The Arts Dividend Revisited: Why Investment in Culture Pays

By Darren Henley

England's artists, arts organisations, museums and libraries enrich our lives, increase our knowledge and open our minds to new possibilities. They make our villages, towns and cities better, more creative places to be. They build our reputation for innovation, boosting our economy and giving our nation increased prominence on the international stage.

Sustained and strategic public investment in art and culture enables this to happen. It's investment that pays big dividends in everyone's lives.

The Arts Dividend Revisited encourages us to consider our country's innate creativity and the invaluable rewards to be gained from the public investment that enables the arts, museums and libraries to be a part of everyone's lives, no matter who they are or where they live.

The result of a non-stop five-year journey across the length and breadth of England, Darren Henley reflects on our remarkable national cultural landscape from Cumbria to Kent and from Cornwall to Northumberland - and why he believes that public investment in creativity and culture can help us all to lead happier lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elliott & Thompson
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781783962785

Darren Henley

Darren Henley OBE is chief executive of Arts Council England. His two independent government reviews into music and cultural education resulted in England's first National Plan for Music Education, new networks of Music Education Hubs, Cultural Education Partnerships and Heritage Schools, the Museums and Schools programme, the BFI Film Academy and the National Youth Dance Company. Before joining the Arts Council, he led Classic FM for fifteen years. He holds degrees in politics from the University of Hull, in management from the University of South Wales and in history of art from the University of Buckingham. A recipient of the British Academy President's Medal for his contributions to music education, music research and the arts, his books include The Virtuous Circle: Why Creativity and Cultural Education Count and The Arts Dividend: Why Investment in Culture Pays