A damning review of Arts Council England could mean long-awaited change for music

I’ll admit that – occasionally – I write close to deadlines. Never for this column, of course. Well, maybe just sometimes. There’s nothing for productivity like the doing-your-homework-on-a-Sunday-night fear. Perhaps it was this energy that pushed the Hodge review – baroness Margaret Hodge’s independent review of Arts Council England (ACE) – into publication, shortly before the season changed and it missed its autumn deadline.

The report, a year in the making, was damning: the ACE has been unnecessarily bureaucratic with too much emphasis on box ticking. Hodge – a Labour peer and former arts minister – recognised the damaging impact of Let’s Create, a 10-year strategy due to be in place until 2030, and recommended binning it in favour of something more streamlined. 

Read more:

• Hints of Scrooge at the Arts Council of England
• English National Opera cuts speak of a deeper problem
• Firebrand cellist Abel Selaocoe: ‘Classical music is about telling a great story’

It was in the name of Let’s Create that many national institutions had their budgets slashed in the 2023-26 allocation, with far-reaching consequences. (In March 2025, in light of the upheaval, ACE agreed to maintain the same cohort to 2027.) ACE’s approach to building a new national portfolio was roundly condemned.

Internationally important bodies like ENO (English National Opera) were being allocated funds with dubious strings attached. In the case of ENO, it was to relocate outside of London within a short time frame, but this was eventually deemed unrealistic. ENO’s Greater Manchester base is to be ready by 2029; the organisation has begun its performances there.

Hodge calls for the return of regional arts boards to strengthen local decision making. This seems sensible. An allegedly misinformed centralised body passing judgement on areas beyond its knowledge base is counterintuitive. There are also suggestions on ways to improve funding, such as extending
existing tax breaks for touring. Overall, despite ACE’s shortcomings, Hodge is still in favour. It lives to fight another grant application.

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Reviews are like buses, if you wait long enough, two come along at once. Professor Becky Francis’s equally anticipated Curriculum and Assessment report – commissioned in July 2024 – has now shared its recommendations, which include scrapping the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), something the classical music sector has been campaigning for since the accountability measure was introduced by Michael Gove in 2010. The EBacc measured attainment in English, maths, a language, a humanities subject and a science, disincentivising arts provision.

It has been linked to the decline in numbers of students taking music at GCSE and A level, attracting regular calls to arms. A few months before the review was published, Ed Sheeran wrote an open letter to the government requesting the removal of the EBacc, backed by artists including Paloma Faith and Elton John.

On the classical side, tireless campaigners Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), gathered more than 1,000 professionals – such as former master of the King’s music dame Judith Weir and cellist Julian Lloyd-Webber – to sign a letter published in The Times highlighting the 42% decrease in GCSE arts entries between 2010 and 2024. The letter asked the government to “not miss” the moment for reform when the Curriculum and Assessment Review was published. 

Perhaps the folks in Westminster are finally reading these open letters. They are, at least, engaging with the review recommendations: the EBacc was immediately scrapped. It provided some crumbs of comfort at the recent conference Class Ceiling, held to “confront class barriers in classical music”, given that one of many accusations levelled at the EBacc is that it has been a key barrier to diversity and access. (ISM reports that 43% of top-selling classical musicians attended an independent school – that’s more than six times higher than the UK average of 7%.)

This new event, held at Guildhall School of Drama with an opening speech given by former shadow culture secretary and recently appointed chief executive of the UK Opera Association, baroness Thangam Debbonaire, set out to dissect the socio-economic barriers that shape access and progression in the classical music industry.

Tickets were initially priced at £125, an irony not lost on those who actually have lived experience of the issue. Organisers were quick to rectify the situation with passes made freely available to those on lower incomes. 

The year closed with these glimpses of progress. Now for our flute-playing, Beethoven-loving prime minister to open the aperture on lasting change.

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