Examination of Witnesses (Questions 101-112)
Q101 Chair: Can
I first of all apologise to the three of you for keeping you waiting
so long. Thank you for coming. For our second session we are now
going to concentrate on local government and, therefore, can I
welcome Gary Millar from Liverpool City Council, Simon Eden from
Winchester City Council, and Guy Nicholson from Hackney Borough
Council. David?
Q102 David Cairns:
Thank you, Chair. At a time when you are going to be struggling
to meet your statutory requirements in education and social care,
and so on, and you are going to be getting additional responsibilities
in health promotion and all the rest of it through the reforms
in the health service, isn't the truth of the matter that funding
the arts is a luxury which local government can no longer afford?
Mr Millar: Well—
David Cairns: If you all say yes, we
can go home now.
Mr Millar: It's
the first time I've heard arts called a luxury. I'm from Liverpool,
which held the best Capital of Culture ever—as pronounced
by the President of the EU Commission. Whether it's debatable
or not, culture and the arts has had a huge impact on Liverpool
over the last five or six years, never mind the last 800 years.
£800 million of additional economic spend because of arts
and culture in 2008; 27.5 million visitors came to the city from
outside of Liverpool because of arts and culture. That created
jobs. It created jobs in not just the hospitality, the hotel,
the bars, the tourism sector, which is very important, but also
in relationship to creating add-on jobs in the knowledge economy
or the science economy as well, because it was a five-year process
from when Liverpool won the bid to actually delivering Capital
of Culture. It's not just about Capital of Culture, it's the legacy
moving forward. Moving into 2009 and 2010 in Liverpool this year
is the year of health and well-being, delivering the "five-a-day"
which includes "Connect" and "Give", "Keep
Learning" and so on. They're not luxuries, they are the thread
that runs through everything that Liverpool City Council and the
public sector and the private sector is delivering, and keeps
delivering for arts and heritage. So I wouldn't call it a luxury
at all. I think it really is incredibly important to keep supporting
arts and heritage and culture in all its forms, whether it's walking
in a park, watching a football game, working on the internet,
or going to an event in either a gallery or a theatre or visiting
a museum. Liverpool has National Museums Liverpool: 3 million
visitors in 2008, slightly less in 2009. The actual visitors to
the museums in 2007 was 1.9 million, so to go from 1.9 million
to 3 million people visiting a museum is incredibly important
because it's about education. It's about new experiences. Again,
I don't call that a luxury.
Mr Eden: I think,
Chair, if I can add; I come from a very different area, work in
a very different area from Gary. Winchester is the south, prosperous
and a two-tier area in terms of councils. The district council
sits within Hampshire. We work closely with the county council.
I also work as part of a partnership of 11 local authorities in
urban South Hampshire, the two city regions of Portsmouth and
Southampton, and we don't see culture as a luxury either. We put,
between us, a significant amount of money into cultural projects
and we don't do it just because culture and arts are good things,
for art's sake. Of course there's an argument for that. But the
way the members I work for and the members I work within that
partnership see it is that by investing in cultural activity they're
providing something for young people to do.
For example, there's a very good dance project that
the county and the district have invested in, which is in one
of the more deprived areas. "Deprived" in our terms,
by comparison with perhaps other parts of the country not so bad,
but kids who are hanging around on street corners causing minor
antisocial behaviour; the lads in hoodies, if you like, sometimes.
Putting money into that project has those involved in street dance
and there was a notable reduction in antisocial behaviour as a
result of that. So we don't see arts culture as a luxury. That's
just one example of where if you invest money in the right way,
through the right project with the right partners, then you're
delivering some really good things for your communities that are
the sort of things your constituents will have concerns about.
Q103 David Cairns:
Sorry. Clearly my question was intended to provoke discussion,
not to reflect my personal opinion. But given all that you say
then and given how wonderful this spending is in terms of its
economic regeneration, tourist potential and educational blah-blah-blah,
do you think there's an argument then, given that it's not statutory—like
you're having to provide education and social work and all the
rest of it—that there should be statutory recognition of
the spend? Because, as a former councillor myself, you know that
when you have to make cuts, where you're facing a choice where
you know you have to provide social work or teachers but you don't
have to provide money for the arts so that goes first, that there
is a need for some kind of statutory recognition for this? Otherwise,
good though it all is, it's all going to be the first to go.
