ABOUT
The Cultural Policy Unit is focused on developing effective policies that will enable the arts and cultural communities to thrive, support the growth of the creative industries, and preserve – and enhance – the UK's unique cultural ethos.
The Cultural Policy Unit (CPU) builds on the influential work it undertook at the Fabian Society, which helped inform Labour's Arts and Creative Industries 'Sector Plan' Creating Growth (March 2024) and Labour's Manifesto. The Unit's key proposals were published in the Fabian pamphlet Arts for Us All (July 2024), which garnered widespread support from the cultural sector.
Led by Alison Cole, the Cultural Policy Unit will build affiliations with think-tanks, organisations and individuals who can help shape and deliver the best proposals to support – and where necessary challenge – government, change-makers and legislators, as well as be an asset to the arts, cultural and creative industries sectors.
PROGRAMME
New funding and financial models for the arts
New funding and financial models for the arts
We will investigate every financial ingredient – from, for example, public funding, to commercial levies, to philanthropy. We will be exploring impactful and innovative ways to reconfigure the funding ecosystem, examining some of the challenges, interrogating what's behind them and identifying possible solutions and models.
AI and creative content
AI and creative content
We will support coalitions of key players in the creative industries – a virtual 'Department of Creative Development' – working with the sector's key lobbying networks to inform government thinking on creative IP. Due to the strength of both its creative and tech sectors, the UK can set a standard for safeguarding creative IP, while building a licensing market that allows both creatives and developers to flourish.
Growth
Growth
We will look behind the headline £125bn figure to unpack just how creative growth is achieved, with a view to analysing the ways in which the creative education, arts, culture, and creative industries ecology works, and to better defining the role that the big commissioners and government can play in enabling the arts and cultural sectors to fulfil their growth potential.
LATEST REPORTS
Date:
March 2025
A City Tourism Charge
The Case for a Progressive Levy on Overnight Visitor Accommodatio
By Alison Cole and Nathan Lloyd
A City Tourism Charge: The Case for a Progressive Levy on Overnight Visitor Accommodation
This report advocates a 3–5% tourism charge on overnight stays to fund cultural infrastructure across England. The levy, distributed by Metro Mayors and local authorities, would generate over £1 billion annually, fostering regional economies and supporting tourism while reducing cultural funding inequalities.
Date:
March 2025
The Value of 'Free for All'
The Price of Charging Overseas Visitors Admission to UK National Museum
By Alison Cole and Nathan Lloyd
The Value of 'Free for All': The Price of Charging Overseas Visitors Admission to UK National Museums
This report examines the challenges of charging non-UK residents for national museum and gallery entry. It highlights key logistical and financial concerns while emphasising alternative funding methods that offer a fairer, more effective solution for sustaining our cultural institutions.
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PRESS
Introducing a tourism tax would revolutionise our crumbling cultural landscape
Tourist tax in England could drive billions into culture - report
KEY CONTACTS
Alison Cole, Director
Alison Cole is Director of The Cultural Policy Unit, having previously established the Arts and Creative Industries Policy Unit, hosted by the Fabian Society. She is the former Editor of The Art Newspaper and has worked as an Executive Director for some of the UK's leading cultural organisations, including Art Fund, where she led the VAT campaign to make all national UK museums free, London's Southbank Centre and Arts Council England. She served as a trustee of the Foundling Museum and is currently adviser to cultural education charity Art UK, originator of 'The Superpower of Looking' visual literacy programme, and a member of the Critics' Circle. She is also a writer, journalist and art historian, having completed postgraduate study at The Warbug Institute, London. Her books include 'Michelangelo: The Taddei Tondo' (2017) and 'Italian Renaissance Courts: Art, Pleasure and Power' (2016).
Nathan Lloyd, Senior Researcher
Nathan is Senior Researcher at The Cultural Policy Unit, having previously served as Senior Researcher in the Arts and Creative Industries Policy Unit, hosted by the Fabian Society. Prior to that, he was a Political Researcher at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, briefing Sir Tony for political engagements and co-authoring reports across multiple policy areas, including health, defence and energy. He also worked as a researcher for Lord Andrew Adonis and supported the writing of Ernest Bevin: Labour's Churchill, a biography of Clement Attlee's Foreign Secretary. As a writer, he has also contributed to Labour Together reports and published political commentary in The New European. He was trained as a playwright at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, from which he has maintained a keen interest in policymaking within the arts and cultural sector.
The Cultural Policy Unit's independent Advisory Board is chaired by Baroness Gail Rebuck