Why we have / want / need the Arts Council

 This is a great article giving some historical insights into the development of what is now the Arts Council from it's roots:
In 1940, with an initial budget of £50,000 (about £2 million in today’s values) the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, mother to today’s Arts Council, was born. The Daily Express thundered: “What madness is this? There is no such thing as culture in wartime.”
to recent Government reviews:
 It is difficult to demonstrate a value-chain between art and social enhancement, and difficult to measure the social enhancement itself. Ministers for culture became embarrassed by this, and in 2008 commissioned Brian McMaster’s report, Supporting Excellence in the Arts: From Measurement to Judgement, which was intended to signal a move away from targets.
to making strong advocacy statements:
Culture is a social language that we would be dumb without
Wellbeing, which is the true end of economic activity, depends on the quality of life that culture sustains. The word “culture”, after all, means “growth”.
The article concludes:
It seems particularly ironic, then, that the creator and first chairman of the post-war Arts Council was the economist John Maynard Keynes. He believed that in a recession, governments should stimulate the economy. He also understood the use value of the arts. The decision taken in 1940 that led to long-term funding of the arts was not taken on economic grounds, or for reasons of health, social inclusion or the prevention of crime. But it was a rational decision, based on a rational argument: that we are supposed to be fighting for civilisation.
See http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/In-an-era-of-austerity-reasons-to-fund-the-arts/21121