contribution towards England’s touring portfolio with representation across all artforms. We will improve the distribution of excellent art from London to the rest of the country.
We want to ensure that the gap between those that do access what the capital has to offer and those that do not narrows as excellent artistic work becomes more accessible and is presented with verve and creativity in ever more surprising places. To achieve that, we will invest in outer London venues such as Artsdepot and Stratford Circus to support audiences for whom access to central London provision is a challenge, and we will promote relationships between outer and inner London-based companies to bring great art to communities with the least engagement. We will invest in carnival and festivals that combine high-quality art with significant audience development. In this vein, we will support the five Olympic Boroughs and the Create Festival to provide access for the communities in east London to the very best art – an example of building relationships with local authorities and the voluntary and community arts organisations to achieve maximum benefits.
The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative
Many large organisations in London have an outstanding track record of attracting private giving. We will identify best practice, recognising that the learning from a number of organisations could help others to become more resilient. We intend
to support consistent and strategic partnerships and alliances with a range of partners, including commercial promoters and publishers and digital providers,
to better understand and exploit the value of the subsidised arts offer.
The London team will continue to lead nationally for the Arts Council in addressing climate change and environmental sustainability, working with the sector to implement a strategy to reduce carbon emissions and the environmental impact of our work.
The arts leadership and workforce are diverse and highly skilled
We will recognise and celebrate the role of London arts leaders in the development of artform and workforce, because of the critical mass of ecology and engaged and informed audiences in the capital. We will create meaningful opportunities for a London arts leadership cohort to meet and work together for the benefit of the arts in the capital and more widely. We see key London arts leaders, many of whom already offer mentoring support, associate programmes and a visible leadership role, formalising their contribution through this.
Every child and young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts
We will invest in organisations that provide high-quality engagement with children and young people, including hard to reach communities and disabled children and young people such as LSO St Luke’s, Kinetika, Serpentine, East London Dance, Ockhams Razor, Oily Cart, Discover, Fevered Sleep and Children’s Book Show.
Through our Bridge organisation, A New Direction, we will build on work
already begun with London Children’s Services to improve access to the arts
for young people, widening this conversation to include our new remit for museums and libraries.
MIDLANDS AND THE SOUTH WEST
Talent and artistic excellence are thriving and celebrated
The Midlands and the South West is a hugely diverse area with many different communities, both rural and urban, many different kinds of arts infrastructure and different challenges and opportunities.
The area has organisations at all scales with outstanding national and international reputations, with particular strengths in theatre, digital innovation, crafts and the visual arts. We will work with these organisations and other partners to improve talent development opportunities.
Diversity, and particularly the development of disability arts, is a priority for the area. We will identify organisations that can work across the area to develop new networks and promote critical debate and best practice that help drive an artistically-led approach to diversity.
In order to secure the legacy of London 2012 across the area we will invest in innovative outdoor and site specific events. We will work with tourism, media and broadcast partners to profile the arts throughout the area.
More people experience and are inspired by the arts
We will work in partnership with funded organisations, local authorities and others to reach parts of the area that currently have low engagement in the arts. We will develop the rural touring offer and improve collaborative working between funded organisations that produce, tour and present work, ensuring that they help us to address places with low engagement.
We will encourage geographic approaches to shared marketing and audience development. We will take an area approach to commissioning services on data collection and benchmarking, using collaboration and knowledge sharing to build the skills of the sector in areas such as marketing, PR and profiling, customer retention and programming.
We will skill up the sector in the use of digital platforms to extend reach and accessibility for audiences.
The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative
We will work with Local Economic Partnerships and engage with the business sector across the area. We will engage with the governance structure of our key organisations, working with them as drivers for change. We will build on the
area’s strengths in the creative economy to support organisations to develop models that are more financially sustainable, with a particular focus on the new capital infrastructure in the area. We will promote collaborative work across the area, for example by supporting joint ventures in back office services and the sharing of resources.