Mr Nicholson: If
I may respond, I think your original comment is well made. Like
all services delivered by colleagues in local government across
England and Wales, all of those services are under some kind of
pressure or threat in the months ahead of us and certainly for
the coming three years and that's been recognised in town halls
across the land. Now, I think where it is that perhaps cultural
spend has got to, and my colleagues were referencing some of this,
is that the picture varies profoundly across England and Wales—so
from council to council, from community to community—about
the importance that's placed on the investment made into participatory
activities, arts and culture being one of the most profound streams
of activity through which participation can and does take place
at a local level. In some places there is a great deal of recognition,
a great deal of emphasis—and this is as much in the great
urban centres as it may be in the more district-type centres—and
importance is placed upon cultural participation. That's not where
our worry is.
There are other places in the land where that is
not the case; where there is, for one reason or another—and
it's not always a blame that could be laid at the door of one
organisation or one institution—a lack of engagement, a
lack of interest perhaps, a lack of shall we say an understanding
of the importance that arts and culture could play if the finance
and the funding and the investment is aligned with that of the
youth service, the community safety portfolio for example, indeed
economic development around both job creation as well as business
development. All these various strands of activity and more besides,
including the future of the health budgets for example, all these
things bring duality and additionality to the investment that
comes into the arts via the Arts Council and via the local authorities
and via the heritage bodies.
The challenge before us all is not necessarily a
knee-jerk response about ring-fencing and statutory expenditure
but I would suggest it's about aligning the institutions and saying
to the institutions, "Now is the time to jointly invest into
these participatory activities that now, more so than perhaps
ever before, are going to be more relevant for the future well-being
of our local communities. It's not the capital spend, I suspect,
that we're going to have the luxury of using in the years ahead
of us. It's going to be that revenue spend into participation
to ensure that, at the very least, our communities remain coherent
and cohesive; they remain neighbourly.
Q104 David Cairns:
I get all that and that's a very good vision but I suppose the
point I am making is we don't leave it to local authorities to
decide whether or not they want to invest in education. They are
told they have to do it and then they are inspected nationally.
We don't leave it up to them to decide whether or not they want
to invest in services for old people, they have to do it; or young
people, they have to do it. It is not up to them to say whether
or not to clean the streets. They have to do it. If this is as
important as you three all say it is and it brings so much more
both to the inhabitants of the boroughs and of the cities and
of the tourists and all the rest of it, it is still pretty much
discretionary how you do it. And I was just wondering whether
or not—given that we are about to enter a very difficult
time and, okay, I appreciate that ring-fencing and direct targets
are out of fashion; not with me but they are with the current
administration and we may see that reflected in the course of
the questioning—but do you not feel that, unless there is
some kind of policy determination on this, your wonderful causes
that you've outlined, good though they are, are not going to amount
to a hill of beans when it comes up against the statutory requirement
that councils have to fund in an era of constrained spending?
Mr Eden: I tend
to argue with my colleagues, with my members, that a statutory
discretionary split, statutory/non-statutory, is not the right
way to look at things now. We're being told, I think rightly,
by Government that they want to free us up and allow us to do
more according to local choice and according to what our local
communities want, which I think is an excellent thing. If you
start putting things in statutory and non-statutory boxes I think
you miss the opportunity for some of the interactions between
things and that's where a lot of cultural projects come in. We
don't have an arts pot or an education pot or a social services
pot any more, we look at how budgets can affect different outcomes.
That's one of the buzz words we use at the moment, I suppose,
but we look at the impact on our community. And if, by spending
money to support a theatre or a community arts group, that can
bring in young people who would otherwise hang around on street
corners or it can help older people have something to do during
the day, then that's a good outcome and you're achieving the sorts
of things you want in terms of well-being for those older people
or stopping antisocial behaviour. So I think it will be a retrograde
step to start putting things in little boxes and calling them
all "statutory".
The other fear I think we'd have in local government
is that as soon as you call something "statutory" you
start coming back to targets and things like that and I know there
are different views within the House on the appropriateness or
otherwise. But you'd expect me to say that I think central targets
stop that flexibility to spend money in a way that our local communities
want and that can make an impact in our local communities.
Mr Millar: Can
I add there is an element of a requirement for a "preventative
agenda", one that prevents disease, illnesses, and so on?
