A core ambition of the Arts Council England (ACE) is for more people to experience and be inspired by the arts, irrespective of where they live or their social, educational or financial circumstances.

ACE has invested a total of £37 million in a small number of locations deemed to be of significant need. Creative People and Places (CPP) focuses investment in parts of the country where people's involvement in the arts is significantly below the national average, with the aim of increasing the likelihood of participation.

The first round of places were announced in June 2012, the second round in May 2013 and the third round in June 2014. There are 21 places in total. All the places will receive grants for three years’ worth of activity with monetary value ranging from £625,000 to £3,000,000. The investment will encourage long-term collaborations between local communities and arts organisations, museums, libraries and other partners such as local authorities and the private sector. It aims to empower them to experiment with new and radically different approaches and to develop inspiring, sustainable arts programmes that will engage audiences in those communities.

For more information go here

CPP National Evaluation

The National Evaluation is a core part of the CPP activity. The Arts Council has provided funds to the CPP areas to undertake a national evaluation, utilising local evaluations conducted by each CPP Place to produce an overarching meta-evaluation of nation-wide outcomes and outputs.

The National Evaluation will focus at all times on three core questions:

i. Are more people from places of least engagement experiencing and inspired by the arts?

ii. To what extent was the aspiration for excellence of art and excellence of the process of engaging communities achieved?

iii. Which approaches were successful and what were lessons learned?

To supplement the evaluation, there is call for a number of discrete case studies which will further interrogate key questions that emerge from the national CPP work. We aim to commission the case studies separately from the main evaluation and disseminate the reports publicly. For information about the research we are commissioning, go here

Further information

If you have any questions about the National Evaluation of Creative People and Places, please get in touch with Sarah Davies, CPP National Evaluation Coordinator.