Cultural Playing Field

On Wednesday I was back at the Barbican for ‘Our Creative Talent: building local voluntary and amateur arts participation’ - a joint conference organised by Voluntary Arts England, Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The event was fully booked weeks ago and attracted delegates from voluntary arts umbrella bodies, several government departments, local authorities from across England,  voluntary sector agencies and lots of officers from Arts Council England as well as representatives from Scottish Arts Council and the Arts Council of Wales.

The main focus for the conference was to launch the report ‘Our Creative Talent: the voluntary and amateur arts in England’ - the results of research commissioned by DCMS and ACE and undertaken by the consultants TBR. Culture Minister Margaret Hodge opened the conference by revealing the headline statistics from the report:

• there are 49,140 voluntary arts groups in England
• between them they have a total membership of 5.9 million and an additional 3.5 million people volunteer as extras or helpers - that’s a total of 9.4 million people taking part
• the voluntary arts sector has an income of £543 million a year
• voluntary arts groups attract an annual audience of 159 million attendances
• 564,000 people have management roles in voluntary arts groups

It was very exciting for me to be sharing a platform with Margaret Hodge, Arts Council England Chief Executive Alan Davey and Feargal Sharkey. The Minister started by saying “I hope and believe that this conference marks a significant change in the way we think about the arts and what we call ‘the arts sector’”. She called the research “a significant new landmark in our  understanding of how and why people participate in the arts” and said “we have been paying too little attention to such an important part of the arts ecology”. Margaret Hodge said “I firmly believe that the health of our arts depends on both the professional and the voluntary sector - the two are closely and directly dependent on one another”.

In my speech I stressed the importance of moving beyond marvelling at the statistics and starting to work out how to unlock the enormous potential of the voluntary arts. I explained that what voluntary arts groups want and need is recognition, involvement, capacity-building and challenge. I finished by suggesting that this conference was possibly the most important moment for the voluntary arts in the 60 years since the establishment of the Arts Council - but added that it would mean nothing unless it was the start of an ongoing dialogue to realise the potential of the voluntary arts.

Alan Davey said “from an Arts Council perspective the voluntary arts isn’t a  footnote or appendix to the arts in England today: it is part of the core script”. He announced that in the coming months Arts Council England “will be working with Voluntary Arts Network to agree a plan of how we play a role in building on the strengths and successes of the sector by working with local government and other key partners”.

Feargal Sharkey speaking at the Our Creative Talent conference

The conference also included detailed sessions on the ‘Our Creative Talent’ research, Arts Council England’s segmentation model of arts engagement, the development of a Participation Manifesto, the VAE/Media Trust ‘Up for Arts’ campaign, local authorities and the NI11 arts engagement indicator and the 2012  Cultural Olympiad. There was a real buzz throughout the day and the feedback has been incredibly positive. It really felt like a significant turning point and it will be vital that we quickly build on the enthusiasm generated.

Copies of presentations, video, audio and much more will soon be available at www.vaengland.org.uk/events and you can see photos from the conference at www.flickr.com/photos/ourcreativetalent. The research report is available at www.voluntaryarts.org/uploaded/map7402.pdf
Congratulations and many many thanks to everyone involved in a wonderful day for the voluntary arts.

On Tuesday evening I was at the Barbican in London for the pre-conference reception hosted by the Carnegie (UK) Trust. Kate Braithwaite, Chief Executive of the Carnegie Rural Commission, welcomed delegates and Voluntary Arts staff gave examples of the organisation’s activities across the UK and Ireland. The talking was interspersed with some excellent voluntary arts performances including madrigal singers, drummers, drama, storytelling and a chamber choir.

Susanna Reid interviews Professor John Benyon (Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester) to launch 'Edutainment'

The formal proceedings concluded with the launch of the new Voluntary Arts England publication ‘Edutainment: the benefits of arts and crafts in adult and community learning’ - a collection of case studies edited by Paul Devlin. Susanna Reid (from the BBC1 Breakfast programme) interviewed Professor John Benyon (Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Leicester) who wrote the forward to ‘Edutainment’ about lifelong learning and the arts and crafts. Guests then enjoyed the last few hours of the hottest day of the year eating, drinking and networking in the delightful surroundings of the Barbican Conservatory - “a hidden tropical oasis in the heart of the city”. We are enormously grateful to the Carnegie (UK) Trust for supporting an inspirational and entertaining event and to everyone who helped to make it such a memorable evening.

On Wednesday afternoon I attended a meeting of the DCMS Voluntary and Community Sector Forum. With the departure of Alan Davey (to Arts Council England), the Forum has a new chair – Graham Turnock, Director or Programmes and DCMS Third Sector Champion. We heard a presentation on funding for youth culture and the interface between DCMS and the Department for Children, Schools and Families – focusing on the ‘Aiming High’, ‘Myplace’ and ‘Find Your Talent’ programmes. We also heard from Sarah Wilkie of the MLA about the ‘Community Libraries Programme’ and from Steve Mannix of LOCOG about the 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Finally we discussed how to involve VCS organisations in the project board overseeing DCMS involvement in the new Government target PSA21 (communities).

On Wednesday I was at Smithfield Market in London to attend a seminar on ‘The Future for Informal Learning for Adults’, organised by The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). This was an opportunity to build on ‘Shaping the Way Ahead’ - the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) consultation. A diverse range of around 30 stakeholders from various areas of adult learning (including officials from DIUS) undertook a visioning exercise to answer the question “what should a vibrant and fulfilling adult learning experience be?” I was the only arts representative but I was interested and encouraged that many of the examples of informal adult learning cited by others in my group involved the arts and crafts. We talked a lot about joining up adult learning provision across sectors and disciplines and improved ’signposting’ to the full range of learning opportunities.

On Monday I was in London to take part in a third sector round-table event as part of the informal adult learning consultation being undertaken by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. This was the last of six round table events consulting different groups of stakeholders. I was one of a dozen representatives of the voluntary and community sector given the opportunity to discuss issues around informal adult learning directly with the Minister for Skills, David Lammy. I strongly encouraged the Minister to work with the existing voluntary and community sector infrastructure organisations, including the voluntary arts umbrella bodies. I was also keen to link the need to help people find informal learning opportunities with our desire to develop better ‘signposting’ to opportunities to participate in the arts and crafts – not through some giant top-down government IT solution but by developing links between existing networks to create an organic and sustainable web of information. The informal adult learning consultation deadline has been extended to 12 June – full details at www.adultlearningconsultation.org.uk.

On Wednesday Reemer and I were in London to meet James Stevens at DCMS who is responsible for overseeing the Government’s new ‘5 hours a week’ cultural offer to children (now disappointingly branded ‘Find Your Talent’). James was keen to reassure us that he saw voluntary arts groups as an important part of the cultural offer. ‘Find Your Talent’ is to be developed through 10 pilots over the next 3 years. Applications are invited by 7 April from partnerships wanting to run the pilots. James encouraged us to contact (and to invite voluntary arts umbrella bodies to contact) the ‘regional contact groups’ who are advising partnerships on their applications to stress the need for applications to consider the involvement of voluntary arts groups. He also said there would be opportunities for us to talk to the successful partnerships once the pilots are chosen to encourage them to build voluntary arts groups into their activities. It was great to be talking to DCMS about this at such an early stage in the process – and that they had invited us to see them. We were reassured by James that ‘Find Your Talent’ will provide a real opportunity to show children that the voluntary arts are an integral part of the wider cultural continuum and their local community. More details at: http://www.creative-partnerships.com/offer.