Agenda item

Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 - Impact and Legacy Planning

Joint briefing note and presentation of the Director of Business, Investment and Culture and the Chief Executive, Coventry City of Culture Trust

 

Martin Sutherland and Chenine Bhathena, Coventry City of Culture Trust have been invited to the meeting for the consideration of this item. Councillor G Duggins, Cabinet Member for Policy and Leadership and Councillor D Welsh, Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities have also been invited to attend.

Minutes:

The Committee considered a briefing note and received a presentation from Martin Sutherland, Chenine Bhathena representing Coventry City of Culture Trust, Jonothan Neelands from Warwick Business School, and David Nuttall, Strategic Lead for City of Culture at Coventry City Council.

 

Councillor Duggins, Leader of the Council introduced the item, reporting that the programme had been effectively carried out despite a backdrop of Covid, but the legacy was much more than the year’s programme and the city has achieved things culturally and economically which wouldn’t have happened without the City of Culture.

 

The presentation covered the following aspects:

The story so far – it was the UK’s first major cultural event since Covid 19, delivering significant social and economic impact for Coventry, Warwickshire and the West Midlands and playing a key role in the region’s recovery from COVID-19.

 

The Story of Change: Impact and Outcome focussed

·  Demonstrating the value and role of arts/culture in delivering local/regional ambitions

·  Investing in the local arts eco-system and driving change to retain talent, build for the future, promoting access, inclusion and sustainability

·  Co-creation at the centre: embedded, tested and pioneered

·  Global-Local programmes:

·  City Wide, in parks, high streets and community spaces

 

Headline statistics (01/18 – 11/21)

·  1101 City hosts had been fully trained since March 2021

·  Over 1500 community dancers, musicians, poets and makers had participated in the first six months of the programme

·  Over a third of the cultural programme had been co-created with local communities

·  All 42 Coventry neighbourhoods had activities taking place across them

·  £172.6million investment had been secured unto the city as a result of Coventry being awarded City of Culture

·  126 times Coventry had been featured as a promoted destination

·  43% of tickets were issues within Coventry to citizens who are financially stretched or facing adversity

·  161,555 tickets had been issued for City of Culture events since November 2020 and an estimated attendance of 52,000 at unticketed events since May 2021

·  The Trust has actively engaged with 100 Schools (83%) and 181 organisations

·  Employed over 600 artists (42% Coventry; 63% including Warwickshire and the West Midlands

·  260,000 people engaged with the City of Culture events online in the first six months

·  More than 520,000 points of engagement with a UKCOC or UKCOC-supported event since December 2017

·  £83m media value secured (to September 2021)

 

Cultural Strategy Refresh 2017-2027 – progress and refresh, which provided the following key opportunities:

·  Cultural Strategy Refresh – engagement with stakeholders, partners and the city on 2022-2025 on priority activities, outputs and outcomes across all Strategy Goals.  Engagement and online survey (incl. supported survey analysis).  Secure Cultural Strategy Action Plan 2022-2025 with partner commitments.

·  Connections to Wider Policy/Development – (e.g. Culture and creativity connecting into One Coventry Plan; Coventry Climate Change Strategy; Creative Economy)

·  Culture Change Coventry (Culture Compact) – development of a representative and inclusive independent partnership body, supporting and advocating for cultural and creative sector impact on wider city outcomes; financial innovations

·  Cultural Capital Programme – legacy benefits from programme of investment to date in cultural infrastructure, plus ongoing cultural investment plans

·  City of Culture Trust Legacy Planning

·  Art for the People / Citizen’s Assembly pilot programmes

·  City events programme 2022+

 

Programme for February – May 2022 and beyond, including:

·  Through the Lens of Masterji, 12 February – 22 May

·  Daniel Lismore – Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Taken, 18 February – 26 June

·  Middlemarch Monologues, BBC Radio 3 20 March, 7.30pm

·  In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, 29 March – 1 May

·  Return of the Assembly Festival Gardens, 14 April – 18 September

·  Green Futures – sound commission, 1 April – 31 May

·  Pirates of the Canal Basin, 21-24 April

·  New Music Biennial, 22-24 April

·  Shoot Festival, 23-29 April

·  Machine Memoirs: Space, 5-8 May

·  Radio 1 Big Weekend, 27-29 May

 

Legacy Planning Update

The following principles had been agreed:

·  The Trust to continue until March 2024, with reduced team – expecting to delegate, commission and devolve

·  Strategic Objectives remain: Creating Art, Increasing Participation, Developing the Sector, Influencing Change

·  The Trust’s contribution to the delivery of the refreshed Cultural Strategy action plan to be clearly articulated

·  Activities should still occur across the city, with all citizens able to lead, engage, participate

·  The Trust to ensure that its activities beyond June 2022 have a “green futures” focus

 

A key part of the legacy was Green Futures, which included:

·  Inspired by the city’s social, political, built and natural heritage

·  Building an appetite for shared stories, locally grown food and sustainable culture

·  Protecting and developing our heritage and natural environment

·  Promoting health and well-being

·  Building a critical mass of human connectivity to nature

·  Telling the story of Coventry’s ‘hidden nature’ and building and deepening emotional connections to local nature

·  Behaviour change

 

The approach taken to deliver the legacy would include:

·  Campaigning mindset

·  Creative Commissioners

·  Capacity Building

·  Grant programmes

·  Redistribution of assets and relationships

·  Expert reference group

·  Alignment to City and Regional priorities

+  Reel Store (Digital Gallery)

+  Assembly Festival Gardens

 

Councillor Welsh, Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities, commented that there had been a lot going on and the programme hadn’t finished yet. Things were encouraging and he was looking forward to working with new partners and the legacy trust moving forward.

 

Karamjit Singh, representing Culture Change Coventry talked about the importance of building the legacy and keeping the momentum going. The refresh of the cultural strategy provided an opportunity to reconstitute the cultural compact to be reflective and responsive to the communities in Coventry, with a focus on outcomes.

 

Members considered the information provided and questioned the speakers on a number of issues and responses were provided. These included:

·  How community organisations, including local radio stations, libraries and existing networks would involve citizens in the legacy process, handing over knowledge and information as well as encouraging groups and organisations to work together

·  Concerns about how a ward-by-ward impact could be measured. How local people had been involved, including new groups who hadn’t been involved in cultural activity in the city before

·  How projects will be assessed for value for money, including an economic impact study as well as a social value study – how the City of Culture has changed lives. This would look beyond just a commercial measure of value for money, but other kids of value as well.

·  How the City of Culture had leveraged in additional funding into the city.

·  Details on a ward by ward basis of how communities have been engaged in activity and whether people not engaged in cultural activity previously have been included.

·  The impact Covid had had on delivering programmes in the communities

·  Successful projects, local community events as well as with excluded communities such as older people, homeless people and refugees and asylum seekers

·  The ownership of data assets, once the City of Culture Trust was wrapped up in 2024, was discussed. Data which could be transferred to the City Council would be, however any data transferred would need to be done in line with meeting GDPR requirements.

 

RESOLVED that:

 

1)  The content of the briefing note, the presentation and the recently published Performance Measurement and Evaluation Interim Report be considered.

2)  Information about activity in Wards to be provided to those Members who requested it.

Supporting documents: