The Arts Dividend Revisited Why Investment in Culture Pays

The Arts Dividend looks in depth at seven key benefits that art and culture bring to our lives: encouraging the UK's creativity; advancing education; impacting positively on health and wellbeing; supporting innovation and technology; providing defining characteristics to villages, towns and cities; contributing to economic prosperity; and enhancing England's reputation for cultural excellence on the global stage. This book encourages us to consider the country's unique levels of creativity and the invaluable rewards to be gained from the public investment that enables great art and culture to be a part of everyone's lives, no matter who they are or where they live. Having spent a year traveling the length and breadth of England, Darren Henley shares his reflections on the UK's national arts and culture landscape in 2016, offering a snapshot of the remarkable creativity on display from Cumbria to Kent and from Cornwall to Northumberland.

Darren Henley OBE is chief executive of Arts Council England. The author of two independent government reviews into music and cultural education, he has written thirty books about the arts. Before joining the Arts Council, he spent fifteen years leading Classic FM. He holds degrees in politics from the University of Hull, management from the University of South Wales and history of art from the University of Buckingham.