There are ways, using culture and using the arts, to make people—and
this might be seen to be fluffy and I don't think it is—definitely
to be healthier but actually to be happier, too. The introduction
of culture in the business environment, whether that may be, as
I said before, walking in the park or playing some sport or doing
some physical activity, reduces absences, sickness. That increases
the economic value, spend and so on of that organisation. Whether
it be really small or really large, it can make a big difference.
It can make a big difference in local authorities. It can make
a big difference in central government in terms of delivering
cultural activities that are seen to be preventative.
I've seen relationships in Liverpool in particular
where we have a very good relationship with the Primary Care Trust
and we have co-funded and shared resources in supplying services
that are seen to be partially cultural but it's about that activity.
It's about doing a dance, going to a dance, going to a sports
activity, doing something with crafts, but through the health
service about making a bigger difference to the local communities.
But that's decisions being made locally that are appropriate locally.
It's not a "fit all" type of situation. It fits Liverpool.
It might not fit some other areas. I would think it probably does
in some things that we do and there are lessons to be learned
but I think what could be seen to be a front-line service or a
statutory service, if that's what it is, is with a health and
well-being agenda and that is through relationships with whatever
the health services are, together with the local authority and
the private sector and volunteers and so on. So saying it's a
statutory delivery; it should be an automatic delivery; it should
run through everything we do and it should be about prevention
as well as having fun. We still need the fun but we also need
the prevention, too.
Mr Nicholson: Chair,
just to add if I may; it does seem to me that the ring-fencing
criteria is probably best applied as defining and setting outcomes
rather than ring-fencing budgets. I think that if you reinforce
that with a legislative programme that sets about bringing the
public sector in all of its various different guises and shapes
and forms—in other words public sector expenditure into
communities—into a position where it is being required to
jointly invest and finance into those outcomes and, as Gary was
describing, all of it defined in a very local context. By "local"
we would talk about a local authority area, for example, wherever
it may be. That, to me, would then start to add a lot more substance
to some of the ideas that we've been bringing forward in East
and South-East London where we've been using the 2012 catalyst
as the means by which, if you like, the legislation—and
I use the term obviously somewhat loosely in this sense—provides
us with the sort of direction, the sort of catalyst, that can
define a set of outcomes, bring absolute consensus and agreement
to those outcomes from a very, very broad range of organisations,
individuals, as well as institutions and indeed the private sector,
and focused on some very, very clearly defined set of socio-economic
and socio-cultural outcomes.
Now, that is very valuable. What would have helped
in that exercise is to have ensured that across the public sector
there was an acknowledgement and an acceptance that that locally-led
consortia approach, delivering on some outcomes, is indeed legitimate
and in a position to be able to meaningfully take forward spend
and bring forward some fantastic results in terms of outcome.
Q105 David Cairns: Thanks.
Just one comment and then I will shut up. The nature of this exercise
is that we have three exemplary local authorities who really value
this and are going hell for leather and have seen the point of
it. It might be an interesting exercise if we could find the three
local authorities in the country that spend least on this and
sat them there and ask them the same questions. But that is not
what we are examining so I will pass back to the Chair.
Mr Nicholson: Sorry,
Chair, could I just very briefly respond to that because I think
that's a well-made point and I can give you an example where very
recently, I was in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey where there
is an extraordinary local energy around the future arts and cultural
and heritage-led economy for that particular part of the land
and, in particular, that town—that great historical naval
dockyard and so on and so forth. That is consistently an area
where it's coming up against a local authority that is not being
receptive. It doesn't quite understand and appreciate the opportunity
there and it doesn't quite connect what it is that is being described
with some of those ideas locally with a future and future prosperity
and, indeed, improving the quality of life for all of those people
who happen to live in that particular town and indeed that particular
area. And I think that is a well made point. That is happening
across the country and our challenge is how can we move that best
practice to those communities, support those communities and bringing
forward the kind of philosophy that we've been describing, whether
it's on a mega-scale, a macro-scale or a micro one.
Q106 Chair: But as Simon
Eden rightly pointed out, we believe in allowing local authorities
to have greater freedom to choose how to spend money. Some local
authorities are going to choose to spend less on the arts. That's
an inevitable outcome.
Mr Nicholson: I
couldn't possibly comment on that one, Chair.
Mr Millar: Chair,
could I add a comment to that? Because of our experience in Liverpool,
I was asked to visit Plymouth last week and deliver a speech on
"Culture Means Business" and the remarkable transformation
in Liverpool due to culture. And, completely agreeing with Guy,
some local authorities just don't get it and it needs I think,
in some cases, the introduction of people like us who could go
and visit and be advocates for the transformation that has happened
elsewhere. They're very willing to listen. They invited me to
come and talk about what we've done and make suggestions about
what they could do.
