Audience development is at the heart of Tate's core mission of increasing knowledge, understanding and appreciation of art. Engaging visitors, offering a programme of events and facilities that cater for people with a wide range of needs and finding and developing new audiences, are all part of our ambition to serve our public in the best ways possible.

In the year 2003-04, more than 6 million people visited the four Tate galleries, while a million more attended Tate exhibitions in other venues in the UK and abroad. Our audience is truly international - almost forty percent of visitors to Tate Modern live outside the UK. In Liverpool, our regional audience is now supplemented by more visitors from abroad, thanks to direct flights to the city from Europe, and Tate St Ives is a major attraction that has significantly benefited tourism in the region.

One of our biggest challenges is to make certain that our visitors' experience is not diminished at peak times when the galleries are busy. Reassuringly, audience research indicates that satisfaction levels are extremely high, but we can do more.

Ensuring that Tate's many different visitors enjoy their experience was the aim of a ground-breaking piece of audience research commissioned during this biennium. A visitor audit, Tate Through Visitors' Eyes, employed a wide range of methods to assess the motivations, engagement, perceptions and reactions of our visitors at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. The results of this research have given us a much better understanding of the varied needs of our visitors and have enabled us to draw up a list of recommendations to improve onsite communication and services.

A constant challenge is to find and engage new audiences, both within and outside the Tate galleries, and to make Tate more accessible. Each gallery has worked hard to contribute to and build relationships with the local community. In 2001 the Metropolitan Police and Southwark's social services set up Karrot, a youth project designed to combat truancy and crime. Tate Modern collaborated with Karrot to launch a pilot in the form of a fashion design competition. Young people worked with leading designers to create their own collections, while others took part in workshops in photography, choreography, journalism, music and related subjects, all working towards the final event. Held at Tate Modern in September 2003, the Karrot Fashion Fair was so successful that the scheme is now being rolled out as a national programme.

We continue to find different ways to engage with those with specific needs. During this biennium we have pioneered a number of innovative programmes, including a state-of-the-art interactive tour of Tate Modern - an exciting addition to the ways in which we interpret art for our visitors. Also of great significance has been the award-winning online project, i-Map, which enables visually-impaired people to explore seminal works by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Pentreath Industries in Cornwall is a charitable organisation supporting people with mental illness, and with them Tate St Ives has helped adults with an art training to regain confidence by meeting and working with artists. Tate St Ives has also collaborated with the Travellers Education Support Unit in West Cornwall to bring young Travellers into the gallery. These visits allow the young people to explore art and the processes used to make it, and also provide an opportunity for them to celebrate their own culture.

Tate Liverpool has a tradition of working closely with local prisons and in early 2004 set about producing a prisoners' Resource Pack. Complementing Liverpool Prison's Visual Arts Programme, it will allow inmates to study modern and contemporary art history independently. It is one of many Tate projects serving people who cannot access the galleries directly.

Our Audience is truly international