Arts Council Chair talks about ‘white cliff-face of the arts establishment’.

A ‘fundamental shift’ in the Arts Council’s approach to diversity was announced yesterday by Chair Sir Peter Bazalgette, in a momentous speech that placed responsibility on every funded organisation to make their programme of work more reflective of the communities they serve.

During the speech, which he described as one of the most important he has given as Chair, Sir Peter said that the starting point must be the art itself: ‘Britain’s got many, many talents. And our work should reflect and engage with all our talent and communities. That’s how we will ensure work of true ambition and enduring quality’.

The speech marks the adoption of the Arts Council’s Creative Case for Diversity; an approach that sees the creative potential of diversity and equality as an opportunity to enrich the arts for artists, audiences and our wider society. We all have to embrace diversity to achieve our mission of Great art and culture for everyone.

From April 2015, funded organisations will be asked to shape their artistic programme to better reflect the communities they serve. Their progress on delivering the Creative Case for Diversity will be monitored and will influence their future funding.

As well as responding to the Creative Case for Diversity, funded organisations will still need to produce an equality action plan addressing areas such as the diversity of their workforce.

An Arts Council analysis of staff working at the National portfolio organisations from 2012/13 shows that overall representation from black and minority ethnic groups is currently 13%, beneath the national average of 15%. Government figures also show that the creative and cultural workforce more widely is less diverse now than it was in 2008-9, with the number of people defining themselves as white increasing from 92% to 93%.

White cliff-face of the arts establishment

Sir Peter said: ‘Some National portfolio organisations and Major partner museums are making good progress – but diverse-focused organisations have been shouldering this responsibility alone for too long, so from now on, the responsibility for promoting diversity within the leadership, workforce, programming and audiences, must belong to all our funded arts organisations.

‘For things to change, long term, they need to become more uncomfortable at the top. We have to open up access to power and to resources. Looking up, too many see the white cliff-face of the arts establishment and feel they just cannot climb it.

'We can’t give people creative talent. But we can and must give those with talent creative opportunities. The arts are a mirror for society; and if we sort this, the arts won’t have to make the case for diversity. The arts will simply be the case.’
From 2015, the Arts Council will:

monitor and support National portfolio organisations to ensure their programming reflects the diversity of contemporary England
highlight the progress our funded organisations make with their programmes, their audiences, and their workforce
use this data to inform the decisions taken on an organisation’s future funding
publish and comment on workforce diversity data for individual National portfolio organisations and Major partner museums

Our investment in the national portfolio is complemented by two other funding streams - grants for the arts (project funding) and our Strategic Funds. We analyse Grants for the arts to encourage more diverse applications. All of our Strategic Funds already take equality and diversity into account in their design and will support this new approach, for example the £25m Creative People and Places programme that directs money to areas of low arts engagement.

In addition, the Arts Council’s £6m diversity fund will address specific gaps, for example it will support Unlimited, celebrating the work of Deaf and disabled artists; a leadership programme and an ‘Agents for Change’ strand to help develop models of good practice, and a Creative Case Commissioning fund to invest in talent development outside the current portfolio.

For more information visit artscouncil.org.uk/creativecase