Tender care

Arts & Business (A&B) is working in partnership with Arts Council England and other delivery partners to help prepare the arts sector for strategic commissioning. Our work in the coming months will address how best to frame the substantial and sustainable shifts in the capacity of the cultural sector to continue to deliver growth across those income streams which they can most directly control: earned income and private investment.
A&B is offering a range of support. Centrally, we will provide additional support to the boards of arts organisations via our Board Bank and Board Development Programme. We are designing commissioning toolkit sessions as part of our 2010/11 Masterclass programme. In the South West, we are already providing business expertise to county-led consortia of arts organisations, who are preparing themselves to make strategic commissioning tenders. Some of this expertise comes in the form of specialised sessions looking at how an organisation repackages or reimagines its assets and capital for a new market, sometimes called ‘product ideation’. We believe that this approach, and the focused support that we offer, will ensure that the sector becomes master of its own destiny. The sector faces stiff challenges to become more entrepreneurial in all that it does. We aim to support the cultural sector, business, local and central government, to best respond to these challenges and transform the arts economy by developing diverse business models, ensuring a vibrant future.