Hattie Fisk: What is the Arts Council's Let's Create strategy?
Hannah Fouracre: Let's Create is the Arts Council's 10-year strategy that sets out our vision: by 2030 we want England to be a country where everyone has access to a range of high-quality cultural experiences. Children and young people are at the heart of our strategy; we want to support children to live creative lives where they live, where they go to school, and where they spend their free time.
HF: How does the National Plan for Music Education fit in with the Let's Create strategy?
Fouracre: There are lots of synergies between Let's Create and the newly published National Plan for Music Education (NPME) – most importantly, the focus on equity and inclusion. Currently, we know that not all children and young people can participate and progress equally, and that is not fair. Both strategies recognise that children's engagement in musical culture more broadly can happen in different ways and different spaces, and that we should prioritise identifying and removing the barriers that they are navigating.
Both these strategies aspire to a broad ranging offer of opportunities to perform and create music of all different kinds, and both have a focus on place-based approaches, making collaboration between all the services and organisations that are supporting children and young people more joined up and effective. Both also want to support equitable creative pathways so that young people can take their interests and their potential as far as they would like to. In terms of how Let's Create and the National Plan might work together, Arts Council England (ACE) will continue to invest and deliver our strategy, and we expect our music education activity and funding to also contribute to the vision and aims of the NPME.
HF: ACE describes the Let's Create strategy as ‘relevant, equitable and inclusive’. Why did you choose these three words?
Fouracre: Every single word in our strategy was specifically and carefully selected. With regards to ‘relevance’, we believe that when something is relevant to someone, they're imagining they might take some meaning from it, and they will be more likely to want to engage and get something from it. This is what we all want from music education, as it's really important to work out which communities you're trying to engage with and learn what is relevant to them, and also understand that not everything is relevant to everyone.
We also specifically chose ‘equitable’ rather than equality to ensure that participation, opportunities, and progression routes have been appropriately adjusted to meet the needs of every young person, whoever they are, and whatever their lived experiences might be. For example, one of the core roles for music hubs is to deliver classroom instrumental teaching in schools – but to participate equally, those with accessibility barriers might need an adaptive instrument, or the teacher might need to choose a different instrument for that one class or group.
By ‘inclusive’, we mean ensuring that all young people who want to engage can do so. We need to put young people's voices, interests, and experiences at the heart of what we do. We need to look for and understand barriers, and we need to support and value diverse creativity and music making in all its variety and forms.
HF: The DfE has confirmed that ACE will facilitate a new investment process for music hubs, which will be competitive. How will this work?
Fouracre: Hubs are a really important part of the Arts Council family – we've been fund holder now for the last decade, and we're delighted that the Department has asked us to facilitate the investment process. We are still in the early stages of implementation following the publication of the Plan, and I'm keen to make sure that we're talking to the sector to make sure that we can design a process that will realise the ambitions that have been laid out in the Plan.
We recently launched a webinar setting out what we know so far and introducing a conversation and consultation process that we want to have with everyone working in place-based music education. We are hoping to have an idea of the timeline for the process after the summer holidays. We are re-competing the role of the hub lead organisation – the organisation that will be accountable for the DfE grant and for bringing together the partnership that will deliver high-quality music education in their areas as they'll set out in a Local Plan for Music Education. The process will be open so any eligible organisation will be able to apply to lead a hub in their area.
HF: Why will there be a reduced number of hubs, and what will this mean for local provision?
Fouracre: The Plan did confirm that the competition will result in a reduced number of hub lead organisations being funded, and with those that are funded working across wider geographical areas. But to be clear, full local coverage will remain absolutely central to the hub offer and each lead organisation will be required to make sure that there aren't any cold spots in their area. I believe that bigger areas work, because hubs are partnerships and local partners will have to be sat around the table, making strategic decisions, and making sure that the hubs are going to meet the needs of local children.
HF: How do you think we can balance the national approach with the varied region-specific needs of hubs across the UK?
Fouracre: It is important that we've got a national plan that has really clear vision, aims, and strategic functions that every hub will be required to deliver, but that hubs have got flexibility on exactly how they will achieve these depending on their local context. So, each hub will be made up of different partners that will be working together to understand and respond to the needs of the different communities that they're serving, and the different interests and needs of the children who live there. I think the local approach is one of the key strengths of the programme and will improve outcomes for children and young people.
Understanding the impact of the work is important – it will be essential that hubs are measuring that in order to keep evolving and improving their programmes, and the Arts Council and the DfE will have a role there too. What will sit above all local delivery and local understanding of the impact will be a national evaluation plan so that we can understand nationally what the impact of the programme has been. Then we can keep making the case for how important music education is for young people.
HF: Concerns have been raised about the competitive nature of the hub investment process. Why is competition necessary?
Fouracre: I know that change and the idea of re-competing the hub leadership role may be challenging. The world has changed a lot over the last decade. It is good practice for largescale publicly funded programmes to be re-competed regularly because it makes it fair for everyone. So, as this is public funding, any organisation that believes it could deliver a programme has to have the opportunity to make an application on a regular basis.
The competition also allows organisations to revisit the activity that they're delivering, what their resourcing plans are, and the partnership that they've got to deliver against a funder's strategy. The process will be fair and open, and it will result in a network of hub lead organisations and partnerships that are best placed to deliver the ambitions of the NPME.
HF: So, you don't think that this could divide the sector in any way?
Fouracre: I think the sector is already very well practised in working collaboratively, and it is my expectation that organisations in a local place could come together to determine who would be the best applicant for the programme. I always say that when we're talking about children and young people in music education, nobody owns a particular child's talents, and I think the same idea applies here – organisations need to come together to determine what is going to work best for the children and young people that live there and come up with a collaborative solution.
