The Future of Cultural Devolution in the UK

Part Two:
The Programme

In this section, we explain how we designed and delivered a 12-month open policy development programme, starting with how we brought the partnership together, through to the activities we ran and how these ultimately informed the policymaking process. 

Organisations Engaged
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Insight Gathering sessions
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Knowledge Exchange sessions
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Policy Labs
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Insight Papers
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At Culture Commons, we believe that the people who are affected by a policy should be able to participate in its making. This is particularly important with policies of national significance that will impact on a whole ecosystem, like devolution. 

One of the reasons that the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem is characterised by disparities is that the full diversity of the stakeholders who make it up are not brought to the table to build policy together very often. This can lead to certain parts of the ecosystem – usually those that have the time and resource to give – shaping policies that impact everyone. 

This is why we designed an open policy development programme that purposefully invited everyone in – from local and regional governments, sector representative bodies, arm’s length bodies and grant-giving bodies, as well as the workforce (including freelancers) and the public too. Recognising the considerable variation in contexts across the country, we also engaged ecosystem stakeholders from across all regions and nations of the UK. 

‘Open Policy Making’ open up public policy making processes to a wider variety of stakeholders. We have adopted some of the key principles sitting behind this approach and built on others when designing this programme.  

Taking a radically open and transparent approach, we’ve been sharing summaries of every meeting, roundtable, panel, workshop and policy lab we’ve run, summarising insights gathered in a series of open-access reports.  

All of the partners that joined the programme did so with a shared commitment to some important working principles. 

Collaboration and Cooperation

Every aspect of the programme is built on a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach that recognises each partner’s unique expertise and insights as essential to collective problem-solving. 

Equal Contributions

Each partner has committed to contributing financially and in-kind to ensure the programme’s success. 

Shared Responsibility

Each partner has committed to contributing financially and in-kind to ensure the programme’s success. 

Open Access

All evidence gathering activities have been summarised in a publicly accessible Insight Paper. The outputs of our work, including the commissioned research papers, have been published under a Creative Commons ‘Attribution-NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)’ license, making them accessible and adaptable for broader use in the spirit of open knowledge. 

Digital-first

With such a small core team, 30 partners and very large number of ecosystem stakeholders to consult, we applied a ‘digital first’ approach to the programme. 

Culture Commons built and ran a bespoke and secure digital workspace to facilitate all programme workflows with partners. This enabled multiple partner organisations and their staff teams from different parts of the UK to contribute meaningfully to the ongoing policy design process, even if they were not able to attend all scheduled activities. 

The Policy Portal made a series of resources available to the partners: timetables of key programme activity; forums for administrative updates and more detailed policy discussions; minutes and recordings of all previous meetings; decision-making trackers; and a regularly updated digital library for sharing research, resources and more. 

Partners

one organisation, region or nation could ever meaningfully unpack the question of cultural devolution in the UK by working alone. That’s why, in late 2023, Culture Commons set out to convene a ‘coalition of the willing’ and develop a distinctly collaborative partnership model.

The intention was to run a small project that would enable us to get a sense of how the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem had featured in the story of devolution so far. If possible, we also wanted to see if we could get ahead of the potential risks and opportunities that further devolution might bring. 

As we began to tour around the country to invite partners to join us, something extraordinary happened. The conversations were richer and more detailed than we had imaged, and the level of interest in the programme was extremely high. We realised we’d have to think differently about the structure and scale of the programme if we were to uphold the principles of open policy making that we’d committed to.  

We immediately set about designing a bespoke open policy development programme that could hold space for a diversity of people, places, practitioners, sector bodies, funders, research institutions and decision makers. 

We’re delighted that 30 partners from across four UK nations joined us. Collectively, they bring a broad range of contexts, perspectives and objectives to the table. Each partners contributed both money and in-kind support to the same overall value, and each organisation has an equal place at the decision-making table. This was felt to be particularly important given the power dynamics at play when organisations with different profiles come together in this way. 

As ever, we must never assume that any one organisation or stakeholder group speaks for the whole (a common pitfall in policy making processes), but we can say that we have a good cross-section of the ecosystem at the table. Indeed, many of our partners represent much larger groups of stakeholders within the ecosystem through memberships, associations and networks, meaning the overall reach of the programme has been considerable. We’ve worked out that our Place Partners (local and regional governments) collectively serve over 7 million people. 

