Department for Culture, Media and Sport
When we visit a gallery or a local museum, attend a concert or dance performance, visit a Neolithic site or take a ride on a steam railway we experience cultural nourishment and joy. We experience this communally, with our families and friends. Cultural organisations also provide needed societal work for communities across the country. We need to make sustainable, evidence based decisions so we can preserve our culture and heritage while enabling people to enjoy them.
Robust methods
The publication of the Culture and Heritage Capital Framework is an important and exciting milestone in DCMS’s ambition to help the culture and heritage sectors to fully articulate their value to society.
As I set out in 2017, as part of the Mendoza Review, it is vital our sectors have consistent and robust methods to measure economic and social impact. Through this new framework, we will become a global leader in using economic methodology to show the full range of benefits that culture and heritage provide. We aim to add new and specific guidance, Supplementary to HMT’s Green Book for culture and heritage capital.
Demonstrating value
We know that culture and heritage assets give immense benefits to societies across the UK which are not fully captured in market prices. For example visiting our national museums is free, making it difficult to demonstrate its full value to society.
Today we publish a set of research papers that do just that – demonstrate the value of our cultural organisations and their work to help them make a stronger case for public and private investment.
New programme of world leading research will demonstrate the wide-ranging benefit of culture & heritage to society, from improving our wellbeing to education and local identity, and the value this has to the public #HereForCulturehttps://t.co/6Ym9IweHQR pic.twitter.com/5lbDosA2rT
— Department for Culture, Media and Sport (@DCMS) January 21, 2021
This is an exciting and important step for DCMS and the cultural sector and will have a real impact on the way our local and national institutions work. By making decisions using this framework we will ensure that our culture and heritage are not only protected for future generations but that they thrive.
Lord Mendoza image © John Cairns