The taxi driver that picked me up from the airport
said, "Plymouth is a wonderful city but I don't do culture"
and I said, "Where do you live?" and he said, "I
live over there". I said, "What's this in front of you?"
and he said, "Oh, it's the park". "Do you go into
the park?" and he said, "Oh yes". His understanding
of culture was different to my understanding of culture or many
others. He didn't see that as cultural; he saw it as an activity.
He took his dog out for a walk and right next to Peverell is Plymouth
Argyle's football ground. I said, "Do you support football?"
He said, "Oh yes". He didn't get sport as being cultural.
He said, "I don't do culture. We don't do it. We don't get
it here". They do get it but it's not articulated in the
way that he understood as a local resident in Plymouth. So I thought,
"Well, I'll do my advocacy here" and I said, "Well,
this might be seen to be culture in Liverpool but it's actually
just you going about your daily life, having fun, getting fit
and so on". I think sometimes we have to articulate it in
a different way depending on where we are. What he did say is,
"Plymouth"—and it's not true—"lacks
ambition". Plymouth has lots of ambition but it wasn't being
articulated in the way that he understood and appreciated. I think
it's about more communication, more dialogue; not just from other
cities, other areas whether it be urban or rural. It's about people
who've been there, done it and to come to summits and so on and
discuss what we've done in other areas. It does work.
Mr Eden: Being
the officer here, I would start by saying you're absolutely right.
It is inevitable with localism that some may take a decision,
"We'd rather spend on this than that culture" or whatever
you choose to call it. I think the issue is making sure that we
properly understand the ramifications and the consequences of
cultural spend. It's not just about pumping £200,000 into
subsidy for your local theatre. It's about supporting a theatre
with an education programme, making sure it reaches the schools,
in our case, for example, in the rural communities or making sure
in other cases, it reaches more deprived communities with an education
programme and saying, "Is that having an impact". If
it's having an impact and it's having effect, fine. If it's not,
then maybe you have your funding wrong. You shouldn't be funding
that. You should be funding that over there.
So it does come back to a local choice and we shouldn't
be, I think, expecting—which is my argument against statutory
culture, if you like—that, therefore, everybody will get
it and will spend money on culture. But I would ask that they
think through the logical consequences of spending or not spending
in particular areas and just think slightly laterally about the
sort of projects that you can stimulate and the changes you can
have. Who would have thought a dance project was going to get
hoodies off the street and reduce anti-social behaviour. I went
to a performance the other evening; it was absolutely fantastic
and quite moving. So you need to think locally.
Chair: Damian.
Q107 Damian Collins: This
one is primarily to Gary Millar. I suppose Liverpool is fortunate
that two of your most iconic cultural attractions have been provided
by the private sector in the form of the Beatles and the football
clubs. Are there any particular lessons from Liverpool about how
you can work with the private sector to make the most of the money
you can spend as an authority?
Mr Millar: We do
work with the private sector, hugely. The most recent example,
and I'm sorry to keep coming back to the European Capital of Culture;
the investment by the private sector was £22.4 million spent
in that year on culture. That's a big spend; not coming from the
public sector, it came from the private sector and that has continued.
There are relationships with both Liverpool Football Club and
the other great team, Everton Football Club who are slightly higher
up in the league at the moment than Liverpool Football Club.
David Cairns: Most
teams are higher up in the league than Liverpool.
Mr Millar: I couldn't
possibly comment.
Everton and Liverpool are delivering physical activity
and cultural arts projects themselves in the city. They're doing
it in conjunction with the Primary Care Trust and the local authority,
and also with organisations like Mersey Travel, the integrated
transport authority—delivering cultural projects because
they want more people to use their buses and their trains to go
to attractions and so on. So there are relationships that link
into things like transport. They are working now.
