Museums, libraries and archives can encourage a sense of community to counter crime, disadvantage and under-achievement. They can be centres for social change. They can have a social mission to make things better. One reason for setting up regional cultural consortia was that culture can support regeneration. The integrated view of culture is increasingly evident in local authorities and funding programmes.
Partnerships are essential, allowing the cultural sector to tap into skills and funding.
It is essential that regional library bodies play a more active role in future. Resource is so far only a toddler, but it has already invested 600,000 to get the ball rolling and is looking for substantial additional investment beyond 2002. This would not be to maintain the status quo but to initiate and facilitate change. All funding would need to be channelled via a single organisation in each region, and Resource would be looking closely at the experiment in the north-east to push the regional agenda forward in a significant way. In particular we nee to increase the impact of the cultural sector and raise its profile.