For England’s Music Hubs, the start of a new academic year should be a time for planning, partnership and looking ahead. Instead, many Hub leaders once again find themselves balancing ambition with uncertainty.
After another one-year funding settlement, many Hubs will understandably be asking the same question they have been asking for several years: how do you plan strategically when your future is only ever guaranteed for twelve months?
Music education is built on long-term relationships. Whether it is developing instrumental tuition in schools, investing in workforce development, supporting young ensembles or building partnerships with local cultural organisations, meaningful change rarely happens within a single academic year. Yet Music Hubs continue to operate in an environment where long-term planning is exceptionally difficult.
To their credit, many Hubs have shown remarkable resilience. They have adapted to changing structures, expanded partnerships following the Hub refresh, responded to local needs and continued to provide opportunities for thousands of young people. But resilience should not become an expectation. There is a difference between being adaptable and continually operating in survival mode.
The coming year also represents the beginning of another significant transition. While Arts Council England will continue overseeing the Music Hub network during 2026–27, responsibility is expected to transfer to the new National Centre for Music and Arts Education from September 2027. This phased approach gives the new organisation time to establish itself and work with Hubs before formally taking on oversight.
Change in itself is not necessarily a problem. Every organisation benefits from fresh ideas and renewed priorities. The question is whether this transition creates greater clarity for Music Hubs, or simply another period of uncertainty while everyone waits to see how expectations, accountability and support will evolve.
Already anecdotal evidence suggests that hubs are taking wildly differing approaches to this impending transition. Some are operating on a ‘business as usual’ policy while others are halting any and all new plans until they find out who will be running the centre and what that organisation’s priorities might be. This disparity is worrying because it further exacerbates the ‘postcode lottery’ issue within music education, with differing levels of opportunity provided to children based on their geographical location.
The National Centre has ambitious objectives. Alongside overseeing Music Hubs, it will develop national CPD for teachers, promote arts education and strengthen progression pathways for children and young people. Those are welcome ambitions, if somewhat unrealistic given the amount of funding allocated to achieve them, and hopefully they will help address the ongoing inconsistency in music provision across England. However, there is an understandable concern across the sector that another structural change risks diverting attention away from what matters most: supporting children and schools.
Schools themselves continue to face considerable pressures. Budget constraints remain challenging. Teacher recruitment and retention continue to affect specialist music teaching. Curriculum reform is progressing, and schools are navigating wider accountability changes alongside increasing expectations around inclusion and enrichment. Against this backdrop, Music Hubs have perhaps never been more important.
Increasingly, schools rely on their local Hub not simply for instrumental lessons but for curriculum support, professional development, singing programmes, progression opportunities and strategic advice. The most successful Hubs have become trusted partners rather than external providers. This growing role also creates new expectations. Schools want consistency. They want expertise. They want support that reflects their own context rather than generic solutions. Meeting those expectations requires investment in people, systems and long-term planning, all of which become more difficult under short funding cycles.
The recently published interim evaluation of the refreshed Music Hub programme recognised positive progress but also highlighted that implementation is still evolving and that partnerships continue to develop following the 2024 reforms. This should remind policymakers that system-wide improvement takes time. Frequent structural changes inevitably slow progress as organisations adapt to new requirements.
So where should the focus be this year?
Rather than waiting for another announcement from government, I would encourage Music Hubs to get on with the job they do best: ensuring that the children and young people in their local area have access to as much high-quality music education as possible. Why delay the projects and plans that you know will benefit your area just on the off-chance that they don’t align with the whims of a National Centre that won’t have any power over you for at least another 12 months? If anything, now is the time to be bold and brave; genies are much harder for someone else to stuff back into the bottle once you’ve set them free!
The governance structures may change. Funding mechanisms may evolve. National priorities will undoubtedly shift, but the purpose of Music Hubs remains exactly the same. Every child, regardless of background or postcode, deserves access to a rich, high-quality music education. If music hubs can keep that principle at the heart of their work, then even another year of uncertainty need not become a year of stagnation.
The challenges facing Music Hubs are real, and they deserve acknowledgement. Equally, the expertise, commitment and creativity that exist across the network should not be underestimated. Whatever organisation sits above them in twelve months’ time, it is those local partnerships – and the people within them – that will continue making the greatest difference to children’s musical lives.
Dr Liz Stafford, August 2026. Copyright © 2026 Music Education Solutions Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Click here to read more blogs about music education
Click here to see our services for music hubs
Click here to join our mailing list