The Government is to carry out a public body review of Arts Council England to ensure it is delivering in its mission to support high-quality arts and culture across the country.
The review is part of the Cabinet Office’s cross-government public body reviews programme – a standard process routinely carried out on all publicly-funded organisations. This will be the first such review of Arts Council England since 2017.
Dame Mary Archer, the former chairman of the Science Museum Group, is to lead the review, aided by an advisory panel featuring experts from across the arts and cultural sectors, supported by civil servants.
The Arts Council, which was founded in 1946 by a Royal Charter, makes funding decisions at arm’s length from the government of the day, using taxpayers’ and National Lottery players’ money to support engaging and innovative projects and organisations across the whole of England.
Through its latest funding round (2023–26), the Government is spending £445 million per year through Arts Council England, an increase from £410 million in the last round. This funding has been helping to increase access to the arts across the whole country, bringing high-quality arts and culture to the doorstep of millions of people, and enabling Arts Council England to support organisations in places where it previously did not. A record total of 985 organisations now receive regular funding from Arts Council England across the country as part of its National Portfolio Organisation programme.
Over the next three years Arts Council England is also committed to investing over £130 million of National Lottery funding per year in project funding for organisations and individuals, and another £50 million per year through development funds which include capital projects, cultural education, museum development and collection management.
As part of the standard process for reviews of this kind, the review team must identify how Arts Council England could implement 5% of cost savings. It will also assess how Arts Council England is delivering creative excellence in the arts to ensure that the projects it supports are ambitious and high-quality. The Government will then consider these as part of its response to the review.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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