I think they work because it is lessons learned in
terms of working as consortia as referred to by Guy before. They
were working before but they are more obvious now and were more
obvious in 2008. The Beatles; you may have seen the press this
weekend. We have a new global peace monument in Chavasse Park
in Liverpool One. It has made Liverpool the fifth most visited
retail destination in the country in one year where it was 17th
the year before. Liverpool One, the "Beatles' Story"
and the city council worked together to deliver the global peace
initiative monument. That is going to attract many thousands of
additional visitors to the city based on peace and the heritage
of the Beatles. So there are the Beatles, there are football clubs,
but there's also the world heritage site. Very few people talk
about it but the world heritage site, our heritage, is run by
Liverpool City Council in a consortia with English Heritage. I
don't think we do enough in that area because the world heritage
site isn't promoted enough perhaps because we have just one conservation
officer. We need more input. We need more partnerships with English
Heritage through that.
Q108 Damian Collins: Outside
of Beatles and football, do you think, looking at the world heritage
site and looking at galleries like the Walker, there is more opportunity
to bring in the private sector to support the public money that
is spent on the arts in Liverpool?
Mr Millar: The
Community Foundation—I don't know if you know the Community
Foundation for Merseyside based in Liverpool—raises lots
of money for communities by getting investment from the private
sector mainly to then donate to community organisations including
arts organisations and cultural and heritage organisations and
that is a huge investment from the private sector. That is not
run by the city council; it's a private organisation and it runs
very well. As I say, huge private investment.
The private sector is constantly delivering projects
integrating both the universities, the Liverpool Science Park,
the Liverpool Innovation Park working with our cultural tsar—or
is it now the innovation tsar—who is Phil Redmond who's
responsible for part of the Big Society in Liverpool. That's the
private sector that's doing that and delivering that.
It's just interesting that Phil Redmond is also the
chair of National Museums Liverpool who is delivering a lot of
volunteering and obviously venues; I think it's now eight venues,
soon to be nine. In fact, the largest investment in culture in
terms of a new venue, which is the new Museum of Liverpool, which
opens next year; it's the first large sole-use museum in the country
being built at any time in 90 years and it's opening in Liverpool
next year. You must come and visit it. It's the only museum designated
for the history of Liverpool from its maritime to its waterfront
to its Beatles to its music. It's more than just the Beatles;
57 No. 1 singles have reached the charts from Liverpool. Best
in the country; I'm very proud of that.
Q109 Damian Collins: If
the city has as many advocates as you, then I'm sure it will be
in no shortage of good publicity.
Just one final question if I may just on the other
side of the equation looking at public support? In the previous
session, we had the Arts Council in and I asked them about their
relationship with local authorities. I think both from the submissions
we received from local authorities and my own experience of the
local authorities in my area, there is sometimes a frustration
that when you're talking about transactions between public bodies,
that it's unduly complex and bureaucratic and I wondered what
your experiences were of working with the Arts Council to fund
projects.
Mr Eden: Can I
start with a comment on how we work? Not in my authority on its
own; we have a partnership of 11 authorities in South Hampshire
which includes Winchester. A couple of years ago, we became what
was called "a priority place" for the cultural agencies,
the cultural quangos. It was CLG, Communities and Local Government,
with DCMS, and I always get the list wrong, but certainly the
Arts Council, English Heritage, Sport England, MLA and I think
one of the film bodies, maybe the one that still exists, maybe
not, I'm not sure, came together in a group and said, "We
want to support excellence in culture and the places that recognise
culture, however one chooses to define it, as part of the growth
agenda. That's what we're trying to do in South Hampshire, integrate
culture into our growth agenda."
The fact that they came together, we became a priority
place, meant that we had a single point of contact with the agencies,
a single voice we could talk to and we were able to argue the
toss with them over whether a particular funding scheme, a particular
mechanism was over complicated. They became much more, almost
relaxed, if you like, in their approach to how they worked with
the local authorities through building that relationship and through
coming together as a group of cultural agencies and working with
the council. So I think where you can build those sorts of partnerships,
that's a very effective way of overcoming those difficulties.
I think before we had that designation, we did find
it much more difficult to work our way through the different types
of bureaucracy and programmes and application mechanisms for different
bodies. So there is an answer that is in the hands of the agencies
and local government together that is to build that sort of partnership.
Where it's done, it has been successfully. I think we've lost
some of the constraints that used to sit around cultural funding
that came from the Arts Council and they're much more focusing
on the outcomes we deliver rather than a series of output type
performance measures. So it's possible to do it, I think.
