What is cultural well-being?

Defining Cultural Well-Being

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage defines cultural-well being as:

This definition is a starting point which your council may wish to use to form its own understanding of what cultural well-being is and what emphasis it might give to cultural well-being. More guidance on what the Ministry considers cultural well-being to be is available by reading Cultural Well-being - What is it?, or Definitions and Contexts of Cultural Well-being .

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage takes a broad approach to "cultural well-being". This view encompasses many of the activities which local authorities already engage in – including the provision of libraries, museums, parks, venues and recreational facilities, support for the arts, celebration of events, promotion of language, heritage protection, the provision of main streeting programmes and cycle-ways etc.

Why is the Ministry interested in Cultural Well-Being?

The Ministry's mandate for involvement in cultural well-being is derived from three main sources:

1. The Local Government Act 2002 which specifically requires local authorities to consider cultural well-being in their planning. See the online version of this Act on the New Zealand Legislation Online website.
2. The desire of central government to promote effective central government engagement with local government; and
3. The Ministry's Statement of Intent 2008-2013

The Ministry cannot get involved with each Community Outcomes and/or Long-Term Council-Community Plan (LTCCP) process. However, we are still very interested to hear about what is going on around the country, especially as these plans and processes relate to cultural well-being. Please keep in touch and let us know what you what you are doing in your area.  You can contact us at anytime by email at culturalwellbeing@mch.govt.nz.