This introductory lecture sets out the core themes of the course- contemporary cultural policy against the backdrop of changes to British public administration and British society. The first part of the lecture sets out the ‘problem’ of cultural policy for contemporary British administration and unpacks the reasons for the peripheral place of cultural policy in both the theory and practice of British politics. The introduction then moves to describe the rise of the managerialist, technocratic approach to policy making that underpins much of the modern policy process.