Mr Nicholson: What
is perhaps worth considering for a moment is that I'm not wholly
convinced, personally speaking, about the complexity of the funding
regimes and trying to access those funding regimes as an organisation
or an individual, for example; whether it's the Arts Council or
indeed anyone else. Where there does seem to be a great opportunity
before us is this idea that building upon whatever relationship
it is that we have managed to achieve over the last four or five
years between local government and the Arts Council across the
regions. Going forward, there is a great opportunity before us
that is more about very, very carefully considering how it is
that, as we were saying earlier, we can not only align local political
and policy objectives for the arts and have a responsive Arts
Council that can then embrace those local objectives and pitch
in all of the support that it could possibly muster alongside
it, but also to think perhaps some steps further, which is as
much about joint monitoring, monitoring of outcomes, monitoring
of performance, audit, for example. In other words, the Arts Council
and a local authority start to consider those very practical day-to-day
things of spending public money into a community. The relationship
between the Arts Council is resourced so there is the means to
engage with a council, with a local authority. It's not that that's
not there but it now seems there is an opportunity.
The other reason for saying that is that I'm not
wholly convinced that the private sector— and I appreciate
there are others out there who think the same—however it
wishes to use its patronage, will finance the arts but probably
only in the great metropolis such as Liverpool and the offer there;
in Manchester and the offer there; in London and the offer there;
some very specific institutions. Now, that is good; that is supportive;
that's very helpful and perhaps that can be expanded a little.
But there are many thousands of people across the country who
are not part of those big organisations, who are the very heart
and core of the arts in this country. They are the ones that generate
the great creative products that come forward into the bigger
institutions, into the bigger festivals. They are the ones that
create content, in other words, and the investment from the private
sector into those particular spheres of activity at that level
in our communities, still remains to be proven that it could do
that. I think we run a great risk going forward if we think that
private sector sponsorship would bring that about. I am not so
sure that it will, but I remain to be proven wrong, of course.
Mr Millar: Can
I add? There are two things that came out of this. The first was
your question about the Arts Council. I should declare an interest.
I am a member of Arts Council North West, so I have an understanding
of some of what it does as a council, not necessarily when it
gets down to what the individual officers are doing on a day-to-day
basis. I think the Arts Council does an amazing job. I have to
say that and not because I'm on the council but because the relationship
that Arts Council North West has with both Liverpool and Manchester
City Councils is exemplary. It's a relationship that's as good
with the council as the council's relationship is with DCMS. The
Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Arts Council significantly
contributed, not necessarily financially but in terms of advice,
resource, and so on, to the success in Liverpool of European Capital
of Culture and going forward, but also in Manchester for things
like the Manchester International Festival. They've done wonderful
jobs.
Now the Arts Council, for example, also had the Sustain
project and that was very good during the beginning of the recession
to assist the Regularly Funded Organisations in a very quick but
a very accountable way and heavily scrutinised, but with very
low amounts of paperwork. So it wasn't unnecessarily bureaucratic
because people needed help now to get over the hurdle then to
still be there now and it's across the North West. I cannot say
what's happened elsewhere regionally but I would imagine Sustain
was rolled out across the entire country. Great art for everyone
being delivered by the Arts Council is a lot less bureaucratic
than it may have been two or three years ago and I think they
need to be congratulated for that but as a local authority the
relationship, forgetting the fact that I am a council member of
the Arts Council North West, has been very good.
In fact, the Arts Council works with the arts' officers
across the North West on a weekly basis. When they look at cofunding,
they do it understanding the implication of what each party is
doing and whether it's going to work and whether it's sustainable
and whether it's going to be great art for everyone; so I think
the relationship with the Arts Council and the local authorities
in the North West is very good. The Arts Council North West delivered
funding for Lakes Alive and when we had the flooding in Cumbria
it was one of the very first organisations to come forward to
assist with cultural and arts and heritage projects, not just
to deliver those projects in terms of art but also to ensure that
the hotels, the bed and breakfasts, the bars and the restaurants
and so on, had customers. I think that's really important.
Q110 Dr Coffey: Councillor
Millar and Councillor Nicholson, I grew up in Liverpool as well
so I know the legacy that many years have generated, including
in the 1980s and 1990s when Albert Dock was transformed and similar.
To be frank, you've had your input, whether it was cash from DCMS
for ECA, which it wasn't; it was resource, but it is still money
that's being used. Is it time to say, "Well, Liverpool, you
have to go on your own way with less now from the centre"
and that we should be focusing on those other regions that don't
seem to have had perhaps the same prominence—so it is an
element, I would suggest to you perhaps, of pump-priming—or
do you think that is unfair on an organisation that has been successful?
