What Next? Briefing: Official responses to the Hodge Review
Headlines at a glance – 20/04/2026 – EC
This briefing
Last month, Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport each published their official response to the Hodge Review of Arts Council England.
These documents set out the vision, approach, actions and priorities that both bodies will take to implement and explore the Review’s recommendations. Taken together they have significant implications for the future of the arts and cultural sector: its funding and ecology and the strategic priorities that influence our shared and individual direction.
In this briefing we aim to give you an at-a-glance guide to the headlines of each response and then ask some questions as a primer for our What Next? discussion on the 22nd of April.
1) Government response to Hodge Review – Link to document
Government’s vision
Culture tells our national story.
Under this government, access to exceptional culture will no longer be the preserve of the few, and citizens will be able to enjoy a cultural offer that is bold, representative, and genuinely unafraid of challenging the status quo.
Citizens will have the confidence that the Arts Council is a home for diversity of ideas and freedom of expression. Artists and organisations across England will be able to act with independence and in the knowledge that individual funding decisions are free from political interference.
Government states that Arts Council England will ensure:
Government will ensure that any new Arts Council strategy reflects its commitment to ‘Arts Everywhere’ with more equitable access to excellent arts and culture.
Response so far to the call on government to invest in the arts
Actions for government in response to Hodge Recommendations
Government is soon to publish:
and will:
2) Response form Arts Council England – Link to Document
ACE’s role:
ACE will work with DCMS to further define and clarify the role of a development agency.
Aims:
ACE will:
Values:
Vision:
We will work with artists, cultural organisations, public and private sector partners, and citizens to foster a future where creativity and culture sit at the heart of society, shaping our country and the lives of its people for the better.
Immediate actions:
Approach:
A service-design approach – working with users to meet needs. The documents use the term co-design throughout.
Priorities:
ACE acknowledges that not all of the Hodge recommendations are deliverable without considerable further investment, ACE will work with DCMS to make the case for this investment.
These are the first five priorities that it will address:
2. New National Portfolio (NPO) Process – details in June 2026, guidance in September 2026, and decisions by July 2027 for funding commencing April 2028.
3. New Service for Individuals
To be co-designed and launched in 27/28 More opportunities for least advantaged, more access to training and development.
4. New online platform and development of new services
These will include: Touring Service, Accreditation Service, Government Indemnity Scheme, Music Growth Package, Service for Individuals, Innovation and Development Service
5. Renewed focus on case-making and advocacy for growing investment for the cultural sector.
Other strategic work
Wider context
Recognition that arts and culture contribute to: skills, opportunities, education, growth, creative industries, place-making, and soft-power.
What Next? Key questions and observations
The central importance of the Strategic Framework
It is likely that this new Strategic Framework will guide the bulk of ACE’s investment in organisations until 2030. It is being developed at speed, with plans for it to be published in May 2026. The response states that it will be based on the principles of Let’s Create but must also link to government agendas and emerging policy. What is included and prioritised in this document will make a huge difference to the shape and ecology of the sector.
Freedom of expression
Defending and championing artistic freedom will require ACE to grapple robustly with issues of freedom of expression, freedom to protest, and freedom from hatred/harm, as well as with the ethical implications of different funding and investment models. It will need real clarity as to what its role is, and on how any guidance or thought leadership relates to funding and criteria.
Local citizen voice
How the views of local citizens are included within this process without creating a two-tier system with different criteria in each area, without duplicating local government, and still ensuring citizens have genuine power, is a key issue. The ACE response states that new board structures and governance will be considered and discussed with DCMS, but they have not been immediately adopted. As yet there are no mechanisms outlined as to how citizen’s views will be embedded at every level of this work.
In its response to the Hodge Review DCMS announced that:
Arts Council will be spending £2.225 million to deliver hyper-local engagement with citizens to ensure that the decisions about funding are deeply informed by the voices of citizens. This “Citizens’ Voices for Culture” project will mean going beyond the familiar perspectives of government and industry, but give more say to those whose voices are less often heard in deciding what culture and creativity they want to be supported. While theArts Council will be doing more work to determine precisely how these will function, they are looking at models such as that of the West of England Combined Authority’s recent Citizens for Culture panel.
Overlapping place-making priorities
There is now a very complex map of government and ACE priority places (and other policy priorities from other departments such as DfE – which is focussing on coastal areas and the North East). This will need clarifying, as will the ongoing future of the existing Creative People and Places Programme.
The consequences of centralising strategies for philanthropy
The focus on building sector capacity to access philanthropy, and leveraging philanthropy to support central, shared priorities is widespread across government. To be successful it will require philanthropists of all kinds to agree to this joined-up approach, and will need to be designed so that the existing funding ecology for culture is not radically destabilised.
No clear priority for children and young people
Considering the focus that Hodge initially gave to arts and cultural education, the section in the ACE response is very short. Although this is likely due in part to the current commercial constraints surrounding the National Centre for Arts and Music Education, it is surprising that there are no real commitments here from ACE – or any mention of the recommendations that Hodge made for ACE to create a new fund and a suite of new programmes for education. It is absolutely essential that the new Strategic Framework and the subsequent new Strategy have robust provision for children and young people and their creative lives, to ensure that this agenda continues to shape and impact ACE’s investment at all levels.
Still not mentioned…
In our first look at the Hodge Review, we flagged that climate justice sustainability were substantially missing from the document, as is meaningful mention of the voluntary and amateur sector and of health and wellbeing. This is also the case in the responses. We also have not seen any mention of sector support organisations or the complex functions that they deliver, and await to see whether this will be mentioned in the Framework and the revised guidance for NPOs.
Background papers
• What Next? headline briefing and summary of Hodge Review:
• What Next? response to the Hodge Review consultation: what we said in our Roundtables: https://www.whatnextculture.co.uk/hodge-review-of-arts-councilengland/