Danish cultural policy is both centralised and decentralised; one of the reasons is that the development of public cultural policy and institutions in Denmark is closely linked to the cultural and political movements that fostered Danish democracy and the welfare state.
The political responsibility for public cultural policy is placed with the Danish Parliament (Folketinget), the government and the Ministry of Culture. The state level sets the overall framework for national and local cultural policies and puts forward guidelines for international cultural exchange and cooperation.
The national level
The overall coordinating executive power for policy initiation, planning and implementation lies with the Ministry of Culture. The final legislative and budgetary powers rest with the Parliament. A special parliamentary Committee of Culture (Folketingets Kulturudvalg) deals with cultural policy issues.
The competence of the Ministry of Culture encompasses creative arts, music, theatre, film, libraries, archives, museums, protection and preservation of buildings and monuments, archaeology and higher education and training.
Since the Ministry of Culture was established in 1961, actual policy implementation and competence has been increasingly delegated to a complex framework of cultural agencies, councils, committees and cultural institutions with different tasks, competences and degrees of autonomy
The current role of the Ministry and its associated bodies is as follows:
- The Ministry. The Ministry acts as an architect, providing the framework for an overall cultural policy and - in co-operation with the Parliament - sets the objectives, financial frameworks, subsidy arrangements and the organisational structures that form the basis of cultural policy in Denmark.
- 5 agencies. The agencies handle administrative, advisory and implementation tasks for the Ministry of Culture in the following areas: libraries, cultural heritage, the arts, archives, media and film. They are defined as state institutions. Most arts funding schemes are handled by the Danish Arts Agency (Kunststyrelsen).
- Various independent councils, committees and other arm's length bodies. The basic allocating and advisory bodies in the different fields are the expert committees and boards within the agencies, councils and foundations.
Funding for the arts is allocated by the Danish Arts Foundation (Statens Kunstfond) and the Danish Arts Council (Statens Kunstråd) through a number of independent expert committees. These committees operate according to the arm’s-length principle. This means that their decisions are final and cannot be overruled by appeal to another administrative or political body.
- 42 state institutions. The Ministry of Culture has responsibility for state cultural institutions in the fields of creative arts, cultural heritage, education and research and support as well media, sport, architecture and design. The Ministry of Culture funds the national state institutions.
Some of the important state institutions are: the Royal Theatre (Det Kgl. Teater), the Royal Museums of Fine Arts (Statens Museum for Kunst), the National Museum of Denmark (Nationalmuseet), the Royal Library (Det Kgl. Bibliotek) and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Det Kgl. Danske Kunstakademi) encompassing the School of Visual Arts (Billedkunstskolerne), the School of Conservation (Konservatorskolen), and the School of Architecture (Arkitektskolen).
Approximately 700 independent cultural institutions around the country are partly funded by the state.
See organisational diagram of Danish Cultural Institutions
The regional and local level
Denmark is in the middle of a fundamental structural transformation of the public sector. The Local Government Reform (kommunalreformen), passed by the Parliament in 2005, has decreased 275 municipalities and 14 counties to 98 municipalities and 5 regions. The reform came into force on 1 January 2007 and will be fully implemented by 2012.
According to the reform, the former cultural responsibility of the counties, now abolished, has been transferred to either the state level or the new municipalities e.g. the state has taken over the responsibility for regional theatres, orchestras, museums etc., while the new grand municipalities have been given the full political, administrative and financial responsibility to handle cultural institutions and activities with a natural local affiliation including libraries, museums, sport facilities, amateur activities etc. In case of libraries and museums the municipalities still has to act according to the legislative framework agreed upon on a national level.
More about Danish Arts and Cultural Policy
(source: Peter Duelund, Nordic Cultural Institute in Copenhagen)
