Capturing the Public Value of Heritage - HELM

From consultation to conversation:
the challenge of Better Places to Live
Rt Hon Tessa Jowell, MP
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Introduction
I would like to start this incredibly important conference by signalling a health warning:
beware of public value ‘blah’, that is to say discussion that lacks definition, intellectual
rigour and substance. The idea of public value – which I believe in very strongly – will
only survive if we are rigorous in its definition and application.
Mark Moore, the inventor of the public value concept, said that ‘Public value is what
the public values’. There is a profound truth behind that simple definition, and it takes a
large and distinguished gathering like the one here today to begin to unpack that truth
and to apply it to the work we do together to sustain, nurture, enrich and proselytise the
heritage offering.
Thanks to the work of English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National
Trust – among others – we have increasingly come to understand just how valuable our
heritage is, and I would like to congratulate and thank them for joining with officials in my
department in putting on this conference and bringing us all together.
Value of culture
We have come a long way in the two years since I first published my essay on the Value
of Culture (Jowell 2004). I wanted to spark a debate about the way culture influences our
lives. And I think to quite a fair extent, I succeeded. Plenty of you agreed with the ideas
I put forward in that essay. Plenty more of you challenged me for not putting enough
emphasis on heritage – and you were right.
That is why last year, I published Better Places to Live (Jowell 2005). Again, the point
was to try and move the debate on, and highlight the unique role that heritage can play to
build bridges between our past and our future.
Best of Britishness
Today, the parameters of our conversation are shifting once again. For instance, lots of
people are talking about Britishness, and a little later this year, I will be publishing another
essay that will look at the subject in more detail. But now, I want to explore the links
Fig 2 Children role playing in the Great Chamber at Sutton House in Hackney. They came from a school in Tower
Hamlets and their visit was part of their core curriculum history studies. Learning is one of the key instrumental
benefits of heritage – using historic places can open people’s eyes to their shared identity and link the past with the
future. © NTPL/Chris King
THE PUBLIC VALUES OF HERITAGE 7