On Tuesday I was at the Learning Revolution Expo event at Old Spitalfields Market in London. Paul and I were running ‘Zone 2 – taking action’ which focused on issues relating to self-organising groups of learners. It was a fascinating day and a very innovative format which encouraged some high quality networking. We made lots of useful contacts and came away quite inspired. It was encouraging to see the Further Education Minister Kevin Brennan there to formally launch the Learning Revolution Festival and to have a video message from Lord Mandelson emphasising the importance the Government attaches to informal adult learning. And it was great to see two of our new freelance facilitators, Matthew Burge and Wendy Smithers.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, funding, England, vcs, arts, DIUS
On Tuesday I was in London to attend the first meeting of the Learning Revolution Third Sector Forum. This group of third sector representatives will feed into the National Advisory Forum, chaired by the Minister Kevin Brennan, which is overseeing the Government’s informal adult learning programme stemming from the white paper ‘The Learning Revolution’. At Tuesday’s meeting we heard updates on all aspects of the Learning Revolution programme, including the £20M Transformation Fund, the development of an online portal for learning opportunities and the forthcoming Festival of Learning which is to take place throughout October. It was a good opportunity to get an overview of the progress of this extensive programme directly from the civil servants from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills who are leading it.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: olympics, volarts, England, ace, volunteering, arts, OTS, DIUS
On Tuesday I was in London to meet Claire Easterman, Fiona Jamieson and Katie Jackson at YouthNet to talk about their project, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, to develop the national volunteering database (‘do-it’) to create a single place to bring together opportunities to participate inspired by 2012. There are three specific areas of focus for the project, one of which is culture and the arts. YouthNet plans to work with membership organisations to develop and advertise volunteering opportunities for people inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I wanted to check whether the project is still to include both formal volunteering opportunities and arts participation: YouthNet is still keen to realise this goal but, because of how the project has been funded, the main focus has to be on formal volunteering. Also, although there are hopes to link to databases in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the project will have to concentrate on opportunities in England. We talked about how to link the YouthNet project to the informal adult learning ‘portal’ being developed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the online aspects of Arts Council England’s forthcoming national campaign on arts participation – all three of which should provide voluntary arts groups with the opportunity to advertise for more members. YouthNet is keen to work with ACE and DBIS and I am optimistic that we will be able to achieve a solution that means voluntary arts groups only have to enter their details once.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, education, politics, DCMS, England, ace, arts, DIUS
On Monday morning I was looking out at wonderful views across the Thames to the City of London from the top of Tate Modern where I attended the launch of ‘The Learning Revolution’ – the Government white paper on ‘informal adult learning’. This was a heavyweight political occasion featuring four Government Ministers from three Departments and the small invited audience also included former Education Secretary, David Blunkett.
The Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, John Denham, launched the white paper, stressing that “the learning people do for its own intrinsic value … provides personal fulfilment … and contributes to community cohesion” and suggesting that this makes it even more important at a time of economic downturn. John Denham said “we need better links between different kinds of learning and ways to enable people to navigate around the system”. The white paper seeks to join up approaches to ‘informal learning’ currently being supported by several Government Departments. ‘Informal learning’ includes the learning that happens in voluntary arts groups, such as amateur dramatics societies and choirs, as well as ‘classroom learning’. DIUS is keen to support people who want to run their own groups or classes and to enable all kinds of organisations to open up their spaces for learning.
Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said that his department “and all of the wonderful cultural organisations we sponsor are here to play a full part in this learning revolution”. He said “I know there are millions of talents and passions going unidentified through their lifetimes”. DCMS represents much of the backbone of informal learning – particularly public libraries. Andy Burnham emphasised that “we have to open up this huge network of resource and link it to those out there with a hunger to learn”. He finished by saying “this goes right to the heart of what DCMS has got to be all about – providing quality of life and building confidence”.
Communities and Local Government Minister, Sadiq Khan, confirmed that the enthusiasm for informal adult learning had spread to his department and told us that Hazel Blears was threatening to teach him tap dancing and how to ride a Harley Davidson! He said “informal learning is very important: it brings people together and gives a sense of community. These things matter more now than ever before. Three times more people get a job through personal relationships than through a job centre.” Sadiq Khan was keen to stress, nevertheless, that “learning is fun: we could all do with some fun.”
Anna Cutler, Head of Learning at Tate Modern, pointed out that “informal learning is a great opportunity to innovate – to experiment, test and try out new ideas”. DIUS Minister, Siôn Simon, and Adam Gee from Channel 4 talked about the growth in self-organised learning through digital technology, with the web empowering individuals to do it for themselves.