I am happy to hear from either because I can give
you another example of Basingstoke. For example, Basingstoke 30
to 40 years ago invested itself in building a magnificent centre
called the Anvil Theatre, deliberately because it knew it would
attract in high-quality businesses. That's exactly what happened
and they pulled in multinationals to make it a nice place
to live and work. So I am interested to say, "You've had
your pump-priming. Can't we now give it to somebody else?"
Mr Millar: With
respect, if I can just answer that—you're from Liverpool?
Dr Coffey: That is where
I grew up, yes.
Mr Millar: Yes.
I actually disagree. You know the Albert Dock and everyone knows
the Albert Dock; everyone knows the Pier Head.
Dr Coffey: I know Sudley
Gallery; I know other places.
Mr Millar: But
then there's Kirkdale, the Dingle, Anfield, Everton; there's North
Liverpool. We've had pump-priming and it has had a huge impact
on the city centre leading out towards the M62 but not quite as
far as the M62 and that's been wonderful. £2 billion has
come to Liverpool through Objective 1 and Objective 2 funding—wonderful
and it's only the start. We cannot forget the communities outside
of the city centre and they need concentration. They need more
Preventative Agenda, more culture, more art, more heritage, more
infrastructure, more regeneration. Because we can't ignore the
many thousands of people, 42% in North Liverpool, who are workless,
who don't have a job, and it's really important that we create
the infrastructure outside of the city centre to make sure that
Liverpool and Manchester and Newcastle and Sheffield and Bristol
and Birmingham and all the great cities in this country—and
they're all great cities—are transformed using the legacy
and the lessons learned from the Albert Dock and the City Centre
of Liverpool or in Manchester because there's a lot more to do.
We haven't finished yet and we can't forget our residents by ignoring
those what some people call "disadvantaged", some people
call "deprived" communities. They are as equally important
as the 20,000 residents that live in Liverpool city centre because
there's another 430,000 currently living in other parts of the
city that need as much pump-priming as the city centre has had.
Mr Nicholson: Chair,
I wonder if I could just come in on that. I think first of all,
I would suggest that we perhaps look at capital and revenue. And
what is the purpose of capital? Capital is a oneoff, it's
a pump-primer perhaps, and that is perhaps something that has
been going on over the last 10 to 15 years in terms of capital
investment into the infrastructure, the buildings, and the very
fabric that supports the arts across the land. Then there's the
revenue bit and the revenue bit is somewhat challenging. If perhaps
you were considering the idea that revenue and capital are one
and you use it as a pump-prime and then pull back from a project
once you have built it out and you've set it off in motion, leaving
it unsupported, un-invested, then I would seriously consider,
are we using our assets and our institutional structures to the
best that we could use them for?
If I may just use an example; we have the Royal Opera
House receiving considerable sums of public money each year. Some
people feel that this is over the top; it is too much money. But
when you look at what it is that the Royal Opera House is doing,
not just within its main campus in Covent Garden, but its relationship
with local government in Thurrock and the new National Skills
Academy, and the new Production Park that the Royal Opera House
has brought forward in that particular borough just to the east
of London, and when you look at the Royal Opera House and the
discussions that the two chief executives are having, the Royal
Opera House and Manchester City Council, about taking the Royal
Opera House to Manchester and a new home for opera and ballet
in the north, that to me is a good investment.
If perhaps we had just done a pump- priming into
that organisation, the Royal Opera House, then I'm not quite certain
how that kind of expansion into communities as diverse as Thurrock
and East London and Manchester in the North West—that kind
of investment, those kinds of conversations, that kind of expansion
of great art for everybody—those cultural opportunities
could ever come about. And when you link that through very clearly
to the National Skills Academy and the entire thing around skills
development, employment and the future prosperity and well-being
of the cultural economy itself in this country and the contribution
it makes back to the Exchequer each year as a result of its successful
operations both here and abroad, then to me we must consider very
carefully this idea about, "Okay, if we say pump-priming,
what is the project? What is it we're talking about? What do we
mean by pump-priming? Are we talking about capital and revenue
or just revenue or just capital?" It's a very delicate balance.
Success breeds success, I think, and we must never lose sight
of that.
