The activities, structure and funding of the British Council’s arts and cultural work will be affected if changes proposed in a new strategy document are ratified. ‘British Council Arts Strategy: Connecting the UK with the World through Culture’ suggests that the organisation should work across its arts, science, education and English language teams, countering to a certain extent recent reports that its arts department would be disbanded. The proposed ‘Integrated Cultural Relations programme’ details the Council’s ambition to run “major multi-country programmes across all the sectors”, overcoming the restrictions of projects limited to single disciplines and reaching a greater number of people. The Council hopes that this will “extend the reach and impact of the arts”. It also plans to launch a seven-year International Cultural Leadership Project with partners in Europe, North America and the Middle East. Existing support for the UK presence at the Venice Biennale and other international work for UK artists will continue.
A shift “away from the developed to the developing world” is also proposed. The British Council told AP, “It is important to stress that as we reallocate resources to parts of the world such as the Middle East, Asia and the emerging economies of China and India, we will continue to maintain a presence in Europe and North America in line with the Council’s corporate strategy. This applies to all the sectors we work in and not just the arts.” This move will make it harder for the Council to leverage extra funds, and therefore a higher proportion of its grant-in-aid funding would go to support arts activities, rising from around £20m to around £30m a year. “It would be premature to second-guess the outcome of the consultation”, the Council adds, “but it is our stated ambition that our findings will make the case for an increase in our overall global arts spend over the coming years.” The consultation period for the document has been extended to the end of April following a strong response from the sector, and a final ‘consultation forum’ will take place on 28 April.