Arts and Culture
Great art and culture for everyone.
Arts Council England champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives. They support a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. They believe that art and culture make life better, helps to build diverse communities and improves our quality of life. Great art and culture can inspire our education system, boost our economy and give our nation international standing.
A credit to Britain: Why public investment in art and culture matters
Norwich Arts Centre is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation. The National portfolio funding programme was officially launched on 1 April 2012 to provide funding for a national portfolio of 696 organisations. Created through an open-access process, it replaced the regular funding programme, that ended on 31 March 2012.
National portfolio organisations are essential to ACE’s success in achieving the goals and priorities set out in Achieving great art for everyone. All National portfolio organisations aim to be financially healthy and resilient.
Arts Council England invests in the arts and culture because they believe everyone should have the chance to experience great art. In addition, our investment has significant benefits for our economy and our communities.
How the arts and cultural sector contributes to the economy
The Arts Council works to support and develop the cultural sector through intelligent interventions that create a platform for economic growth:
- arts and culture are great value for money: costing each taxpayer just 25p per week, or 14p per week per head of population in England
- Government investment in arts and culture can help turn the country’s finances around: for every £1 of public money invested, up to £6 is generated for the local economy
- funding to arts and culture is only 0.05 per cent of government spending
- arts and culture creates employment – 694,700 jobs in England and growing
- arts and culture make money for the country: the contribution of just the music, visual arts and performing arts exceeds £4 billion a year
- arts organisations are hardworking businesses: On average 60 per cent of their total income comes from ticket sales, sponsorships, donations and philanthropy
- Government funding provides a small but firm foundation for arts and cultural businesses
How arts and culture improves communities and lives
Art and cultural experiences contribute to the development and wellbeing of children and young people and make people’s lives richer, and our communities stronger and more resilient:
- 78.9 per cent of adults in England engaged with the arts last year – the highest ever since records began
- from a street festival, to a local theatre panto, to a bandstand concert in the park – the arts bring our communities together and give us a sense of belonging
- our arts and culture is world class – in a YouGov poll 68 per cent of people who watched the Olympic opening ceremony said it made them feel proud to be British
- last year Arts Council funded organisations put on 11,893 school performances and 357,797 learning sessions for children and young people
- learning a musical instrument, singing in a choir, drawing, dancing – taking part in the arts improves children’s performance across the curriculum
Norwich Arts Centre is a PRS for Music Foundation Talent Development Partner (more information can be found here).
