DCMS has informed OAUK that “Following guidance received by the Cabinet Office, the decision has been taken to formally pause the ACE review during the pre-election period.”
Lead Reviewer Mary Archer was appointed in March, and she and her team had been midway through the consultation process with the arts and culture sector. The report on its findings to ministers was due to be sent through to the Cabinet in July 2024. The General Election has put a pause on this, and the decision on whether to continue with the review in its current form or scrapped will be decided by the next government. Labour has committed to doing some kind of review however.
The Mary Archer review had created a lively debate on whether relevance and excellence are necessarily binary. You can read about this debate on our blog here and contribute your thoughts on the impact of the Arts Council’s 10-year strategy “Let’s Create”.
