Baroness Margaret Hodge’s independent review of Arts Council England has now been published. Baroness Hodge was an excellent choice to lead this work, being rigorous, credible, and serious about the public value of the arts. This matters because while parts of the sector have been frustrated with Arts Council England in recent years, this review doesn’t read as a ‘take-down’. On the contrary, it reads as an attempt to restore trust, simplify systems, and protect what is essential.
The non-negotiable: defend the Arm’s Length Principle.
The strongest and most welcome recommendation is the review’s unequivocal defence of the Arm’s Length Principle: that the government must maintain and strengthen the principle at all levels, and that Arts Council England must rigorously uphold it to protect funding from politicisation.
For CVAN, this is crucial. Without arm’s-length decision-making, the conditions for artistic freedom, experimentation and public trust are undermined, especially for work that is challenging, critical, or led by communities who are too often marginalised.
A crisis is described, but the core answer is still funding.
The review is frank about the underfunding that has undermined the arts over the last decade, and it calls for urgent, “innovative ways” to respond to that reality.
However, we also need to be honest: simplification and reform are no substitutes for investment. Nominal budgets may look to have been maintained over time, but in real terms, the system has been hollowed out.
For example, ACE’s grant-in-aid in 2009/10 was £452m. Today, ACE says that it will invest £458.5m a year in its National Portfolio programme (to 2026). This is a stark illustration of why “access to excellence” has become harder to deliver: inflation, rising costs, and greater demand have outpaced funding.
In 2009, ACE’s annual budget stood at £580m. In 2025, it stood at £460m. Had ACE funding kept pace with inflation, it would now be around £920m. If it had kept pace with % increases in NHS spending, it would be closer to £1.2 bn. Prolonged underinvestment has stretched the system beyond what reform alone can resolve.
So yes, many of the review’s recommendations are sensible. But if the public’s experience is more uneven and more fragile, there’s a more straightforward explanation: there isn’t enough money in the system to sustain quality everywhere.
What CVAN welcomes in the recommendations…
There’s much in the review that aligns with what CVAN’s network has been highlighting for years, particularly the burdens placed on organisations and the need to support stronger place-based cultural life.
- Speeding up tax relief payments to ease cash flow, including the exploration of a 30-day payment model similar to VAT refunds, as recommended in the review. This is a long-standing issue for visual arts organisations: delayed tax relief can create significant financial risk, particularly for touring exhibitions and time-limited projects.
- Philanthropy incentives across England, including enhanced Gift Aid, and the exploration of an Aillagon-style mechanism — a French model that offers significantly stronger tax incentives for corporate and individual giving to culture. This approach has successfully driven sustained, place-based philanthropic investment and could unlock long-term private support for visual arts organisations and infrastructure nationwide. Any incentive framework must avoid the false assumption that organisations in the South East benefit disproportionately from philanthropy; evidence shows that many face the same fundraising challenges as those elsewhere.
- The proposal for a £250m ACE endowment fund, matched pound-for-pound through philanthropy, is ambitious and welcome in principle. It echoes the government endowment given to NESTA, although it is worth noting that NESTA has since stepped away from arts funding altogether. Any endowment must be carefully structured to genuinely strengthen the arts ecology rather than to simply replace public investment.
- Replacing Let’s Create with a simpler, less prescriptive strategy that retains Let’s Create’s core commitment to inclusion and access, while loosening restrictive frameworks that have limited flexibility – particularly for freelancers and artist-led organisations. A refocused approach should prioritise the development and delivery of work without losing the importance of meaningful public engagement.
- A new model for NPO funding, where organisations can articulate their unique contribution and agree negotiated KPIs, alongside reduced bureaucracy and longer funding cycles. Extending funding rounds is a critical step in building organisational resilience, enabling forward planning, and reducing the disproportionate time and resource burden of constant bid writing. The proposed rolling application window is particularly significant, as it would allow smaller, newer and evolving organisations to apply at a point that’s right for them, rather than being excluded due to scale, longevity or capacity.
- A stronger development agency role for ACE: convening, advocating, sharing best practice, and supporting the sector beyond its funded organisations only. It is a development agency that needs to be respected to achieve a great cultural life in England. Utilise the knowledge of ACE experts on the ground, especially the art form Directors. CVAN can support directly on this agenda through our interconnected network of professionals and organisations across the sector. As devolution becomes a reality, ACE, working in partnership as a development agency, will only strengthen the cultural life across England.
- The proposal for a statutory duty requiring local government to prepare a cultural strategy every five years is particularly significant for place, partnership and accountability. Done well, this creates meaningful regional power, supported by local and regional boards composed of artists, community organisations, educators, and local authorities working together. The design and implementation of this approach will be critical to its success.
- The review’s recommendation for a new National Programme for Individuals, offering around £30,000 per year plus mentoring for emerging and mid-career practitioners from low-income backgrounds, under-represented groups and under-served areas, is a serious and welcome intervention. This aligns with CVAN’s priorities around artists’ livelihoods and progression. However, there are concerns about the potential loss of smaller-scale programmes such as Developing Your Creative Practice. For many artists, these R&D grants are the only accessible sources of funding that support artists’ professional development and play a critical role in experimentation, skills development and career sustainability. An either/or approach risks narrowing access; what is needed is a coherent arc of support that recognises and supports artists at different stages of their careers.
Where the review still underplays the reality for the visual arts
While the intent is positive, the review feels ultimately cautious: it stabilises ACE, but it doesn’t fully confront how fragile the visual arts ecosystem has become.
From CVAN’s perspective, three areas need strengthening in implementation:
1) The bureaucracy problem is structural, not just procedural
The review recognises that application and reporting requirements have become too burdensome. For visual arts, particularly artist-led organisations, networks, and freelancers, this is not an inconvenience – it’s a barrier to survival. Simplification has to be real: fewer hoops, clearer routes, and longer-term support that reduces constant reapplication.
2) Visual arts infrastructure must be treated as infrastructure
Studios, commissioning platforms, archives, and networks are too often treated as ‘projects’ rather than the essential systems that make artistic careers possible. Stability, not competition, sustains the visual arts ecology. The review doesn’t sufficiently address the crisis facing artist studios, production spaces and the visual arts workforce. Studios/creative workspace is vital, the space needs to be long-term, accessible, warm and fit for purpose (production and messy space). And we need to be having these conversations both within and outside the sector to create relevant shared opportunities with other creative industries, developers, and local authorities to secure, upgrade, and build multi-use spaces that genuinely serve visual artists!
3) Place-based decision-making must be rooted in local intelligence
Devolution only works if it is properly designed. The review proposes the creation of new local and regional decision-making boards. CVAN will press for meaningful regional expertise, including networks like CVAN, to shape decisions, so that redistribution doesn’t happen without the knowledge of what actually sustains artists and communities locally.
CVAN’s position: a critical friend
CVAN England welcomes the review’s defence of the Arm’s Length Principle and many of its reform proposals. But reform without renewed investment risks managing scarcity rather than expanding public access and artistic opportunity.
We will work as a critical friend: supportive of changes that rebuild trust and reduce bureaucracy, and clear about where the recommendations must go further for the visual arts – particularly on infrastructure, regional intelligence, and long-term stability for artists and the organisations that support them.