Percent for art: a share of the build cost, and why it is not a law here
Percent for art sets aside a share of a building project’s capital cost, most commonly 1 per cent, to pay for artwork, and in the United Kingdom it is not a law. No statute anywhere in the UK requires a developer or a public body to spend a percentage of a build cost on art. Where the requirement exists it exists as adopted local policy, applied through the planning system, and its force depends entirely on how that policy is written, how it is evidenced, and how hard the authority is prepared to argue for it.
That single distinction explains almost every confusion about the scheme. Readers arrive expecting a rule and find an expectation. Developers arrive expecting a negotiation and are correct.
How the percentage is calculated, and what capital cost means
The percentage is calculated on capital construction cost, and the definition of that figure is where the arguing starts. Adopted policies commonly set 1 per cent, with a published range of roughly 0.5 to 2 per cent across UK authorities, and some apply a sliding scale that reduces the percentage as scheme value rises. A few use a flat sum per residential unit instead, which is easier to administer and harder to dispute.
Four exclusions are typically argued over when the figure is worked out:
- Land cost, almost always excluded, which on a city centre site removes a large share of total project value.
- Professional fees, usually excluded, though some policies include them.
- Abnormal costs such as remediation, piling and diversions, frequently excluded because they buy no floorspace.
- Infrastructure and enabling works, treated inconsistently between authorities.
The practical effect is that the same headline percentage on the same scheme can produce contributions differing by a factor of two, depending on the agreed cost base. Read a policy’s definition of construction cost before reading its percentage, because the definition is doing more work than the number.
Why it is policy in the UK rather than statute
Percent for art entered UK practice in the late 1980s as a voluntary standard promoted to local authorities and public bodies, and it was never legislated. It spread by adoption: individual councils wrote it into their plans, and by the 2000s many English, Welsh and Scottish authorities carried a version of it. It has since receded in several areas, absorbed into broader placemaking or design policies rather than surviving as a named percentage.
Two features of the planning system explain both the spread and the retreat. A requirement written into a development plan can be applied to applications, because planning law requires applications to be determined in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. But a plan policy has to be justified and deliverable to be adopted, and it can be outweighed at the point of decision. Percent for art has always been vulnerable at that second stage, because it competes for the same finite scheme value as affordable housing, schools, transport and open space.
What aspirational policy means when a developer says no
An aspirational policy is one written with words such as encourage, seek, expect or where appropriate, rather than require, and the difference decides what happens in the meeting. A requirement can be enforced through a planning obligation as a condition of permission. An aspiration is a starting position in a negotiation.
When a developer declines, four arguments do the work, and it is useful to recognise them:
- Viability. The developer submits an appraisal showing the scheme cannot carry every requested contribution. Public art is normally the first item removed, being the smallest and the one no statutory service depends on.
- Policy wording. If the policy only encourages, there is nothing to enforce, and the authority knows an appeal would be hard to defend.
- The lawfulness tests. A planning obligation must be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related to it in scale and kind. A public art contribution has to be argued against those tests like any other.
- Substitution. The developer offers something cheaper that can be described as public art, such as decorative paving, a feature light or a bespoke railing, delivered by the landscape contractor rather than commissioned from an artist.
The fourth is the most common outcome and the least discussed. It is not automatically a bad result: an integrated element made well beats a detached object made cheaply. It becomes a bad result when the artist’s involvement and the commissioning process disappear while the label public art survives. An authority wanting to prevent that has to define in its guidance what does not count, and say so before permission is granted rather than at discharge of condition.
Where a percentage requirement is mandatory, and why that is not the UK
Mandatory national percentage schemes do exist, and the comparison is instructive rather than transferable. The Republic of Ireland operates a national Per Cent for Art Scheme applying to publicly funded capital projects, run as government policy across departments rather than left to each council, and it binds public bodies through the capital budget process rather than through legislation. France has required a percentage of state building project costs to go to artistic commissions since the 1950s, and there the requirement rests on national regulation rather than on the discretion of each department. In both cases the obligation attaches to public capital spending, is administered nationally, and never depends on negotiating with a private developer.
That is the structural difference, and note that it is not a difference between law and no law. Mandatory schemes elsewhere generally bind the state as a client of its own building programme. UK percent for art policy tries to bind a third party, the private developer, through the planning system, which is a weaker mechanism producing far more variable results. Any UK reader benchmarking against an overseas percentage should check first whether it applies to public buildings or to private development, because the two are not the same instrument.
What 1 per cent actually buys
One per cent produces very different commissions depending on scheme size, and the number is worth testing before it enters a brief. On a £2 million development it yields around £20,000, which after design fee, engineering, foundations and installation supports a modest work or, more usefully, a good temporary or participatory programme. On a £50 million scheme it yields around £500,000, a genuine landmark budget with its own problem: a sum that large needs a strategy, a phased programme and a maintenance settlement, not one object chosen in a hurry to discharge a condition.
Two figures should always travel with the percentage. The first is the maintenance provision, conventionally budgeted at 1 to 2 per cent of capital cost per year, which is an asset management rule of thumb rather than a public art standard, and which the same agreement should secure as a commuted sum. The second is the deadline by which the money must be spent, because contributions that expire unspent are returned to the developer and the artwork simply never appears.