Resilient places
Local publicly funded culture can promote civic pride and change perceptions about a place, contributing to improvements in wider social and economic outcomes. Heritage in particular can be seen as driving up civic pride. It also helps with ‘democratisation’ by helping people to realise they can take part and make a difference.
In the Great Place programme, Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund worked together to “enable cultural and community groups to work more closely together and to place heritage at the heart of communities" - an example of this being in Tees Valley, where along with growing economic outputs a key outcome was to grow the shared sense of place and identity.
In Lowestoft, East Suffolk Council is leading work to address a 'culture of disappointment’ through regeneration inspired by the town’s maritime history.
Big Local is focused on giving people resources and support to do things in their communities over long timeframes – this was cited as an example by stakeholders we spoke to. It is aimed at enabling ‘resilient, dynamic, asset-rich communities’ that are better places to live.
Social mobility
Local publicly funded culture can help to address educational and skills inequalities and challenges around social mobility.
Students from low-income families who take part in arts activities at school are more likely to:
- get employment and stay in employment
- three times more likely to get a degree
- twice as likely to volunteer
- 20 per cent more likely to vote as young adults
- young offenders who take part in arts activities are 18 per cent less likely to re-offend.
Creativity is a national resource
As we face significant labour market and skills challenges and we must capitalise on opportunities created by green growth, automation and new global markets, which should be actively cultivated through our national and local strategies for education and skills.
To maximise our investment in culture and creativity, we need to draw on the widest pool of talent we can find. Public investment in culture and local cultural partnerships and collaborations are essential in bridging the gap between communities and creative learning, developing clear pathways of engagement for those who might otherwise have poor access to creative opportunity and employment.
There are many examples of cultural programmes contributing to social mobility. Arms-length bodies, such as ACE, the NLHF and Historic England have all (and continue to) invested heavily in social mobility programmes to address inequalities, and many cultural services and organisations have an excellent track record of delivery.
Addressing health inequalities
Local publicly funded culture can challenge health inequalities and the impact of loneliness exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Publicly funded arts and cultural services made enormous contributions to our daily lives and wellbeing during the COVID-19 restrictions. They have a role to play in supporting health at various levels in society, from contributing to general wellbeing across a population, to helping to prevent specific forms of ill health and providing treatment for acute health conditions (see the Power of Music report). The challenge now is to ensure that the value of arts and culture continues to be recognised during the post COVID recovery period, and benefits from publicly funded investment and support.
Cultural programmes have been shown to have specific benefits in clinical treatment of conditions such as dementia and depression as outlined in UK Music and Music for Dementia’s report The Power of Music.
Helix Arts who ran the Better Connected Project in Tyneside, to improve the mental health of 350 carers through arts and cultural activities.
More broadly, good cultural infrastructure and universal provision of cultural services at a population level has been shown to be beneficial to community wellbeing, promoting networked resilient communities. Engagement in cultural activity can play an important role in addressing issues of loneliness, exacerbated by the pandemic.
It is important to note that economic growth and enhanced wellbeing are closely intertwined and are not separate competing objectives. Wellbeing has been shown to be linked to higher levels of productivity.