"Active participation" as well as bigger audiences should be promoted by culture policy, Baroness Blackstone has said.

The arts minister's call for access to be interpreted not just as audiences or visitors but "doing things" comes as new figures show a massive rise in museum visits.

Free admission for government sponsored national museums has boosted visitor numbers by 2.7 million - up 62 per cent in just seven months.

Regional museums and galleries also gain - with a 45 per cent rise in the same period.

In an ePolitix.com interview highlighting the key role of culture policy for education and social inclusion, Baroness Blackstone emphasised the need for active arts engagement with the public.

"I think that the performing arts, the historic environment and, indeed, our museums and galleries have a big role in bringing people in, involving them, giving them the chance to express themselves in a whole variety of different ways," she told this website.

"One of the things I'm very keen on the arts doing generally is to interpret participation and access, not just in terms of audiences and in terms of visitors looking at things but in terms of people actually doing things.

"And I have been talking to various organisations, including the Arts Council, about how we can encourage more of that."

But its not all social policy driven, stresses Blackstone - who has a keen personal interest in ballet and opera.

"I would very much want to underline, that the whole of this area isn't just about social inclusion, it's also about promoting excellence, about looking after our collections properly, about doing good research, about putting on wonderful concerts, plays, dance performances or whatever the art form might be," she said.

"I'm very, very cheered by the fantastic work that is being done by museums and galleries, both in terms of their traditional role of research and the very good work by curators.

"There are wonderful exhibitions, there is an amazing range and richness of what's being put on, not just in London but all over the country. I go to the openings of some of these things and I feel really proud about what they're doing."

Museums and galleries are also praised for doing a good job in educating the extra millions that are flocking through their doors.

"I also think they are doing a fantastic job in extending their educational programmes, things like providing museum boxes for primary and secondary schools so children can actually handle objects, can draw them, describe them, discuss with their teachers what they represent in terms of the history of the period."

And the focus on activity and learning is a break from the past, says the minister.

"All of that is a huge plus compared with what happened two or three decades ago when people went and looked at things in glass cases. I want to see that develop, of course, and be improved on all the time, as do the directors of our museums," she said.

Blackstone dismisses critics of new technology-based interactive exhibits, believing the new medium to present fresh opportunities to engage the public - without "dumbing down".

"Museums should be fun and enjoyable as well as interesting, stimulating and intellectually stretching.

"Again, you can do both. Of course it's important that there shouldn't be terrible dumbing down going on but I don't think the use of new technology in anyway needs to dumb down," she told ePolitix.com.

"Sometimes you have to reach out to people and you have to do it in a way that will bring people in, engage them, and then take them through to perhaps more demanding exhibits."

And the minister - with direct responsibility for museums and galleries - pledges to do more for the sector with extra cash announced in the recent spending review.

"I hope we will be able to do quite a bit more than has been done over the past 25 years. I'm going to be discussing with a representative group from the museums and galleries world what we should be doing," she said.

Blackstone is also keen to give extra backing to regional institutions - and implement recent proposals from Re:source, the council for museums.

"The 'Renaissance in the regions' report, by Matthew Evans, an excellent report, will be implemented," she promised.

"It won't be possible to implement it quite as fast as I think the authors of it might hope, because we don't have quite enough money for that, but we will certainly make a very substantial start and that I think will be another big plus for the sector."

Smaller regional museums and galleries can also benefit from sharing collections, Blackstone said.

"One of the things I am very keen to do...is to make sure that there is much more sharing of collections, more loaning from the national galleries and national museums to local and regional ones."