Recommendation 25

We questioned the Department about the future of the sector and what it saw as emerging risks, given the pandemic situation exceeded the worst-case assumptions when it set up the fund. The Department replied that it did not want to see its investment wasted, and it was now supporting organisations’ reopening and restart costs. ACE told us it was seeking to understand how it could best channel its ongoing investments to make sure that arts organisations, museums and cultural organisations would thrive as they came out of the pandemic. It also said it was concerned about consumer behaviour, where it needed further work and data. It told us that cultural organisations had shown flexibility in their planning to engage with audiences in different ways over the last 14 months, and some organisations had looked at restructuring and worked towards more sustainable business models coming out of the crisis.65