Arts Council England

Arts Council England (ACE) is a non-departmental public body and registered charity sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It is the national development agency (PDF) for arts and culture in England, responsible for distributing government and National Lottery funding to support the arts, museums and libraries. ACE was established under Royal Charter in 1994 following the division of the Arts Council of Great Britain, and since 2011 has also held responsibility for supporting museums and libraries in England.

Governance and regulation

ACE’s governance structure comprises a National Council, five Area Councils, an Executive Board and a range of advisory committees and panels. It operates as an arm’s-length body and is accountable to DCMS through a formal framework agreement and annual reporting requirements laid before Parliament. As a registered charity, it is also subject to standard charity law and reporting obligations.

Funding and spending

ACE received around £929 million of income in 2025/26, including £672 million of grant-in-aid funding (funding paid by the government to an arms-length public body to support delivery of its statutory functions) and £257 million from the National Lottery.

ACE then distributes this funding through its programmes, including National Portfolio Organisation funding, music education hubs, National Lottery grants for individuals and organisations, and targeted funding for museums and libraries.

Reviews and suggestions for reform

Two major reviews of ACE have been conducted in the past decade.

The 2017 Tailored Review of Arts Council England (PDF) concluded that ACE should remain a non-departmental public body operating at arm’s length from government, but it also recommended changes to improve the effectiveness of ACE, including working with a wider range of partners, better assessing the outcomes and impacts of its funding, increasing efforts to support financial resilience of the sector, and improving the accessibility of its funding (for example, by requiring partner organisations to demonstrate a commitment to diversity and improve their digital content).

The 2025 Independent Review of Arts Council England, led by Baroness Margaret Hodge, also concluded that the work of ACE was valuable, but said that significant reform to its processes and strategic priorities was needed. Its recommendations included replacing ACE’s 10-year strategy, simplifying funding processes, strengthening support for individual artists and touring, clarifying ACE’s development role, overhauling its systems, and strengthening the arm’s-length principle. The government accepted all recommendations from the review in March 2026, and ACE has set out a timeline to put the recommended changes into place.

Strategy for 2026 onwards

Between 2020 and 2026, ACE’s activities were guided by its ten-year strategy, Let’s Create. This strategy centred around three outcomes:

• Creative People
• Cultural Communities
• A creative and cultural country

Following the 2025 Independent Review of Arts Council England, ACE replaced Let’s Create with an interim strategic framework in May 2026. The new framework prioritises three objectives:

• supporting excellence
• delivering opportunities for everyone
• ensuring investment reaches all parts of England

As part of the interim strategic framework, ACE has committed to simplifying funding processes and developing a new long-term strategy from “late 2026”.