On Wednesday I was in London again to attend a meeting of the Community Sector Coalition. Our guest speaker was Philip Blond, Director of the Progressive Conservatism Project at DEMOS. Philip is charged with “rethinking what modern conservatism means”. The proverbial ‘Red Tory’ is an impressive performer – intelligent, articulate and extremely fast-talking: it was often quite a struggle to keep up with him. Among many other things, he argued that most people feel society is broken: associative relationships have weakened. The key question for the community sector is “what builds associative non-state civic behaviour?” The resources for community renewal lie in the community itself: the state and the market now need to play a different role. Whereas traditional Tories want to reduce demand on the state by passing over responsibilities to the voluntary and community sector, “progressives see the voluntary and community sector as more effective in delivery than the state”. Philip Blond spoke a great deal about ‘subsidiarity’ – “power should be exercised at the most appropriate level” and ‘the right to parish’ – giving a group of local people the opportunity to manage the public money that is spent on their community. He felt that third sector organisations could share more back-office costs and should have the right to use unused public offices and other assets. At least I think that’s what he said! My impression was that his focus was mostly on VCS organisations providing public services rather than wider issues about civil society. But much of what he said was encouraging for the community sector and he gave us some clear advice on how best to make our case to a potential Conservative government.
Robin Simpson.
I was back in London on Tuesday for my regular meeting with Sophie Chapman at the Office of the Third Sector. It’s all change at the Cabinet Office with Tessa Jowell taking over from Liam Byrne and Angela Smith becoming the new Minister of State for the Third Sector. We discussed progress on the 2012 Volunteering Legacy: three new posts are being created at Volunteering England, a project manager will be based at YouthNet to oversee development of the new online Participation Portal and the Office of the Third Sector is working with the Government Olympic Executive on the development of a national marketing campaign about volunteering and participation.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DCMS, manifesto, politics, UK, volarts
On Monday I was at Tate Britain in London for the National Campaign for the Arts conference: ‘Future Britain: Arts leading the way’. The focus of the day was to launch the NCA Arts Manifesto for the next general election. Looking back at the previous NCA Arts Manifesto, where the voluntary arts featured as a separate section towards the end of the document, shows how far we have come in persuading the rest of the arts sector that we are all part of a single eco-system. The new NCA Arts Manifesto integrates the voluntary arts throughout – realising the greater strength we have together rather than apart. Another indication of this change in attitude was the fact that the final panel session at Monday’s conference featured the Culture Minister Barbara Follett, the Conservative Shadow Minister Ed Vaizey, the Chief Executive of Arts Council England Alan Davey, NCA Director Louise de Winter and me. I am very grateful to the NCA for recognising the significance and importance of the voluntary arts so publicly. And it was very exciting to be introduced by Joan Bakewell and followed by Melvyn Bragg, who formally launched the arts manifesto with an inspiring call to arms. Barbara Follett spoke about the Treasury as the ‘elephant in the room’ and stressed the need for quantification, citing ‘Our Creative Talent’ – the 2008 DCMS/ACE research into the voluntary and amateur arts in England. She said “the arts have an enormous contribution to make to wellbeing and happiness.” Ed Vaizey saw huge opportunities in the voluntary sector. He said there are lots of arts charities but was worried that they are not working together. NCA President Lord Bragg closed the conference by saying “the creative industries is an idea whose time has come … the spearhead of our economy is now the creative industries: the arts are the leading brand in this country”.
Robin Simpson.
Last Thursday and Friday I was in Utrecht at the annual meeting of Amateo – the European Network for Active Participation in the Arts. A year after launching the network in Ljubljana the Board has registered Amateo as a company in Belgium, developed contacts and links with other European networks and planned activities for the coming years. Amateo now has 18 member organisations in 12 European countries (including Voluntary Arts and Making Music in the UK). The annual meeting included presentations on European Union cultural policy and funding opportunities from Culture Action Europe and Haute Equipe. The highlight, for me, was the Dutch composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven talking about the different ‘qualities’ of amateur musicians and why he prefers working with amateur orchestras. At the Amateo AGM we agreed that the network’s priority for the coming year will be to collate existing statistics and research to build a picture of the overall levels of participation in the arts across Europe. Aled Rhys Jones will continue to represent Voluntary Arts on the Amateo Board and I look forward to watching progress over the next twelve months before the network meets again in Denmark in June 2010.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: DCMS, England, funding, heritage, ncvo, politics, vcs, volarts
On Tuesday I was in London for my regular voluntary cultural sector alliance meeting with the Central Council for Physical Recreation (CCPR), Heritage Link and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). Among many other topics we discussed: the new DCMS Third Sector Strategy; the Physical Activity Alliance which is working (with Sport England) to realise the Government’s 2012 target to get 2 million people more active (take part in the consultation survey at http://www.activityalliance.org); the progress of the NCVO Funding Commission and links to the work on philanthropy being undertaken by DCMS; Lord Addington’s private members bill seeking a ‘social tariff’ (somewhere between domestic and commercial) for water rates and music licensing (currently just in relation to sports clubs but could be extended to include other community groups).
Robin Simpson.
Cultural Playing Field 