The Rationales of New Labour's Cultural Policy 1997-2001 by Stephen Hetherington A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science & International Studies School of Government and society College of Social Science University of Birmingham February 2014 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Acknowledgments My unfinished journey, from theatre business to academia, was initially made possible by Professor Oliver Bennett at Warwick University. I will always be indebted to him. Dr Steve Buckler, my supervisor for five of my six and a half years of study at the University of Birmingham, tragically died in January 2013 after a short illness. Through his quiet patience and extraordinarily acute mind, he taught me as much by example as with just criticism. Dr Peter Kerr formally took on the task of supervision but had already given me invaluable support and guidance in our many conversations. He managed to find purpose among my rambles and rants, constantly re-focusing my efforts onto core arguments. But for his skilful intellectual navigation I would still be lost in a fog of my own making. Family members often feature fulsomely in the acknowledgements of academic works. Now I know how deserved these are. Without their encouragement and tolerance this thesis would certainly not exist. I owe thanks and admiration to my brother, John, for cheerfully proof-reading my final draft, and to my daughters, Amy, Kate and Nicola, for both their support and their disturbingly incisive questions on my arguments. But I owe most to my wife, Tanya, who never wavered in her support during in this long and arduous task, despite its financial consequences, the long hours spent in my study, and (I confess) not having shared domestic tasks fairly. Her love and patience has been my greatest strength. Abstract The cultural policies of New Labour, devised by the first British government department of "culture", the DCMS, have been noted for their conceptual inconsistencies and unsupportable claims, yet the rationales behind them have never been adequately explained. This thesis argues that, when seen from an historical perspective, the intentions of the Secretary of State, Chris Smith, and the DCMS in fact followed a consistent logic by which cultural policy was re-conceptualised to take DCMS into the heart of government where social and economic concerns dominated. Building on the principle of cross-government policy and the "pillars" of excellence, access, education, and the creative economy, DCSM claimed a foundational role for culture in propagating the roots of economic growth formed around theories of social capital. In doing so, it shifted the traditional balance between the public and private realms, compromised traditions of laissez-faire, instituted new mechanisms of governance, and marginalised the arts. The thesis concludes that Chris Smith and the DCMS sought power by arguing a role for culture in social and economic policy initiatives; an ambition that could not be achieved with policies for culture in its traditional meaning. The conceptual incoherence that resulted was ignored as insignificant to its purposes. CONTENTS Page Introduction Introduction The Research Question 1 Importance of the Research 5 A Typological Review of Literature and Sources 8 Research Methods 27 Chapter 1 Conceptualising Cultural Policy 34 Culture: Concepts and Usage 34 Implicit Cultural Policy 55 Culture, the Market Economy and Laissez-faire 58 Chapter 2 The Historical Context 67 1853 - 1939: The Origins of Cultural Policy 67 1939- 1997: New Labour's Inheritance 94 Chapter 3 The Cultural Policies of New Labour 119 Policies, Networks and Controls 119 Case Study: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 143 Chapter 4 Commentary & Criticism 154 Chapter 5 Economics & Governance 204 Outline of an Economic Model 206 Culture as Governance 234 Chapter 6 Conclusions 244 TABLES Page 1 Tracing the Institutional Path 101 2 Mentions of "art(s)" and "culture" in party manifestos. 103 3 Grants Announced by the Distributing Bodies to 30 July 1997 118 4 Comparing Rationales 121 5 New Approach to Investment in Culture 124 6 Policy Actions Teams in which the DCMS Participated 129 7 Departmental Participation in Policy Action Teams 130 8 New Policy Initiatives 134 9 PSA Objectives and Targets 139 10 DNH/DCMS Cash Expenditure 1992-1999 156 11 Transforming the Dinosaurs 241 12 Ideational Strands of Policy 251 FIGURES 1 Grants-in-Aid to the Arts Council 112 2 Percentage Distribution of National Lottery Ticket Sales 117 Abbreviations used in the text ACGB The Arts Council of Great Britain ACE Arts Council England CBSO City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra CEMA Committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts CMS Culture, Media and Sport [Select Committee] CO Cabinet Office CSR Comprehensive Spending Review DCMS The Department of Culture, Media and Sport DNH The Department of National Heritage EGT Endogenous Growth Theory FOI Freedom of Information Request NA National Archives NDPB Non-departmental Public Body NPM New Public Management PAT Policy Action Team PSA Public Service Agreement Quango Quasi-autonomous n0n-governmental organisation QUEST Quality, Efficiency and Standards Team Note that Cultural Studies is capitalised when referring to the specific theoretical approach. Introduction The Research Question The rationales of New Labour's cultural policies have never been adequately explained. They referred extensively to the importance of culture yet appeared primarily interested in matters that had never before been formally considered by governments as cultural. The Department of Culture, Media and Sport claimed a central role for cultural policy in realising New Labour’s social and economic objectives, yet it attempted to do so with policies well beyond the remit of any previous arts or implicitly cultural department. New Labour made large claims for the potency of its cultural policies, despite criticisms of their "conceptual inconsistencies" (Selwood, 2006: 36). Many were founded on unproven assertions with few precedents and little supporting evidence. Some seemed even to defy basic common sense: “Culture” it was argued, could “make a valuable contribution to delivering key outcomes of lower long-term unemployment, less crime, better health and better qualifications” (DCMS, 1999b: 2). These claims were not limited to Westminster. The Scottish Cultural Commission of the Labour-led Scottish Parliament asserted that culture could “...make a difference to our success in tackling poverty, it can make Scotland a healthier place and it has a significant contribution to make towards our economy” (Scottish Cultural Commission, 2005). The sociologist Perri 6 summed up the government’s position, arguing that “Culture is now the centre of the agenda for government reform, because we now know from findings from a wide range of research that culture is perhaps the most important determinant of a combination of long-run economic success and social cohesion” (6, 1997: 272). Yet that evidence is elusive, even argued by many to be non-existent. 1 These claims assumed a notion of culture that was essentially anthropological: a reified concept of society and its constitutive relations in which the arts were but one manifestation. These are not questions of individual policies, each of which had its own formative context, but of the whole of which those policies were a part. For DCMS that whole was definitively "culture", which by praxis meant participation in policies of work skills, education, information technology, technical innovation, and the workings of government (its roles in ten of the Social Exclusion Unit's Policy Action Teams), framed by the promotion of access, excellence, creativity, and embedded in what became known as the creative industries (Social Exclusion Unit, 1998: 58-59). What, in all this, had become of the traditional idea of culture as the arts, heritage and intellectual works? One explanation given by cultural policy theorists is that arts policies were strengthened by being attached to other more politically powerful policies (Gray, 2002: 88; Gray and Wingfield, 2011: 590; Gray, 2008: 217). There is some good evidence for this (as discussed later), but it looks less convincing when seen in the context of DCMS's comparative disinterest in the arts. A more common argument is "instrumentalism"; viz, using the arts as instruments for the delivery of other policies. But that description is wholly inadequate, most obviously as it fails to explain why a department of culture promoted its ultimate purposes as those of other areas of government. It further presumes that the arts could be effective as instruments of policy, yet researchers have hunted in vain for strong supporting evidence. A report commissioned by DCMS in 1999 stated: “it remains a fact that relative to the volume of arts activity taking place in the country’s poorest neighbourhoods,