Retrospective on cultural devolution published
Culture Commons has today published a new Discussion Paper exploring the ways in which the creative, cultural sand heritage sectors have featured in the story of devolution in the UK so far.
The new paper, entitled ‘A review of devolution and the UK's creative, cultural, and heritage ecosystem’, brings together a cross-disciplinary team of creative industries, cultural sector and devolution experts.
The paper, co-authored by Trevor MacFarlane FRSA (Founder of Culture Commons), Eliza Easton (Founder of Erskine Analysis) and Jack Shaw, (Senior Policy Advisor at Labour Together), finds that:
From 1997, successive UK governments have centred the 'creative industries' in their industrial strategies, and the strategic importance of the wider ecosystem in addressing policy priorities is increasingly recognised in all four nations.
Since 2010, financial constraints across the UK has meant that many local authorities have under-invested in the ecosystem - particularly in the cultural and heritage sectors.
Since 2014, the rise of combined authorities has opened up a new frontier for cultural policy in England. Metro Mayors have played a relatively peripheral role so far but that is now changing; they are moving their thinking on from ‘duties’ and ‘powers’ towards shared decision-making over the priorities and distribution of resources.
In the devolved nations, the debate has tended to focus on what the UK Government should devolve to Holyrood, Senedd and Stormont, and comparatively little attention has been paid to ‘double devolution’ from those legislatures into their respective regions, sub-regions and localities.
Insights from this paper have already been informing policy recommendations that Culture Commons made earlier this year as part of ‘The Future of Cultural Devolution in the UK’ - a major four nations open policy development programme led by Culture Commons in coalition with 30 places and sector bodies across the UK.
