A new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has said Arts Council England should consider moving its head office out of London to a regional site “as a symbolic statement of continued and growing commitment” to UK arts projects outside the capital.

The For Art’s Sake report, published yesterday, also recommended that the arts need to improve the way they assess social impact if they are to secure the funding they require. It warns that, without this, the social benefits of arts funding could potentially be overlooked.

The IPPR also stated that it was important that those involved with the arts were able to effectively target the UK’s most deprived areas.

Arts chiefs need to be able to better systematically evaluate what social benefits they offer while also proving that the work of the arts has a wider social benefit in return for the millions of pounds invested in them each year.

Associate director of IPPR, Ian Kearns, said: “The arts certainly deliver social benefit but the old ‘art for arts sake’ argument is not going to wash, particularly when spending priorities are tight.

“For example, The National Gallery’s fight to keep Raphael’s ‘Madonna of the Pinks’ was given a £11.5m grant fro the Heritage Lottery Fund to help keep the painting in the UK. From the Treasury’s perspective, that is more than 600 newly qualified nurses or teachers or prison officers.”

Kearns also said that, when arts officials are compiling evaluation reports, that they should be wary of making these reports “advocacy documents for the next funding bid instead of a realistic assessment of a projects’ impact”.

He concluded: “The contribution to wider social goals is not to deny the intrinsic value of the arts but a recognition that their contribution is founded in the self same intrinsic value.” Details: www.ippt.org.uk