Launched in October 2023 by Arts Council England, Transforming Governance aims to celebrate and strengthen governance in the creative and cultural sector by supporting boards and equivalent oversight groups.
Nearly two years on from the start of the programme, we spoke with Hollie Smith-Charles, Arts Council England’s Director of Creative Health & Change, and Programme Lead for Transforming Governance, to understand the impact of Transforming Governance and to explore what’s next for governance in the cultural sector.
Why was Transforming Governance established?
Governance is a vital part of our cultural ecosystem and largely relies on volunteer Trustees who are passionate about arts, culture and the impact of the work that their organisations deliver. This role – requiring fiduciary responsibilities, strategic thinking, sector expertise and the ability to dream and plan long term – is complex.
It is also critical in enabling people of all ages, in every corner of our country, to experience extraordinary creativity and culture – in other words, in ensuring the goals of Arts Council England’s 10-year strategy, Let’s Create, are met. Good governance is a vital characteristic of a well-run organisation and therefore helps ensure that the Arts Council’s investments achieve maximum impact and public benefit.
Transforming Governance was set up to celebrate and strengthen governance, and in response to feedback from our funded organisations, which told us they were seeking more advice and support in this area. In particular, our current National Portfolio, which launched in April 2023, includes nearly 1,000 organisations, one fifth of which were new joiners. Our Executive Board and National Council recognised that, whilst there is excellent support available through the Cultural Governance Alliance and others, there was a need for a programme specifically exploring good governance through the lens of the Arts Council’s Investment Principles and reporting requirements.
The programme aims to help Chairs, Treasurers and Trustees (or equivalent) better understand their roles and responsibilities, and to feel more confident in managing organisational risk, diversifying their governance structures and supporting inclusive recruitment. It’s also an opportunity to facilitate thought leadership and generate new ideas about the future of cultural governance.
What has been involved so far?
A range of activities have taken place – here are just a few examples.
We worked with Cause4 to deliver seven online workshops, covering topics that support both new and seasoned trustees, including understanding your role, succession planning, leading and overseeing strategy and becoming more inclusive. A range of guest speakers from across the sector shared personal, diverse experiences of trusteeship and written case studies, FAQs and other resources added to the bank of support.
A Chair Peer Network (facilitated by Cause4) and a Treasurer Peer Network (facilitated by Charity Finance Group), enabled trustees with specialist roles to meet one another, share the challenges they face and explore ideas for addressing them. Topics were wide-ranging including: managing the relationship with senior teams, tackling imposter syndrome, maximising tax reliefs and building financial resilience. These peer-to-peer forums aimed to facilitate lively, productive conversations, so that Chairs and Treasurers could lean on and learn from each other. For the Chair Peer Network, 84% of survey respondents felt that the sessions had had a positive impact on their confidence and/or ability as a Chair.
What are your biggest challenges that the cultural sector is facing?
I suspect that the biggest challenges we have unearthed through Transforming Governance will not come as a surprise. They reflect the findings of other research with leaders, such as Clore Leadership’s 2024 World of Work review and the feedback we hear through, for example, our annual survey of the National Portfolio.
Boards and their executive leadership teams are grappling with complex operating environments and the expectations of trustees are becoming greater and more varied. There is a need to respond to issues such as stretched public funds and increased competition for grants, new technology, polarised discourse and environmental responsibility. All of these areas raise ethical, as well as practical questions for boards.
The passion and commitment of trustees remains undiminished, and Transforming Governance aims to help navigate and unpack these challenges. As well as building communities of practice through peer support and group discussions at the workshops and conferences, we found high demand for very practical support, such as understanding the governance policies and procedures which are required for good practice.
Across Arts Council England more broadly, we have also been actively working on ways to reduce our monitoring requirements – something we know through Transforming Governance is an issue for boards and senior leaders. This is an area that we are refining, so that we can also continue to collect the data we need to make the strongest possible case for public funding for arts and culture.
We’re testing new ways of working at the moment, and aiming to roll this out from April 2026, particularly so that organisations in receipt of lower levels of Arts Council England funding can reduce their administrative burden.
What is the impact of the programme so far?
Over the past two years, more than 40% of National Portfolio Organisations have engaged with Transforming Governance, including one third of NPOs which have – for a variety of reasons – a higher risk rating for ‘Governance and Management’.
We are delighted with the positive uptake of the programme. Both the workshops and peer networks were over-subscribed and the online governance resources in our Investment Principles Hub are some of the most downloaded on our website.
Many participants have told us that their confidence and understanding has increased as a result of taking part in the programme, particularly through examples of good practice, case studies from other NPOs and the resources now available through the Transforming Governance pages of our website. Participants have described being “energised”, feeling “safe” and “having plenty of room for conversation and deliberation.” They enjoyed the opportunities for “fresh thinking” and the reassurance of learning “that things aren’t easy elsewhere in the ACE-world.”
Attendees have come from all over England, both new joiners to the Portfolio and organisations with more experience of being an NPO. There has been engagement from a good mix of artforms, disciplines and governance structures, showing that the issues facing boards often cut across geographic or artform/discipline lines and tend to be more linked to, for example, an organisation’s turnover, whether it is building-based, its governance structure and the level of experience of trustees.
We have tried to reflect this in the way that sessions have been structured and the content delivered, and we’re looking at how we can refine that even further in future activities.
What’s next for Transforming Governance?
All of the resources from Transforming Governance so far continue to be available via our website and I’d urge trustees (or equivalent) to have a browse.
The programme continues throughout 2025/26 with another cohort of the Chair Peer Network and Treasurer Peer Network. Opportunities to take part in Transforming Governance will be advertised via our general e-newsletters and website, or you can sign up to our mailing list if you would like to connect with the team and find out more.
How would you like to see governance change in the arts sector?
Ever future-facing, the arts and culture sector is already exploring new ideas and models of governance, including youth advisory boards, citizens’ assemblies and co-chairing. We discussed some of these last year in Lincoln, at the Art of Good Governance conference.
Looking to the future, I think that there are interesting challenges and opportunities emerging for boards from the political shift towards devolution. Whilst this doesn’t necessarily affect individual organisations, or their cultural, charitable or social aims, it poses questions about who makes decisions, where power is (or should be) held in an organisation or community, and where key relationships for cultural organisations might be in the future. Given the dynamic work happening already around the future of governance, I think that our sector is well-placed to innovate in this context and there’s no doubt that these issues will be fully explored as part of Transforming Governance this coming year.