The arts leadership and workforce are diverse and highly skilled
Many of the leading organisations in the Midlands and the South West deliver programmes of talent development, but engagement with skills development is less developed. We will work with the further and higher education sector and other partners to create and promote career progression routes into the arts in order to encourage diversity. We will identify arts leaders in the area with a national profile who can share knowledge and skills, assume a civic role, develop new leaders and advocate for the sector.
Every child and young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts
There is a huge breadth and diversity of work taking place for children and young people across the area. Many of the funded organisations in the area have built
a national reputation for their work with young people. We will identify some of
our lead organisations who can work with Bridge organisations to share best practice and further develop the quality of work for children and young people across other organisations.
We will encourage the Bridge organisations in the area to work together and
work across regional and area boundaries where the geography makes sense.
We will continue to promote Artsmark and Arts Award.
NORTH
Talent and artistic excellence are thriving and celebrated
The North is ambitious, innovative and collaborative. There is a sense of people and place in the North that has a cultural, political and social coherence. Here the Arts Council works hand-in-hand with local government and other partners to set and exceed national standards.
The area has geographical clusters of world-class arts organisations, particularly in the great cities in the North, which act as engines of creativity and innovation. There are also distinctive strengths in work that is inspired by a sense of place or is located outside traditional arts buildin
We will respond to audience interest in site responsive work through existing partnerships with heritage, environmental and tourism agencies to exploit the area’s distinctive heritage and landscape. Public sphere art programmes such as Lakes Alive have emerged as an area strength.
We will maximise the potential joint impact of our strong visual arts offer, which includes BALTIC, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Liverpool Biennial, The Hepworth Wakefield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park amongst others. We will work to develop aspects of the North’s craft, design, jazz, dance and literature ecologies. We will build on the area’s strong track record in digital, for example through building partnerships with Media City in Salford. We will capitalise on the investment in writing and producing theatres and link this to the potential to
build on the strong history of a northern voice in television writing.
We will strive to create the conditions for the North as a place where artists can live, work and thrive, for example by building on the availability of studio spaces and exploring methods of encouraging national and international recognition of
the North’s artists.
More people experience and are inspired by the arts
There is evidence that many communities in this area have much lower engagement in the arts than in other parts of the country. We will convene area-wide discussions amongst National portfolio organisations to share best practice in tackling this challenge.
We have distinctive strengths in work that is inspired by a sense of place or is located outside traditional arts buildings. We will make the most of the area’s strength in arts in the public realm to increase community engagement with inspiring art.
We will maximise opportunities for northern and national touring, including rural touring, using spaces outside of the established mid- and large-scale circuit of presenting venues. We will identify specific places of low engagement and, working with partners, use strategic funding to address these challenges.
The arts are sustainable, resilient and innovative
We will develop relationships with the business sector in the north in partnership with key National portfolio organisations. We will work to implement the Catalyst programme working with arts organisations of varying scales across the North.
We will work with Local Enterprise Partnerships and others in support of proposals for the Regional Growth Fund. We will focus on the development of collaborative networks and consortia and we will develop a strategic programme across the North to support and encourage innovative models, including social enterprise approaches. We will support building-based organisations to be exemplars in partnership working, for example by hosting smaller organisations and helping to develop talent, particularly focusing on an artistically-led approach to diversity.
The arts leadership and workforce are diverse and highly skilled
We will build on existing relationships with higher education institutions.
We will work with key National portfolio organisations to develop an internal marketplace for mentoring, skills exchange, secondments, job exchanges
and leadership development.
The North offers an international standard of leadership in the field of arts and disability with organisations such as DaDa and Mind the Gap at the fore.
We will explore the potential of the Creative Case for diversity, which focuses
on artistic leadership.
Every child and young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of the arts
The North has a strong tradition of youth arts and youth theatre. We will work with the Bridge organisations to ensure there is a high quality offer to children and young people in the North. We will ensure that National portfolio organisations address this goal and extend good practice of organisations such as BALTIC in involving young people as artists, decision makers and future leaders. We will embed the new Artsmark in schools across the area and increase the number of young people in the area who achieve the Arts Award.
