Jeremy Hunt’s keynote speech this week highlighted four ‘key principles’ to the new government’s approach to culture and the arts. The second is that ‘culture and arts are for everyone’. We’re delighted.
But exactly what does that mean? The ‘Third Programme’ (Radio 3 to younger readers) was perceived as a way of making culture accessible to the masses. It was free and available to everyone with a radio. That didn’t mean that more than just a tiny proportion of the population actually took the opportunity to listen. ‘Free and available’ to everyone is very different to ‘engaging and attractive’ for everyone. Is the aim of the new Government’s policy to remove perceived barriers around price or actually to increase the number and range of people enjoying cultural experiences?
As examples of ‘culture for everyone’, the new Secretary of State cited free museums and galleries and free libraries. We’re the last people to suggest you start charging for museum entry, but it’s clear that while making entry ‘free’ has increased visits and broadened the range of visitors, it still hasn’t made the demographic reflective of the population as a whole. And adult physical visits to ‘free’ libraries are continuing to decline.
Mr Hunt then went on to highlight developing and expanding education programmes. There’s significant robust evidence to suggest that if you are going to make a difference to adult engagement levels you need to focus on high quality experiences for young people, both in and out of school. If you give young people the access to experiences that turn them on to culture (rather than alienate them from it), we should see an impact in years to come.
I think most of my colleagues in research and audience development would agree that appropriate focus on young people’s cultural experiences is the most important tool to have a long-term impact on the number and range of people enjoying cultural experiences. But it’s not the only thing we could be doing to make culture more engaging and attractive for everyone. Despite the challenging times, we could see a statistically significant shift in the number and range of people engaging with culture before the end of this parliament. Our manifesto sets out five clear steps to achieving this.
Let’s hope that the initially encouraging rhetoric further develops in the coming months to become something closer to ‘culture and arts are engaging and attractive for everyone’.
David Brownlee, Chief Executive, Audiences UK
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