Introduce national arts pass for under 25s, says report

The UK government should establish a national arts pass for under 25s, according to a new report.

The Arts for All: Tackling Barriers to Arts and Cultural Participation in London report, sponsored by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and Cultural Mile, analysed the barriers Londoners face to enjoying the capital’s arts and culture offer.

It found large disparities in engagement with arts and culture across the city’s geographies and communities, with parts of the city seeing some of the lowest levels of engagement in arts and culture across the country.

Using figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the report says almost half (48%) of people in Richmond-upon-Thames have engaged in arts and culture online over the last 12 months, almost twice the rate in the lowest engagement boroughs of City of London (25%) and Redbridge (28%).

Cost is the most significant barrier to greater engagement with arts and cultural events, with results of a 2024 survey finding no forms of arts and cultural activity were perceived as affordable by Londoners universally.

While a majority of Londoners feel reducing the cost of admission would make them more like to attend arts and cultural events, the report warns that discounted tickets aimed at widening access could just reduce the cost of attendance to those already visiting. 

However, it also points out that moves to make arts and culture events more universally accessible, such as the decision to make national museums free back in 2001, are likely to have indirect effects on barriers to cultural participation. 

The report’s authors, Rob Anderson and Daniel Reast from independent think tank Centre for London, write that an arts pass for under 25s, which they recommend to be implemented nationally, would “ensure every young person regardless of background can enjoy the best of London and the UK’s arts and culture scene”.

“Enabling access and engagement with arts and culture at a younger age is crucial for supporting creativity, critical thinking and with arts and culture longer term,” the report adds.

“The government should consider the development of a new arts pass for all under-25s to reduce the cost of attending cultural events for all young people to ensure access for all, regardless of background.”

Some European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, have run initiatives that offer cultural vouchers to young people once they turn 18.

Wider cultural policy

The arts pass suggestion is one of a series of recommendations in the report aimed at national, regional and local governments and cultural institutions.

Among the other recommendations is promoting the value of the arts in the national curriculum, restoring local government funding to 2010 levels and investing in Arts Council England (ACE) funding for London.

The report also suggests allowing GLA to experiment with a tourist tax to be invested in the capital’s arts and culture scene and calls on ACE to build on its  Cultural Compacts model to “deeply engage with and respond to the priorities and preferences of local organisations and communities”.

In the report’s introduction, Andersen and Reast write that “fresh policy is needed to cement London’s cultural success and ensure its citizens reap the benefit”.

They add that while practical issues, including cost, are of paramount importance when encouraging wider engagement with the arts, efforts must go beyond addressing such barriers.

“Practical, attitudinal and functional barriers to engagement with culture interact with and reinforce one another, and tackling the more apparent or intuitive barriers – often practical – may not help as much as we might expect,” the authors wrote.

“Initiatives to increase engagement and access to arts and culture must successfully address how barriers crosscut and feed into one another; this will minimise dead-weight and, crucially, create positive feedback loops.”