6. OUR ROLE
Championing, developing and investing
We work to get great art to everyone by championing, developing and investing in artistic and cultural experiences and knowledge that enrich people’s lives.
· Our aim in championing is to embed arts and
culture in public life through advocacy and by working in partnership
· In developing, we work with the sector and other partners to identify challenges, seize opportunities and address gaps in provision
· In investing, we aim to make informed decisions about how best to allocate public money to ensure that arts and culture thrive
Championing
The Arts Council is a powerful advocate for arts and culture in England, working with the sector and other partners to embed arts and culture in public life. During 2011-15, we will make the most of our unique overview of arts and culture in England to champion its value within society and the economy, and to promote work that will deliver the priorities of Achieving great art for everyone.
We will communicate the breadth and detail of our investment programmes and development work, ensuring that the Arts Council’s investment in arts, museums and libraries is transparent and accountable to the public and to our stakeholders, and to maximise the impact that it has.
We will bring together a wide range of creative voices to debate and progress issues across the arts and culture sector, from large key national events such as the State of the Arts conference to regional and local meetings and discussions. And we will advocate for arts and culture through the publication and dissemination of research, such as our Arts audiences: insight research and policy information around the impact and value of arts and culture, using a multi-channel approach that encompasses digital, PR, media relations, marketing, events, and public affairs.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is our sponsor Government department. We have a funding agreement with DCMS and, through it, we are accountable to Parliament for our work and for our management of public funds. We will continue to keep Parliament informed about our work and to maintain a coherent and powerful voice for the arts and culture through work with industry groups, think tanks, and thought leaders. We will continue to highlight areas where arts and culture can contribute to the Government’s agenda, and represent the views of the sector on key issues that impact on the arts, for example by responding to Government consultations.
Developing
The Arts Council plays a vital development role for the arts in England, working with the sector and other partners to identify challenges, seize opportunities and address gaps in provision.
We will work closely with a range of partners to champion the value of the arts, to deliver the work set out in this Plan and to maximise the impact of the sector.
We will develop partnerships with local authorities where there is evidence of, or a strong potential for, a shared agenda for arts and culture and provide generic advice on development and funding to all local authorities. We will develop shared investment approaches with Local Enterprise Partnerships, businesses and local authorities, promoting the contribution the arts can make to economic growth, cultural tourism, jobs and skills.
Our relationships with local authorities and other strategic partners will become even more important as our own organisational capacity is reduced and we shift our leadership culture further towards one of enabling and facilitating.
Over the period 2011-15 we will use our strategic funding in particular to target challenges, opportunities or gaps in the delivery of the 13 priorities set out in
Achieving great art for everyone.
Working with funded organisations
In addition to our strategic funding, the work that we do with funded organisations on a day-to-day basis will also play an important developmental role. Our relationship managers often act as valuable ‘critical friends’ to funded organisations, providing feedback to organisations and suggesting other sources of advice and support. The Arts Council’s self-evaluation framework is also a key tool to support organisations to develop themselves. Find out more about how the National portfolio will help us deliver our goals on our website.
Investing
The Arts Council is the largest investor in the arts in England. Over the period of this Plan, we will invest £1.4 billion funding from the Government and an expected £0.85 billion funding from the National Lottery in arts organisations, projects and individuals across the country.
Over the next few years, we will look at all of our programmes and investments and consider where an integrated approach would work best for all. We will pilot programmes that look to encourage collaboration between museums and arts organisations, exploring the opportunities that can be grasped through an
integrated approach.
