Recently, a friend of mine was describing the area in which he now lives to me. 'They've been doing up some of the old buildings', he said ' you know, rejuvenating it'. The arts and rejuvenation, I thought as he spoke - a much more evocative phrase than 'the arts and regeneration'. Much truer to the sparkle, the glamour, the new perspective, the 'take your breath away' moment which the right kind of public art piece, or community performance or new arts building can give you. The somewhat miraculous event.

There is a system for ascertaining the health/ill health of neighbourhoods and organisations which is predicated on looking for evidence of 'vital signs'. How many windows and doors are boarded up? How many small businesses succeed? How many places are there for small children to play? An important vital sign for me would be - what are the quantity and quality of the arts activities taking place in the neighbourhood or involving the organisation. Because arts activities are evidence that people are thinking metaphorically. And change, transformation, is only possible if you can think flexibly, laterally, metaphorically. Where are the somewhat miraculous events?

Well, I've just finished co-writing a publication entitled ' Releasing potential: creativity and change' about the arts and regeneration in the North West of England. It sets out 16 case studies, ranging from an initiative in artists' studios in Cheshire to the new Film, Art and Creative Technology Centre in the middle of Liverpool. And it occurs to me that this is the point we have reached - we can give evidence of the event, we can offer the model, the blueprint for action. You want to find out about an organisation that has spent 21 years working in the context of what is now called 'social exclusion'. We can point you in the direction of Cartwheel Community Arts. You are interested in the role the arts play in regenerating a seaside town? There is More Music in Morecambe. You want to know what kind of social impact a community arts organisation has in a neighbourhood over a 3-year period - Breightmet Arts in Bolton has carried out a research study.

But we still have not made the leap from case study into what I call the 'it would be unthinkable without ' arena. A baseline study of demography or the economy of a neighbourhood would be considered essential to beginning a regeneration initiative - so should be a cultural mapping exercise. If you are very lucky, and live in Halton, you may find there is a creative arts in health consultation going on in your surgery waiting room - what if there were arts and health projects in every unit of every Health Trust and Health Centre in the country? If it is true that ' artists can push the limits of materials and design work in response to a specific user group, be it the residents of a local housing block or users of a local housing office' as Barrow believes, why can they not be used on every major housing development in the country? Can the arts become more integral to regeneration processes in more areas, rather than respected but marginal? Can we bring back a modern,up-dated Percent for Arts scheme? Perhaps a 5 % for Arts to allow for inflation. When do we reach the critical mass we require to make this kind of step change in both activity and perception?

I think that, in order to achieve some kind of mainstreaming - and surely that's what we want, if we genuinely believe the arts to be transformative - at least three things need to happen.

Firstly, we need to ensure that arts organisations working in the context of arts and regeneration operate in conditions which are more financially stable; the cocktail of funds which many organisations rely on currently for survival is a huge administrative and artistic drain.

Secondly, we need to make another assault on the mindsets of politicians and decision-makers; this is an advocacy task in which we should be supported by both the newly structured Arts Council of England and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The need to establish the validity and even existence of the work is not as acute as it was five years ago (a word of thanks here to Chris Smith and the Policy Action Team 10 report on the Arts and Sports in Regeneration), but the work needed to position ' arts for rejuvenation' at the heart of all regeneration policies has yet to be given momentum.

Thirdly we need to be more analytic and critical of our own practice. Can we admit more readily what doesn't work? As Graham Woodruff once asked many years ago at a community arts conference - 'What happens when nobody turns up?' Do some art forms work better in certain contexts than others? What distinguishes a master practitioner from an apprentice? When does work miss the mark? We would ask all these questions of other sectors and movements in the arts, why not of this?

At a conference I attended recently, a number of arts organisations working in regeneration areas in Liverpool spoke with passion about their work. Then a young woman stood up and said ' I am the product of the good work they've just described '. It was both an inspirational and a sobering moment. We have chosen to use our skills as artists and administrators to help create the future for others. May the future find us worthy of the calling.

Case studies can be found in the following publications:

Releasing potential: creativity and change (Arts and regeneration in England's North West). McManus K. and Moriarty G, 2003. Arts Council England North West.

Fewer than six …… A study of creativity in regeneration in Yorkshire and the Humber. Eventus 2002. Yorkshire Arts

Making it count- a study of the impact of arts on the personal, social and political development of young people. Hughes J. and Wilson K. 2003. National Association of Youth Theatres

As Broadcast in Beijing: Merseyside ACME: A Social Impact Study. Hill R. and Moriarty G. 2001. Merseyside ACME .

Gerri Moriarty