It is important to acknowledge that not all the organisations who expressed an interest in joining the programme were able to make a financial contribution or free up organisational time to participate. In the main, these were local authorities and cultural organisations working under severely pressured finances. Whilst the open policy development programme is a model we think we can apply in future activity, we will clearly need to give more consideration to how these stakeholders might be brought to the table in future. 

The programme was given strategic direction by a team made up of one senior representative from each of the programme partners. The Steering Panel provided a forum for high level engagement between all partners to agree the overall programme themes and research questions, feedback on emergent findings and finalise the final policy thinking. Each partner had one vote in all decision making moments throughout the programme lifecycle, regardless of size or role within the ecosystem. 

Steering Panel

The open policy development programme was given strategic direction by a team made up of representatives from each of the programme partners. (Alphabetical by organisation) 

Jane Richardson
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales 

Bernard Donoghue OBE
Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) 

Rachael Browning
Art Fund 

Paul Bristow
Arts Council England 

Lesley-Anne O’Donnell
Belfast City Council 

Jules Ient
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority 

Ruth Cayford
Cardiff Council 

Professor Ben Walmsley
Centre for Cultural Value 

Lorainne Cox
Creative Estuary 

Fran Hegyi OBE
Creative Industries Council 

Bernard Hay
Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre 

Trevor MacFarlane FRSA

Culture Commons 

Lori Anderson & Laura Dyer
Culture Counts (Scotland) 

Alison Clark
Durham Council and North East Combined Authority  

Marie-Claire Daly
Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Luis Jeronimo
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Rory Davies
Harlow Playhouse

Robert Llyod Sweet
Historic England

Isobel Hunter MBE
Libraries Connected

Lauren Lucas & Ian Leete
Local Government Association

Holly Donagh
Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Evy-Cauldwell French
RSA

Diana Buckley
Sheffield City Council

Surriya Falconer & Martin McKervey
Sheffield Culture Collective

Andy Gates
South Yorkshire Combined Authority

Professor Anita Taylor
University of Dundee

Alison McKenzie Folan
Wigan Council

 

Each of our Research Partners brought leading academics into the programme with them. This cross-disciplinary team of experts was co-chaired by Professor Ben Walmsley, Dean of Cultural Engagement at the University of Leeds and Director of Policy at Centre for Cultural Value and Professor Anita Taylor, Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design at University of Dundee. Both Ben and Anita also represented the researchers on the Steering Panel. 

Research Team

The programme engaged researchers from higher education institutes to produce research and support the overall policymaking process. (Alphabetical by organisation) 

Dr John Wright
Centre for Cultural Val

Dr Paul Gault
University of Dundee

Dr Susan Mains
University of Dundee

Emma Preston
University of Dundee

Dr Anna Robb
University of Dundee

Professor Anita Taylor
University of Dundee

Professor Leila Janchovich
University of Leeds

Professor Ben Walmsley
University of Leeds

Dr John Wright
University of Leeds

Professor Catherine Durose
University of Liverpool

Dr James Hickson
University of Liverpool

Susan Jarvis
University of Liverpool

Anthony Noun
University of Liverpool

Professor Catherine Richardson
University of Kent

Dr Vishalakshi Roy
University of Kent

Chloe Street-Tarbatt
University of Kent

Dr Heidi Ashton
University of Warwick

Dr Bethany Rex
University of Warwick

Dr Jonathan Vickery
University of Warwick

Dr David Wright
University of Warwick

Click on a logo below to read more about each partner.

Place Partners

Sector Partners

Research Partners

Observer Partners

Timeline

Themes

To help us make sense of what was likely to be a very wide range of potential areas of research interest the programme partners agreed four core themes right at the top of the programme. 

Decision Making

The risks and opportunities associated with increased decision making for local and regional decision making bodies. 

Place Shaping

The role of the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem in more place-based socio-economic regeneration.  

Funding

The future of funding in an increasingly localised decision making landscape. 

Local Voice

How the public might be meaningfully included in local cultural decision making associated with their own areas. 

Research Questions

Culture Commons set about drafting a set of 20 research questions that would sit under each of the four themes. These questions were iterated with the programme partners and were used to shape the our Evidence Gathering activities.  

The kinds of questions we put together included: 

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How prepared are local decision makers for increased local control? What is the role for cultural practices in local decision making?

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What types of funding do underserved localities need to grow their creative, cultural and heritage ecosystems?  

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How are freelance, atypical and self-employed workers in the creative and cultural sectors currently supported in local decision making processes?  

