Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment has she made of the effectiveness of the Arts Council England’s Incentivising Touring scheme.

The government welcomes the continued success of this fund, which expands domestic touring into new areas. This investment will enrich our cultural landscape and boost local economies by bringing popular productions to communities nationwide, allowing more people to enjoy the arts locally.

The second round of this pilot makes £2.9 million available to enable more mid-to-large-scale theatre and dance productions to tour. The funding aims at giving venues and producers the capacity to create, tour, and programme a wider range of work, providing audiences with more opportunities to see a greater range of quality dance and theatre productions at scale.

It’s great to see such excellent productions as Dear England, Fiddler on the Roof and Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) being enjoyed across the country in part thanks to this fund.

Arts Council England has commissioned AMION Consulting to undertake a process evaluation and an assessment of the impact of the scheme across the pilot rounds, including an assessment of the economic and social impact of the programme.