Bread and roses: Making the case for cultural funding

Christmas is a time for giving and additional funding for culture and the arts will be in every local council’s stocking.

What do you mean, oh no it won’t?

Joking aside, a decade of significant reductions in funding from the UK Government has left local authorities wrestling with financial challenges.

How can they fulfil their statutory duties of service, care, and investment in their communities without neglecting the cultural assets, services, and infrastructure that are vital to their identity and their quality of life?

When young millworker women went on strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in the US in 1912 their marching call was: “Bread for all, and roses too.”

More than a century later, universal access to the bread of basic services and protection for our most vulnerable communities are once again the priority for those in local government, rather than the cultural roses that add so much value to people and their place.

Local authorities will have to weather growing pressure as they struggle to make ends meet.

And while the traditional Christmas panto may generate enough money for theatres to continue without financial assistance, many other cultural events do not.

How to build a case for investment in culture

The good news is that the culture and heritage sectors are better equipped than ever to make their case for funding that directly impacts the wellbeing of their local communities.

They can do this by putting forward evidence-led, strategic arguments for how and why culture can contribute to a diverse range of benefits and with what effect.

For example, in terms of priority mental health outcomes, money spent providing culture can prevent greater downstream costs for local authorities.

Arts Council England (ACE) has a 10-year strategy Let’s Create – and underpinning investment principles – that put people, communities and creativity centre stage.

ACE place-based programmes, such as the Creative People and Place Partnership Project, are carefully evaluated to provide valuable evidence.

This can be used to make the case for local services that deliver health and wellbeing, civic pride, social cohesion, and other outcomes enabled through cultural participation.

The Local Government Association (LGA) and the Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA) are also producing advocacy, strategic support, training, and evidence to make the case for culture as a social and economic necessity.

Creating culture with impact

Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to provide a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) to improve local community health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce inequalities.

They are not an end in themselves, but a continuous process of strategic assessment and planning. Their core aim is to develop local evidence-based priorities for commissioning which will improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities.

A Joint Cultural Needs Assessment (JCNA) is a seven-step plan for culture that is closely aligned to a local authority’s key objectives and priorities.

It sets out an evidence-led, partnership model that strongly demonstrates the contribution that culture makes to the most pressing and urgent needs of people and place.

The JCNA applies the JSNA principles and processes to cultural needs.

It is not a statutory responsibility. But the JCNA will structure a strategic plan, grounded in evidence-based priorities, to improve access to cultural opportunities for all, that are distinctive to place and the needs of local communities.

A new updated version of the JCNA Guidelines has recently been released by ACE and the LGA to support the strategic use of ACE’s Culture and Place Data Explorer and the LGA’s Cultural strategy in a box toolkit.

How culture can secure a share of scarce resources

The JCNA approach makes four key assumptions:

1. That the resources, expertise and accountability of local government are essential to enabling successful cultural place partnerships.
2. That sustainable investment in culture depends on making the business case that culture will significantly and demonstrably contribute to the key priorities identified in a JSNA and a local authority’s strategy for determining how limited resources can best be used to focus on priority needs and ambitions.
3. That a collaborative and collective approach to culture-led change will be more productive when resources, expertise and investment plans are linked together in a common and shared ambition.
4. That cultural organisations that address broader, place-based issues open themselves to possible new funding opportunities, strengthening and increasing their visibility as essential assets and services within their communities.

The original JCNA, launched in 2020, contributed to the success of early adopters. Developing a JCNA plan supported Bradford’s bid for UK City of Culture 2025 and Wandsworth’s for London Borough of Culture 2025.

Coventry’s JCNA plan - which was supported by Warwick Business School - shaped the activities and outputs delivered during Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture in 2021. It also led to the creation of a specific place profiler for Coventry built on local intelligence.

Meanwhile, the JCNA for Southampton supported a bid for UK City of Culture 2025 and the plan for a sustainable longer-term cultural legacy.

In an era of scarce public resources, the JCNA guidelines are designed to ensure that every effort from partners – including the cultural sector – is maximised and recognised.

The guidelines focus on collaborating, and making strategic use of evidence, to strengthen the impact of culture on communities and local needs.

This can set the stage for culture to continue to bloom and contribute to an improved quality of life for entire communities, not just the privileged few.

Further reading:

Six ways businesses can maximise their social impact

The Golden Thread: Five steps to improve the impact value of major events

National ambition for major events launches at the House of Lords

Six steps to harness the creativity of volunteers

Jonothan Neelands is Professor of Creative Education at Warwick Business School. He teaches Leadership and the Art of Judgement on the Accelerator MBA, Executive MBA, and Global Online MBA.

Mark Scott is a Research Fellow at Warwick Business School.

Val Birchall is Assistant Director for Cultural Services, Hammersmith and Fulham Council and Chair of the National Alliance for Cultural Services.

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