Evidence Gathering

To answer the policy questions, Culture Commons designed and coordinated three distinct work strands. Each work strand enabled us to gather evidence from different parts of the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem in all regions and nations. 

Research

Questions and areas of research that we asked expert researchers to explore in distinct research tasks.

Insight Gathering

Workshops and roundtables with different stakeholder groups across the cultural, creative and heritage ecosystem to get into the issues together. 

Knowledge Exchange

Webinars and knowledge exchange sessions between partners and external organisations, building links, common networks and ideas applicable to the work of the programme. 

Knowledge Exchange

From February to June 2024, we ran a series of Knowledge Exchange webinars designed to facilitate the exchange of views and ideas, as well as share internal experiences on subjects of relevance to specific research questions. 

While these sessions were generally closed and for programme partners only, we did invite external experts to contribute a fresh perspectives from further afield too.

The key insights from these discussions are publicly available in a series of Insight Papers providing a summary of the sessions themselves, as well as sharing a few potential implications for policy from the Culture Commons team.

We explored the main concepts sitting behind ‘devolution’ and ‘increased local decision making’ at a UK and devolved nation level. We explored how devolution had evolved over the years and some of the main challenges that policymakers face today.

Insight Paper

Officers from our partner local authorities, cultural practitioners and consultants shared their experiences working on past, present and future cultural strategies. This session explored where and how cultural strategies have been able to improve local cultural decision making.

Insight Paper

Experts, academics and practitioners shared examples of innovative work that meaningfully includes the public in local cultural decision making already taking place in different parts of the UK.

Insight Paper

Senior officers covering relevant portfolios from our local and combined authority partners discussed the evolving relationships between different tiers of government, outlining some of the challenges and opportunities as they see it.

Insight Paper

Leaders from organisations spearheading innovative pan-regional initiatives shared their insights on the ambition and potential to support creative, cultural and heritage ecosystems at larger spatial scales.

Insight Paper

Local authority officers and sector practitioners from areas with historically low levels of investment and cultural engagement discussed the challenges of developing creative, cultural and heritage infrastructures and considered possible policy interventions.

Insight Paper

Development agencies and specialist consultants discussed ways in which the private sector can act as enablers of culture-led place shaping.

Insight Paper

Insight Gathering

From March to September 2024, we hosted a series of deeper-dive activities with external organisations and professionals to tackle key challenges across our programme’s themes. You might think about this work strand as the ‘outreach’ or ‘engagement’ part of the programme.  

These sessions were co-convened by Culture Commons, the programme partners and external stakeholders who were keen to part of the conversation. In each session, we deployed a range of tried and tested methods of policy co-design, and ran semi-structured and structured workshops, panels, Policy Labs, roundtables, workshops and focus groups. 

The aim here was to engage a diversity of stakeholders within different parts of the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem in as many parts of the UK as possible. As a time limited programme, we wanted to identify and assemble specific groups for particular questions, but as an open programme, we also wanted to leave room for more iterative and collaborative curation. The blend of approaches has, we think, given us a nice cross-section of the ecosystem. 

Our Insight Gathering activities were primarily conducted under Chatham House rules to ensure everybody felt able to share their views feely. On a number of occasions, this was acknowledged by people participating in the sessions as being central to them being able to give a “warts and all” account of their experiences and perspectives. 

The findings from the Insight Gathering activities are captured in a series of Insight Papers, produced by the Culture Commons team with contributions from programme partners. 

Recognising that the workforce is rarely consulted on major policies at the local, regional and national levels, we designed and delivered a series of workshops with them. 

In June 2024, we issued an open call for practitioners  – including employed, atypical, freelance, self-employed professionals – operating within DCMS subsectors and relevant occupations across the four nations to join us for a deep-dive discussion.  

Participants were selected to ensure a balance of age, gender and geographical distribution across the UK, with a mix of rural and urban locations too. We also sought to bring in a cross-section of people working in different subsectors and different types of employment, from with a fixed home and work base, to those whose work requires frequent travel and touring. 

Recognising the barriers that many workers within our sectors experience when it comes to engaging in policy dialogues, we paid freelance, self-employed and atypical workers well above industry minimums set by relevant trade unions for their time and expertise at all points of engagement. 

University of Warwick and Culture Commons co-convened three two-and-a-half-hour sessions with 30 representatives of the workforce. The insights from these sessions have been captured in an Insight Paper by Dr Heidi Ashton (University of Warwick) and members of the Culture Commons. 

