8. Making access sustainable

Environments and practices are not consistently accessible. There are often pockets of good practice where there are passionate individuals or ‘special’ projects funded on a one-off basis so accessibility remains fragmented. This is in spite of ‘top down’ efforts to embed access through legislation, funding requirements, and awareness raising campaigns. Ultimately access does not happen if it is not built into every area of work in a sustainable way.

Environments and practices are not consistently accessible. There are often pockets of good practice where there are passionate individuals or ‘special’ projects funded on a one-off basis so accessibility remains fragmented. This is in spite of ‘top down’ efforts to embed access through legislation, funding requirements, and awareness raising campaigns. Ultimately access does not happen if it is not built into every area of work in a sustainable way.

• Shout about it – communicate
• Sustain and maintain – you’re doing it, keep it going

In-house information, training, and capacity building

The British Council’s ‘Time to Act’ report also found that “an extensive literature of reports, checklists, and toolkits is already available to guide cultural professionals in providing greater access – but these are not widely circulated”[1]. So there is a need to showcase resources and share best practice as regularly as possible. Peer learning and communities of practice can help to not only share knowledge but build confidence and connections.

Have dedicated staff and budgets

Generally, the organisations that have staff responsible for accessibility, or that have a dedicated budget tend to be more confident than the average respondents that their artistic programmes are accessible to disabled artists. A similar pattern emerged when asking about engagement with disabled audiences.

Furthermore, evidence shows that organisations that have either specific staff with a mandate for disabled access and/or dedicated budget lines to foster accessibility and inclusion are better placed to make progress. Organisations of any size can begin by allocating a specific percentage of their budget e.g. 5%, to cover access-specific costs. You also do not need a specific staff member who is only in charge of access if this is outside your budget. You can designate this responsibility to an existing staff member, or one per department, or to a cross-departmental working group. Alternatively fostering training and capacity-building of existing staff can also be effective. To make impactful change, there must be dedicated resource that is mobilised.  Budgets, staff, and training must be implemented: action must be taken.

Integrate accessibility in the design and presentation of all exhibitions and events

Integrating accessibility into the design and presentation of exhibitions and events is vital for creating a genuinely inclusive exhibitions sector. Too often, accessibility is treated as an optional enhancement rather than a foundational element of exhibition-making. By embedding inclusive design from the earliest planning stages e.g. considering physical access, sensory needs, alternative formats, way finding, and digital accessibility, organisations can remove barriers that have long excluded disabled audiences. This approach not only improves the experience for disabled visitors but enriches engagement for everyone, ensuring that exhibitions and events communicate their ideas clearly, equitably, and with respect.

[1]^[1] https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/time_to_act_full_report.pdf p5.

At the very start of these resource pages we highlighted barriers to making impactful changes that were identified during the creation of these resource pages.  It is important to return to these because they may consistently derail your progress or the progress of those just getting started.

Lack of knowledge

Lack of knowledge can be addressed not only through what you can learn from external resources and such as this but from what can be learnt through your own work and evaluation.  As we have seen it is also important to interrogate your knowledge and beliefs because they may be out-dated, incorrect or in need of a refresh.

If you are seeking to increase your knowledge look for resources and training that involve disabled people, are disabled-led and/or incorporate lived experience.

Lack of confidence / fear

There persists a fear about getting things wrong, causing offense or making mistakes.  All of these things may happen but they would not be a barrier to taking action.

Language around disability is an area that people are constantly concerned about and one of the best ways to address this is to:

1. Apply the Social Model of Disability and accept that people are disabled by society and that therefore to talk about disabled people and non-disabled people is to outline that some people are disabled by the barriers around them and some people are not. This moves you away from medicalising people or talking about their ‘disability’.
2. Use the language of ‘access’ and do not talk about disability when thinking about individuals. This is not because disability or being disabled is in any way a thing to avoid talking about but because actually what you want to talk about is access.  “What are your access requirements?” is a far more useful and practical question than “what is your disability?” is ever going to be.
3. Go to the source – if you are unsure on the current best practice terminology in a specific area research what representative and advocacy organisations are currently explaining is the best approach.

Not knowing where to start

It can be overwhelming to know where to start. This overwhelm can lead to no action being taken or an increase in the feelings of fear and lack of confidence.

The scale of the task is often the problem: accessibility touches everything from the physical building to marketing copy to staff training to programming decisions, and trying to address all of it at once is paralysing. Organisations can get stuck waiting for the ‘right’ moment, a bigger budget, or senior buy-in before beginning anything at all.

A few ways to break through this:

• Start with an access audit, not a wish list.

Understanding where you currently stand, physically, digitally, and culturally, gives you a concrete list of actions rather than an abstract sense of everything you’re not doing.

• Prioritise by impact and ease, not by scale.

Some of the most meaningful improvements (updating website information about access, upskilling front-of-house staff, adding an easy-read guide) cost little and can be done quickly, while structural building work takes years. Doing the achievable things now builds momentum and confidence.

• Talk to disabled people before you plan anything.

Consultation early on prevents organisations from guessing at solutions or spending resource on the wrong priorities. It also means you are not starting from a blank page: disabled visitors, artists, and staff can tell you directly where the barriers are.

• Look outward before reinventing the wheel.

Other organisations, sector bodies, and access consultants have often already mapped a route through this. Adapting a framework or checklist to your context is more efficient than starting entirely from scratch.

• Accept that starting imperfectly is better than not starting.

Waiting for a fully resourced, faultless strategy before acting means access continues to be deferred indefinitely. Small, honest first steps, communicated openly as a starting point rather than a finished solution, are more valuable than inertia.

Lack of consistency

It can be very challenging to keep things going once started and to ensure that good practice becomes routine.

This is often where well-intentioned initiatives fail: a project gets funded, a champion drives it forward, and then the funding ends, the champion moves on, or organisational attention shifts elsewhere, and progress stalls or reverses. Without consistency, access work never accumulates; it resets, over and over, at the beginning. Some of the common causes of inconsistency include:

Reliance on one person

When accessibility knowledge and motivation sit with a single individual, their departure can mean the loss of institutional memory and momentum overnight.

Short-term or project-based funding

Access work funded only through time-limited grants or ‘special’ projects struggles to survive once that funding ends, because it was never embedded into core budgets or operations.

No mechanism for follow-through

Good intentions stated in strategies or policies are not the same as monitored, resourced actions. Without regular review, targets are easy to quietly deprioritise.

Staff turnover and induction gaps

New staff who are not trained in existing access commitments can unintentionally let standards slip, particularly if practices were never documented.

To build consistency:

Document what you do and why.

Written procedures, guidelines, and checklists mean that practice does not depend on any one person’s memory or presence, and can be handed on as staff change.

Build access into core processes, not side projects

Embedding access checks into agendas, staff onboarding, exhibition planning, recruitment, event management, means it happens by default rather than requiring a separate, easily-dropped initiative each time.

Review regularly and publicly

Setting a schedule to revisit commitments, and reporting on progress internally or externally, creates accountability that helps prevent slippage.

Distribute responsibility

As referenced elsewhere in this guidance, spreading ownership across departments or a working group, rather than resting it on one role, protects progress against individual staff changes.

Treat consistency as itself a marker of success

Organisations should measure not just whether an accessible exhibition or event happened once, but whether accessible practice is sustained across every subsequent exhibition and event.