20 CONTEXT 183 : MARCH 2025 THOMAS COLWILL and ADALA LEESON The economics of heritage and wellbeing Wellbeing offers a methodology that can quantitatively assess the broad range of benefits that heritage provides, often more effectively than traditional economic measures. Heritage enjoys widespread public support. For instance, in 2022, Britain Thinks reported the results from a survey demonstrating that for 81 per cent of people ‘looking after historic buildings, monuments and archaeology to safeguard the places people love’ is personally important to them.1 The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Taking Part Survey² shows that in 2019/20 95 per cent of adults agreed that heritage and place should be well looked after. In the more recent 2022/23 Participation Survey, the DCMS reports that 67.5 per cent of people visited a heritage site during the year.³ Where heritage struggles is in its ability to demonstrate its investment worth through traditional economic approaches. Consequently, we undervalue and underinvest in all forms of heritage. In the UK, heritage and other cultural goods often face disproportionate cuts to local government expenditure, while national departments responsible for heritage remain unprotected from previous and future budget reductions. This paradox, where people feel a significant connection to heritage but it remains unrepresented economically, highlights the need for new approaches that prioritise what people truly value, particularly in economic decision-making about the allocation of finite resources. Change is afoot. Since 2018, the UK’s HM Treasury has placed greater weight on wellbeing as a core economic outcome in its revised publication of The Green Book, the framework under which government departments make investment decisions. In this, social or public value is seen to include all significant costs and benefits that affect the welfare and wellbeing of the population, not just market effects. Wellbeing can be assessed in the form of a monetary benefit similar to more common market transactions that worldwide finance and treasuries are familiar with. Similarly, the UK’s Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) ‘Beyond GDP’ initiative seeks to develop supplementary measures that provide a more holistic understanding of the UK economy, society and the environment. The ONS now regularly publishes wellbeing statistics via the UK Measures of National Wellbeing Dashboard. With governments everywhere constrained by limited fiscal resources, particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, investments in heritage must be understood within the context of the trade-offs with investments in other areas. To justify investment, we are required to show that heritage delivers tangible returns, in economic, cultural, environmental and social terms. The compelling part is that when demonstrating the impacts on wellbeing through monetary estimates, investments in heritage may sometimes yield a higher marginal return than expanding already overstretched sectors like healthcare. 1 Britain Thinks (2022) National Lottery Heritage Fund Strategy Development Research, National Lottery Heritage Fund. ² DCMS (2020) ‘Heritage: Taking Part Survey 2019/20’, DCMS Statistics. ³ DCMS (2022) ‘Participation Survey October 2021 to March 2022’, DCMS Statistics. Volunteers at work on English Heritage’s Neolithic Houses project at Stonehenge (Photo: Historic England)
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