As the British Council enters its 75th year we remain committed to the arts in our cultural relations work. The arts are a valuable route to understanding cultures and societies and offer a unique way of interacting across these boundaries. Our arts programmes will grow in all of our geographic regions, growing faster in India, Russia, China and the Middle East than elsewhere but growing everywhere.

Graham Devlin’s report and our response to it mark the end of a period of consultation which we believe underlines the importance of the arts and their value in the context of cultural relations. The consultation has provided an opportunity to strengthen our existing arts offer and to develop new programmes which reflect the impact that the arts can have in creating dialogue between people in the UK and overseas.

We are already adopting many of the recommendations from the report. Further details of the British Council’s response to the Devlin report can be found here.

Read the Graham Devlin report on Arts Content in Future British Council Programmes here.

Rebecca Walton, Director Arts