Prepared by: ArtsMatterNI (on behalf of the wider arts and cultural sector in Northern Ireland)
Date: August 2025
Introduction
ArtsMatterNI is a broad coalition of artists, organisations and cultural advocates. We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Department for Communities’ (DfC) Draft Budget 2025–26 and to consider it in the context of the Heritage, Culture and Creativity (HCC) Framework released in July 2025.
We conducted two open consultation sessions to consider the implications.
While we acknowledge the challenging financial context for all departments and recognise the modest uplift to the overall budget for Arms-Length Bodies (ALBs), this consultation response reflects serious and sustained concerns from across the sector about the long-term viability, policy coherence, and democratic accountability of government support for arts and culture in Northern Ireland.
We particularly wish to reassert the value and continued relevance of the Delivering Creativity report from the Ministerial Taskforce, which remains the most well-evidenced, cross-sectoral and forward-looking expression of cultural ambition recently produced in Northern Ireland. While its mention in the HCC Framework is welcome, its substantive recommendations have yet to be reflected in either budgetary decisions or strategic implementation plans…
Read the full Consultation Response at the ArtsMatterNI website here
