Culture in England: Levelling Up

The “Levelling Up” White Paper outlined the Government’s intention to tackle cultural disparities and ensure that everyone, wherever they live, has the opportunity to enjoy the incredible benefits of culture in their lives. I am therefore pleased to announce a series of measures which will transform the landscape for arts and culture, to ensure that it benefits everyone. These measures build on a range of funding provided by the Government to support culture, including the unprecedented culture recovery fund—the largest investment in the arts in this country’s history—and are as follows:

The “Levelling Up” White Paper explained that additional funding announced at spending review 2021 for Arts Council England will be invested in creativity and culture. This extra funding will be invested in levelling up areas over the next three years, including via the Arts Council’s 2023-26 national portfolio funding round. The national portfolio is a group of organisations that gets regular funding from taxpayers via the Arts Council.

DCMS and Arts Council England have identified over 100 Levelling Up for Culture Places, based on areas of historically low cultural engagement and spending. Where possible, Arts Council England will prioritise its increased spending in these places over the spending review period, April 2022 to March 2025. This will ensure that more people and places have access to cultural and creative opportunities. A list of these places will be published on Arts Council England’s website.

The organisations which receive the greatest level of public subsidy, all of which are nationally and internationally renowned, will be expected to increase the total proportion of their combined impact in Levelling Up for Culture Places by 15% by March 2026.

Arts Council England will detail plans to support London-based applicants which wish to move, expand, or establish new activity outside London. For some organisations, this will be an opportunity to establish themselves in some of the many other brilliantly creative parts of the country. It is right that organisations which constitute the national portfolio help to deliver a truly national cultural offering.

We want arts and culture to be open and accessible to everybody. Cultural funding comes from taxpayers across the country, so people across the country should all have the opportunity to enjoy it—whether as artists, audiences, educators, or the new generations of talented people who will help to sustain and extend the creative brilliance for which our country is rightly renowned. The measures we are announcing today will help to make that happen.

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