Our investment in arts and culture over the period of 2011-15:
NATIONAL PORTFOLIO
FUNDING
· investing £1.4 billion of Grant in aid and National Lottery funds over the period of this Plan (includes 2011/12, a transitional year for regularly funded organisations)
· replaced our regular funding programme
· distributed through an open application process
· funds a diverse portfolio of 696 organisations different in size, artform practice, business models, leadership and governance, stage of development and proportion of income from Arts Council
· includes £18 million Lottery funding to support touring by National portfolio organisations and £10.5 million for work with children and young people over the period of this Plan
STRAGETIC FUNDING
· investing £440 million of National Lottery and Grant in aid funds over the period of this Plan
· used to target key areas and seize opportunities in the delivery of our 13 priorities
· subject to an open application process, but applications are solicited where appropriate
· National portfolio organisations are eligible
to apply
Strategic funding comprises:
· a small number of grant programmes including Catalyst, Capital and Touring
· grant commissions including Audience focus and Artsmark
· a general strategic grant programme
GRANTS FOR THE ARTS
· an open-access funding programme for
the arts that offers support to individuals
and organisations
· a Lottery budget of £202 million earmarked for this programme over the period of this Plan
· reaches new people – 56 per cent of applications and 40 per cent of grants relate
to individuals or organisations not previously funded by the Arts Council
· one third of all beneficiaries are from socially excluded backgrounds
· National portfolio organisations are ineligible
to apply
RENAISSANCE IN THE REGIONS
· a programme to transform England’s
regional museums
· contains two major investment programmes:
· a grant programme of c £20 million a year,
run on an open application basis
· strategic funding of c £15 million a year, available to individual museums for
project-based work
To find out more about our plans for investment over the period
2011-15 visit our website.
7. MEASURING SUCCESS
Our performance
We seek the following outcomes from our work:
· Excellence - outstanding art and outstanding
art experiences
· Reach - more people attending and taking part
in the arts
· Engagement - more people feeling that the
arts are meaningful to them
· Diversity - the arts reflecting the diversity of contemporary England
· Innovation - artists and organisations having the freedom, and being challenged, to innovate
We measure our own performance against a set of organisation Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to give an insight into how well we are achieving our goals and priorities. These are a mix of quantitative and qualitative KPIs that will provide a detailed picture of our performance, and the performance of the sectors we support. They will enable us to review our policies and priorities over the four years of our Plan and the 10 years of our strategic framework, and to adjust where we consider performance should be improved. Within this context, we have also asked our National portfolio organisations to adopt a small number of KPIs.
In addition, we run a regular Stakeholder Focus survey to support continual organisational improvement and help focus our delivery on what really matters to people. The survey asks the public, artists, arts organisations and other interested partners their opinions on what we are doing well and where we need to improve. We use the research to help create a better dialogue with stakeholders and to identify where we need to improve. The survey is run regularly so that we can measure any changes in opinions and to track our progress. Results from the latest survey can be found on our website.
8. OUR ORGANISATION
Our organisational aim is that the Arts Council is one confident organisation that achieves and delivers. We are:
· passionate – we believe in the fundamental power of the arts to
transform lives
· bold – we have the confidence and the courage to take risks and explore new ideas and we encourage others to do the same
· nurturing – we help support growth, creativity and innovation in others
· knowledgeable – we share the experience and expertise of our people and our partners within a learning environment
· collaborative – we listen to and work with our people and our partners to ensure we are greater than the sum of our parts
· accountable – we are open and transparent in our decision-making and how we spend money
Governance and risk
National Council as our Board of trustees and our Chief Executive as Accounting Officer are jointly responsible for maintaining a sound system of internal control that supports the achievement of the Arts Council’s policies, aims and objectives, safeguarding the public funds and assets for which we are responsible, and ensuring compliance with our financial regulations. The Arts Council’s control framework includes our governance structure and our risk management framework.
Our national Council and our regional councils
National Council is the non-executive board of Arts Council England. It is made up of 16 members, including the national Chair, Dame Liz Forgan, and nine are members who also hold regional responsibilities. We also have an observer on our non-executive board. Members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The chair of the London Regional Arts Council is, however, appointed by the Mayor of London. Each member is appointed because of their special interest in, or experience of, the arts as practising artists or arts administrators, senior academics or public or private sector executives.