Q111 Dr Coffey: I recognise
that, by the way. It's just Arts Council England are going to
be setting their criteria and they haven't said what it is going
to be. I'm slightly disappointed that you say you've had all this
money for the European Capital of Culture and you failed to reach
42% of your residents; so that's slightly disappointing. I am
concerned for the Shires, as it were, outside the metropolises
and how we make sure that—of course, I want to see a fantastic
regional arts presence but also I'm keen that my arts' festivals
keep going, thanks to voluntary effort, but we make sure we get
to those other hard-to-reach places.
Mr Nicholson: Yes.
Sorry, Chair, if I may; that is well said. Where it is that we've
just come out of in East and South East London over the course
of the midsummer months; the new international festival
for the arts called Create, we've used that very deliberately
around the 2012 catalyst as I touched upon earlier. What was interesting
about that was that we've gone into some of the communities that
show the lowest levels in the United Kingdom in terms of cultural
participation as far as residents are concerned and we are gradually,
over the course of time, reversing that outcome, that statistic.
What has been quite heartening to see is that—and if I may
just revert back to the private sector—the private sector
are investing into this as much as the public sector and a very
eclectic group of organisations and institutions and the investment
brought about participation levels of around 900,000 people in
that part of London over the course of the summer. It reflected
an investment that was touching £1.5 million in addition
to what it was that was already being invested into in those communities
through the arts and cultural scene.
Now, to try and take that model and that approach
into those communities, the rural communities that Simon was touching
on—into those provincial towns, for example, those market
towns and spaces—to me is a great challenge going forward.
I completely agree that it's unclear as to how we can bring that
about. What is it that can do that? Perhaps it is, as Gary was
saying, more to do with peer mentoring and just ensuring that
through the Arts Council, through the local government family,
that we can bring that peer mentoring, that practical support
to bear and that practical experience too; but to disseminate
out now from the centres and recognise that capital isn't perhaps
something we are going to have the luxury of for the years ahead.
Revenue, we might be able to hold that line and that's the crucial
thing, joining in, and if we can bring that about, that's the
point of the whole thing.
Mr Eden: Chair,
if I can add to that; as Chief Executive for one of the arguably
greater cities, second only to London, an ancient capital of England,
there are different sets of issues and we will look jealously
in the shires from time to time at the big funding going to London
institutions, to cities like Liverpool and so on and so forth.
The answer for us I think is to get our act together. It's not
realistic to assume that similar amounts of funding are going
to come into Winchester or Basingstoke or Uttlesford or places
like that. And Uttlesford is near Saffron Walden, for those of
you who don't know; perhaps it's one of these made up names, I
think. What we need to do is get our act together as groups of
local authorities with a common—I cannot use the phrase
"sub-regional" anymore, so whatever I think replaces
that.
Q112 Dr Coffey: County?
Mr Eden: County
perhaps but not necessarily. If you think around areas that work
for communities, they are very rarely areas that are also defined
by local government administrative boundaries. We tend to work
in South Hampshire, along that south coastal strip. Basingstoke
tends to look to the Thames Valley and work with colleagues in
the Thames Valley, across county; across all sorts of boundaries.
The answer for us is to get our act together and
make a case for strategic investment by bodies like the Arts Council
where that can stimulate the growth of partnerships, the bringing
in of private sector money, as we've seen for example in a couple
of projects in Portsmouth that we're working on or quite separately
in more rural projects. It's for the shires to get their act together
and argue their case for our own take on culture and how we can
work together and what our particular needs are, which are going
to be different from Liverpool's or Hackney's or wherever else.
Mr Millar: Chair,
can I add an interesting fact?
Chair: A last thought,
yes.
Mr Millar: Interesting
fact; local authorities spend more on arts and heritage than the
Arts Council of England, if you exclude the lottery. £1 billion
a year is spent by the local authorities, safely, sustainable
and accountable, year after year. That's supporting the theatres
obviously; heritage participation, health and well-being consortium
and whatever. I think if I could stress anything, I think it is,
going forward, for a mixture of, as we've discussed before, private
sector, public sector, consortia delivered, volunteering and philanthropy.
Not every business can do all this but some can get involved.
I think there is a need to look at place-based budgeting, allow
the councils to spend the money on what they see as fit for their
area, whether it be rural or whether it be urban. They have made
the choices in the past. They've done it with £1 billion
a year in their expenditure and they can be trusted to do that
and that's one of the messages I would like to get across today.
Chair: That's very helpful.
Thank you, all three of you, for your patience in waiting and
for your efforts.
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