Finally, I followed John Denham, Andy Burnham and a wide spectrum of interested organisations in publicly signing the Voluntary Arts Network up to the ‘informal adult learning pledge’. The pledge is supported by six Government Departments (Communities and Local Government, Department for Children, Schools and Families, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department of Health, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Department for Work and Pensions) and by independent organisations from NAVCA and NIACE to the National Trust as well as non-departmental public bodies including English Heritage, Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and Sport England (though not Arts Council England – notable by its absence).
The white paper does not redress the dramatic decline and ongoing problems in arts in adult education. John Denham was careful to stress that “a lot of this is about a commitment to start making best use of the resources that are already out there” rather than representing any major new cash injection. Nevertheless, such a public, cross-Government statement that “learning for its own intrinsic value makes an enormous contribution to creating the kind of society we can be proud of” is very welcome. And it is great to see the Voluntary Arts Network mentioned in a Government white paper.
Full details of the white paper are at http://www.dius.gov.uk/learningrevolution
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, DCMS, England, ace, arts, OTS, DIUS
On Thursday afternoon Reemer and I met Clara Goldsmith, the new head of Arts Council England’s national arts participation campaign. The campaign will be launched in Spring 2010 and is likely to involve a range of broadcast and commercial partners. We stressed the need to involve the voluntary arts sector from the start to ensure that those people encouraged to start participating in the arts are given routes to their local voluntary arts groups to ensure sustainable opportunities to continue their participation. We also discussed linking the ACE campaign website to the OTS participation portal and the proposed DIUS portal for informal adult learning.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: olympics, volarts, politics, DCMS, England, vcs, volunteering, OTS, DIUS
On Tuesday I was inside Admiralty Arch for my regular update meeting with John Knights and Sophie Chapman of the Office of the Third Sector. OTS has now moved to join other parts of the Cabinet Office in Admiralty Arch – though John says he still hasn’t got used to working in a building that people outside are taking photos of! We talked about progress on the proposed online participation portal: funding has now been secured from the OTS Olympics Volunteering Legacy budget and work will be starting soon. We agreed to convene a second joint meeting with DIUS, DCMS and Arts Council England to discuss how the portal will link to the proposed informal learning portal and the ACE national participation campaign website.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, education, politics, DCMS, England, ace, research, DIUS
On Tuesday afternoon I was back at DCMS for a joint meeting with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills about the forthcoming informal adult learning proposals. Liz Lawson from DIUS said that the white paper was now likely to be published in February. She was very excited about the possibilities for joining up support for ‘informal learning’ across Government departments. Liz emphasised that DIUS would continue to support the learning it already funds but wanted to encourage a more consistent approach to informal adult learning wherever it occurs. She confirmed, again, that ‘informal learning’ is being taken to include activities such as participation in an amateur orchestra. Officers from Arts Council England and DCMS updated Liz on the development of an Amateur Arts Development Programme – responding to the conclusions and recommendations of the ‘Our Creative Talent’ research. We identified a number of areas within the Amateur Arts Development Programme that might link directly to the proposals in the DIUS white paper. We also looked at links with the current review of public library services. Liz asked us to see whether we could convene a meeting of the Voluntary Arts England Arts in Adult Education Think Tank to look at the draft white paper. The DIUS work on informal adult learning looks like it will produce some very exciting opportunities for the voluntary arts sector and it is a mark of how far we have come in the past twelve months that we are now being routinely invited to this kind of cross-government department meeting.
Robin Simpson.
On Monday I was at the Imperial War Museum in London to attend a round-table meeting organised by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. The Department’s Informal Adult Learning consultation earlier this year elicited 5500 formal responses and is likely to result in a Green or White Paper in January 2009. This was one of a series of events to look in detail at the proposals to be launched in January. The theme of Monday’s round-table was ’supporting self-organising learning’ – ie groups of people who come together to organise their own informal learning, including voluntary arts groups. The rationale is that self-organised learning helps develop civil society and supports social cohesion and DIUS is looking at how to join up support from a range of Government departments for such activity – whilst stressing that this is not about trying to reduce or shift existing funding. We looked in detail at how to ’signpost’ people to this wide range of learning opportunities, better support for groups – particularly in relation to the spaces they need in which to operate and other major barriers to the development of self-organising groups including insurance, licensing issues etc. There is clearly great potential for more coherent Government support to voluntary arts groups across the relevant Government departments and I look forward to seeing the final proposals from DIUS in January.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: olympics, volarts, UK, politics, DCMS, volunteering, OTS, DIUS
I’ve been in London today for a meeting at the Cabinet Office to discuss the idea of a universal online participation portal. At my suggestion, officials from the Office of the Third Sector, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills joined me to look at whether it might be possible to combine several proposed online directories, portals and signposting systems. We agreed that the idea of a single universal portal might be too ambitious but that it was essential for the planned initiatives to be linked to each other. We plan to meet again in the New Year to progress this idea.
Robin Simpson.