Roundtable discussions:

In these roundtable discussions, we invited representatives from the creative, cultural and heritage workforce (including freelancers) from our place partner areas to share their experience and views on local cultural decision making.

How might the creative, cultural and heritage workforce be impacted by increased local decision making in:

England (6 June)
Scotland (5 June)
Northern Ireland (6 June)

In May 2024, we commissioned Thinks Insight and Strategy to conduct a series of focus groups with representative samples of members of the public from the four UK nations. 

The aim was to explore public perceptions of culture, creativity, and heritage in their local areas, including their understanding of local cultural decision-making, current levels of involvement, and visions for future engagement. 

Whilst the wider programme is mainly focussed on the creative, cultural and heritage sectors and local government, the scope of this piece of work was to collect views from the general public – a group all too often excluded from policy dialogues of this kind. 

Participants were recruited to be broadly reflective of the UK population on key demographics including gender, with set quotas for sexuality, ethnicity, and people who self-classify as disabled or with a long-term health condition. Individuals with high levels of involvement in the cultural offers of their local area (e.g. jobs in the cultural sector who would be picked up by the Creative Workforce Workshops) were screened out to allow for a more general viewpoint. 

The Thinks team engaged with 47 participants in six 90-minute online focus groups clusters: Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, North-West England, North-East England and South-East England.  

The insights from these sessions have been captured in the research paper ‘What do the public think about the future of local cultural decision making?’. 

Read the research paper

Co-hosts:
Culture Collective (Sheffield), Sheffield City Council, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority

Content of discussion:
In this session, we heard from a panel of architecture and urban planning scholars about the role that Urban Rooms can play a fora for local cultural decision making. An open discussion took place with members of the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem across South Yorkshire.

 

Co-hosts:
Arts Council England and Historic England

Content of discussion:
In this session, we invited senior representatives of ALBs across the UK to discuss the risks and opportunities of cultural devolution and increased local decision making.

Read the Insight Paper

Co-hosts:
Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch)

Content of discussion:
In this roundtable discussion, we invited senior representatives of major grant giving bodies based in the UK to compare their emerging approaches to supporting creative, cultural and heritage organisations.

Read the Insight Paper

Co-hosts:
Art Fund

Content of discussion:
In this roundtable discussion, we invited independent museum directors from leading cultural organisations across the UK to discuss their relationships with local authorities and how they perceive their role in local cultural decision making.

Read the Insight Paper

Co-hosts:
Belfast City Council and Northern Ireland Local Government Association (NILGA)

Content of discussion:
We invited local government officers with culture portfolios from across Northern Ireland to a roundtable discussion on their perspectives on and preparedness for increased local decision making.

Co-hosts:
Belfast City Council

Content of discussion:
A discussion with representatives from different subsectors of the creative industries working across Northern Ireland to talk about the risks and opportunities associated with increased local decision making.

Co-hosts:
University of Warwick

Content of discussion:
In this roundtable discussion, we invited representatives from the creative, cultural and heritage workforce (including freelancers) from our place partner areas across Scotland to share their experience and views on local cultural decision making.

Co-hosts:
University of Warwick

Content of discussion:
In this roundtable discussion, we invited representatives from the creative, cultural and heritage workforce (including freelancers) from our place partner areas across England to share their experience and views on local cultural decision making.

Co-hosts:
University of Warwick

Content of discussion:
In this roundtable discussion, we invited representatives from the creative, cultural and heritage workforce (including freelancers) from our place partner areas across Northern Ireland to share their experience and views on local cultural decision making.

Co-hosts:
Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)

Content of discussion:
We invited local government officers with relevant portfolios and Arms Length External Organisation (ALEO) representatives from across Scotland to a roundtable discussion on local authorities’ perspectives on, and preparedness for, increased local decision making associated with the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem.

Co-hosts:
University of Dundee and V&A Dundee

Content of discussion:
We co-hosted a roundtable discussion at the V&A Dundee for representatives to explore how the Dundee might develop a regional strategy to support the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem.

Read the Insight Paper

Co-hosts:
Culture Counts and University of Dundee

Content of discussion:
In this session, we met with representatives of creative, cultural and heritage organisations across Scotland, but particularly from Dundee, Fife and the wider Tayside region. We discussed views on increased local decision making and the opportunities that community and practitioner empowerment might bring.

Co-hosts:
British Council  and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Content of discussion:
In this roundtable, we explored approaches to local cultural decision making, culture led projects, and local voice with international institutions, including foundations, local authorities and global networks.

