We've been investigating how the new government's approach might support creative health. Below we set out a few thoughts based partly on attending a fringe event at this year’s Labour conference with the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Lisa Nandy, hosted by the Fabian Society.
Cross-departmental working?
Firstly, it's clear the government is committed to cross-departmental working. This is bigger than it might sound. Last time we asked a shadow minister about this – maybe eighteen months ago? – cross-departmental working at a national level was dismissed as pie-in-the-sky thinking; but the government is now all about ‘picking up the phone’ and meeting colleagues in other departments. Underlining this, Lisa Nandy now sits on all five of Labour’s "Mission Boards". These are ministerial boards set up to deliver the 5 Labour Missions. This means Culture will be present in discussions about economic growth, energy, crime, opportunity, and – crucially – health.
More specifically, there is a clear acceptance within the departments of culture and health of the relationship between culture and creativity and health and wellbeing. This might sound like common sense to our members, but the battle to see this acknowledged and championed both by the wider cultural sector and now government has been a long one; and to hear government ministers not just accepting this premise but seeing potential in this relationship is a real milestone.
Long-term thinking?
The government has also committed to multi-year funding for local authorities – moving away from competitive bidding. This should create a space for people to plan; and allow for more strategic thinking including across departments. The commitment to longer-term thinking seems to be reflected, too, in the desire of Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) to stay in post for longer so that these roles can be more strategic and effective.
The Secretary of State for Health, West Streeting, responded to the Investigation into the NHS published on 12 September by Lord Darzi, by calling for three "big shifts": from hospital to community care; from analogue to digital; and from treating sickness to preventing it. This is extremely significant for creative health, since we are now working with a government primarily concerned with social determinants, with social care and with prevention. Specifically, the report itself recommends the following for the new NHS long-term plan:
- Re-engage staff and re-empower patients: This relates clearly to the well-evidenced impact of creative and cultural activities in hospital and other clinical contexts – not only on patient wellbeing and recovery times but also on staff wellbeing, turnover, resilience.
- Simplify and innovate care delivery for a neighbourhood NHS. […] embrace new multidisciplinary models of care that bring together primary, community and mental health services. Creative health is clearly a key pillar of this multidisciplinary offer.
Equity?
The Secretary of State has spoken repeatedly about equitable access to the arts, and noted that “for too long people haven’t seen themselves reflected” in what the country produces. She has also repeatedly announced the end of the ‘culture wars’ and a return to the integrity of the arms-length principle. But less direct attention has been paid to the aftermath of the summer’s racist riots and the impact this has had on the cultural sector – as well as the role the sector has in telling a different story. She has spoken more generally about the role of civil society in building community – as in this letter shared by NCVO in the wake of the riots – but somehow culture is missing here.
At the fringe, though, Nandy committed to “end the deadening debate between excellence and access”. In this creative health sector, there’s never really been a debate – we all know that access is excellence – but it’s reassuring nonetheless to hear this said by DCMS, which has tended until now to see these as opposing aims. It's reassuring, too, that the Secretary of State is committed to putting the arts back into education (STEAM not STEM) through its curriculum review – and to hear her speak about the importance of building confidence through creative practice especially in children and young people.
Localism?
Nandy has referred to a planned review of Arts Council England, which she has said would focus on whether ACE is responding to local priorities. She mentioned examples of organisations helicoptering into communities and “doing to” the community when the work could be better done by organisations rooted in that area. ACE is arguably one of the few agencies that has tried to spread its funding outside London, benefitting areas like our own home town of Barnsley.
The government is clearly committed to devolution and Nandy spoke warmly about the work Tracey Brabin is leading as West Yorkshire Mayor, with One Creative North. This aligns well with the Creative Health Review's recommendations that Mayoral Authorities take a leading role in developing creative health; the fact that Brabin is an advocate for creative health may be helpful to us all. At a Devolution Health Commission meeting last month, Andrew Gwynne, Minister for Public Health, spoke about the Health Mission and the Mission Board – and included museums, galleries and theatres as beneficial for longer lives better lived. All of this will be supported by a new “M10” network established by mayoral authorities to embed creative health in their work.
Money?
It’s worth noting that the government sees the “creative industries” as central to the government’s industrial strategy; definitely not a “nice to have”, but essential to our economic future. New tax relief schemes are already underway that reflect this belief – you may have seen the film industry reliefs announced this month. (Our colleagues in heritage are calling for more tax reform to support, amongst other things, maintenance costs.) There was also talk at the fringe event of maximising community assets, easing planning constraints to allow people to repurpose heritage for community use for example.
But the sticking point is money. So far we have no idea whether there will be any material increase in the government’s financial commitments to culture. And we all know the dire state of arts funding. Arts Council England remains our biggest, most committed funder in this sector (see p.8 here), and crucially their investment underpins the burgeoning infrastructure in creative health as well as project work. So the DCMS settlement really, really matters to us – and this commitment is crucial to persuading our partners in health and social care to invest more consistently.
Nandy is “not interested in patching up broken systems” – she wants to take a much more systematic approach to rebuilding the “ecosystem” of the arts. She said: “people feel the system banging up against them when they’re trying to make change, rather than getting behind them”; and that “there's more ambition than I’ve ever known … imagine what they could do with a government that backed them?”
Let's see.
For more on this, you might want to refer to the NCCH/CHWA guidance for speaking to MPs, and to the Social Biobehavioural Research Group's thoughts on how creative health can deliver government plans.