Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when the new geographies for music hubs will be published.

In June 2022, the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport published ‘The power of music to change lives: a national plan for music education’. The plan sets out the Government’s priorities until 2030 for music education for children and young people, including plans to strengthen the success of Music Hubs.

As part of the plan, the Department announced its intention to re-compete the role of Music Hub Lead Organisations and to transition to a Music Hub structure, where Hubs strategically cover multiple Local Authority areas.

Arts Council England, as the fundholder of the Music Hub Programme, has led on the consultation process. To date, there has been a series of focus groups which were conducted in January 2023 and surveys regarding the proposal to change the Music Hub’s structure and geographical areas. In March 2023, Arts Council England published the proposed new areas and invited those affected by the proposed changes to provide feedback via a survey.

Arts Council England published the new Music Hub geographical areas on Tuesday 6 June, and issued a public notification on the timetable for the Music Hubs competition on 25 May 2023. They will also share how the final areas were informed by sector feedback from the most recent consultation in March.