Read the Insight Paper

Co-hosts:
Creative Industries Council

Content of discussion:
A roundtable with senior leaders from creative firms across the UK.

Co-hosts:
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museums Wales and Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA)

Content of discussion:
We invited culture portfolio holders from Welsh local authorities to a roundtable discussion on their perspectives on and preparedness to cultural devolution.

Co-hosts:
Libraries Connected

Content of discussion:
In this session, senior library services leaders from across the UK discussed a range of subjects associated with devolution and increased local decision making.

Read the Insight Paper

Co-hosts:
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museums Wales

Content of discussion:
In this session, we met with representatives of creative, cultural and heritage organisation from Wales to discuss their views on the impact of increased local decision making to their work.

Co-hosts:
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museums Wales

Content of discussion:
In this session, we invited senior representatives of ALBs from across Wales to discuss the risks and opportunities of cultural devolution from their organisational perspective.

Research

Throughout the programme, we worked with several leading universities and research organisations across the UK to design and deliver research outputs that helped ensure the policies we co-designed as a partnership would be evidence-informed. 

In the Research work strand, we produced a series of individual ‘research briefs’ for each member of the research team that would utilise their expertise and specialisms and help us tackle the policy questions sitting under the policy themes. These research briefs set out the proposed approach to each research paper and incorporated literature reviews, rapid reviews, case study compilation, comparative analysis and, in some cases, primary research. 

All papers can be seen on the Culture Commons publications page

Authors:
Dr John Wright, Centre for Cultural Value, University of Leeds

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr Paul Gault, University of Dundee

Awaiting publication

Authors:
Dr Anna Rob, University of Dundee

Awaiting publication

Authors:
Dr James Hickson, Anthony Noun, Professor Catherine Durose, Sue Jarvis, Heseltine Institute, University of Liverpool

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr James Hickson, Anthony Noun, Professor Catherine Durose, Sue Jarvis, Heseltine Institute, University of Liverpool

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr Cara Courage, Culture and Place; Dr Lucrezia Gigante, Culture Commons

Awaiting publication

Authors:
Professor Leila Jancovich, University of Leeds; Dr Lucrezia Gigante and Dr Claire Burnill-Maier, Culture Commons

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr David Wright and Dr Vishalakshi Roy, University of Warwick

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr Vishalakshi Roy, University of Warwick

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr Heidi Ashton, University of Warwick

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr Jonathan Vickery, University of Warwick

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Dr Jonathan Vickery, University of Warwick

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Thinks insight and strategy

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Trevor MacFarlane, Jack Shaw, Eliza Eaton

Awaiting publication

Authors:
Dr Jonathan Vickery, University of Warwick

Read the Research Paper

Authors:
Client Evaluation for the University of Kent, Culture Commons

Read the Research Paper

Site Visits

As part of our Evidence Gathering for the programme, we organised site visits in each of the UK nations.

Read about the Sheffield site visit
Read about the Northern Ireland site visit
Read about the Scotland site visit

Finding Synthesis

Between June and August, we synthesised findings from across all three work strands. We carefully examined the data coming through for patterns and contradictions, and clustered these thematically within a comprehensive findings table.  

The Research Papers produced as part of the programme provided us with an in-depth understanding of specific issues and Culture Commons’ Insight Papers drew together perspectives from within the core programme partnership.  

Together, the work strands formed a solid foundation for our evidence-based policy design work.  

Our Findings page sets out what we discovered with the relevant origin source material.  

Policy Labs

Through a series of Policy Labs, Culture Commons convened the programme Steering Panel and researchers to share the emergent findings. Together we reflected on our discoveries, considered the possible implications of them and then tested some ideas for possible solutions. Some of the exercises we used included: 

We set our programme partners one of four bigger policy challenges to solve in small groups. This image shows some of the ideas, concerns and ambitions of the partners that we collated into Miro Boards.

We used stock photographs symbolising each of the four themes to explore some of the ‘hopes’ and ‘fears’ about cultural devolution. We used a Padlet board to anonymise the process so we could share views, comments and concerns with freedom. 

Policy Positions Agreed

Following the Policy Labs, Culture Commons developed a series of draft principles and recommendations that we shared and discussed at length with members of the Steering Panel – both one to one and in group settings; we repeated these discussions with the Research Reference Group to ensure the research findings were being well applied.

This interaction helped us to make the necessary adjustments to the recommendations to ensure that all programme partners were happy with the final published policy. A final version of the Principles and Recommendations were agreed through our online Policy Portal.

Part 3. Findings