A list of national Council members can be found on our website.
National Council members are responsible for ensuring the achievement of our objectives, which are to develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and practice of the arts, and to increase the accessibility of the arts to the public. They do this by deciding on policy and priorities, and investing money in artists and arts organisations directly and through the regional councils.
The chair of the national Council provides strategic leadership to the Arts Council and acts as an ambassador and advocate for the Arts Council and the arts. The chair also ensures that Council acts as an effective team to provide effective corporate governance, and that there is a harmonious and effective working relationship between the national and regional offices.
Under the terms of the Royal Charter, national Council may establish regional councils. The national Council values the live connection with artists, local government and organisations that the councils create regionally.
It has chosen to establish nine regional councils to provide advice, make funding decisions and advocate for the arts in England. Regional arts councils are also responsible for supporting and promoting the organisation’s mission and objectives in the region.
Generally, each regional council has 15 members including their chairs, eight of which are appointed by the Arts Council, and the remaining six are representatives of local government. South East Regional Arts Council has 20 members, reflecting the large population of the region, eight of which are representatives of local government in that region. In addition to the chair, the Mayor of London appoints four members of the London Regional Arts Council, six members are appointed by the Arts Council and another four by London local government. You can find a list of regional council members on our website.
Executive Board is the primary executive decision-making body of the Arts Council, made up of the eight executive directors and our Chief Executive, Alan Davey.
It is responsible for developing the long-term strategy for the Arts Council and for ensuring delivery of our plan. The role of the executive board is to:
· oversee the development and implementation of corporate strategy
· undertake high-level monitoring to ensure delivery of the Arts Council plan
· make major recommendations to Council within delegated powers, and to approve further delegations as appropriate
Risk management
Risk management is embedded across our business practices. It is a key consideration when we plan our work and make decisions and it influences how we monitor the investment decisions we make. We distinguish between operational risks and strategic risks. Operational risks are particular to a region, area, department, activity, programme or project, and they may not necessarily affect our ability to achieve our strategy. Strategic risks if realised, adversely affect the Arts Council’s ability to achieve its strategy, and also often have an adverse effect on the external reputation of the Arts Council. Management and control of strategic risks is regularly reported to our executive directors and to our performance and audit committee, a sub-committee of national Council.
You can find out more about our governance structure and our system of internal controls in our annual review.
Our structure
Our organisation is divided administratively into head office and four areas:
East and South East
This area is made up of two regions, the East and the South East, each led by a regional director. The area is led by Executive Director, Andrea Stark.
London
Because of the size of the portfolio and the concentration of artists, the London area office is organised differently to other areas. It is led by Executive Director, Moira Sinclair, with directors for each artform: combined arts, dance, literature, music, theatre, and visual arts.
North
This area is made up of three regions, the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber, each led by a regional director. The area is led by Executive Director, Jim Tough.
South West and Midlands
This area is made up of three regions: the East Midlands, the South West and the West Midlands, each led by a regional director. The area is led by Executive Director, Laura Dyer.
Head office
The area teams and our head office work together to make sure that local relationships and on-the-ground intelligence feed the national overview and vice versa, to make sure that we have maximum impact nationally.
Head office provides core strategic functions, leadership and support. It is divided into four departments, each led by an executive director:
· Advocacy and Communications is led by Alison Cole. The department is responsible for managing our communications and championing the arts
· Arts is led by Barbara Matthews. It is responsible for providing a national overview, policy development, specialist advice, long-term strategic thinking and research and managing national strategic partnerships
· Arts Planning and Investment is led by the Chief Operating Officer, Althea Efunshile. It is responsible for day to day operations, developing and managing our investment programmes, business planning, information management, evaluation, diversity and governance
· Resources is led by Anupam Ganguli. It is responsible for key business resources including finance, property, HR, IT and business process, and legal services
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