I was in Sheffield on Wednesday for a meeting of the Community Media Association Arts Project steering group. We reflected on the recent roadshows in the East Midlands, West Midlands and Yorkshire. We also started to look at how to continue to encourage arts groups and community media organisations to collaborate after this current project ends in August.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, DCMS, heritage, politics, UK, volunteering
On Friday afternoon I took part in a meeting of the ACEVO Arts, Culture & Heritage Special Interest Group. This gathering of Chief Executives of a range of arts and heritage organisations provides a valuable opportunity for peer support. In this week’s meeting we also discussed the work of the NCA/A&B Culture Forum, the forthcoming meeting representatives of the Special Interest Group are to have with the Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, and the need to champion the importance of local authorities in relation to the arts and heritage.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: DIUS, education, England, funding, OTS, politics, vcs, volarts
I was back in London on Friday for a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) roundtable consultation about The Big Society as part of the programme to reform and refresh informal adult and community learning (IACL). This was the second of a series of roundtable events. We looked in detail at how BIS-funded IACL provision currently supports the development of the Big Society vision and what more BIS-funded IACL could do to help build a Big Society. We also talked about how self-organised groups, including the tens of thousands of voluntary arts groups, could support the Big Society. I was interested to hear that the new Cabinet Office definition of Big Society now includes 5 ‘themes’: 1. empowering communities, 2. encouraging and enabling people to play a more active part in society, 3. transferring power from central Government, 4. supporting co-operatives, mutuals, charities and social enterprises and 5. publishing Government data.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I also met Bonnie Mitchell and Arti Prashar from Connected Culture – the network celebrating adult participatory arts (http://connectedculture.ning.com/). We talked about developing better links between professional community artists and companies working in the area of adult participatory arts and the amateur arts sector and agreed to involve Connected Culture in the Arts Participation Manifesto development group.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, funding, Northern Ireland, politics, UK, volarts
On Thursday morning I had my final catch-up meeting with Louise de Winter at the National Campaign for the Arts. Louise leaves NCA at the end of next week and will be a big loss to the arts sector. Our final discussions included the Giving green paper, the philanthropy review by Tom Hughes Hallet (http://www.philanthropyreview.co.uk/) and the Northern Ireland Comprehensive Spending Review announcement. In announcing improvements in the budget for culture, the Northern Ireland Finance Minister referred to the force of the arguments mustered by the sector and the strength of the case presented – apparently more than 5,000 letters supporting the arts were received in comparison with 78 in support of health!
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday afternoon Daniel, Lindsey and I were at the Payments Council in London for the Voluntary Arts Link workshop on ‘The Future of Cheques’. In December 2009 the Payments Council (a membership organisation representing all the main banks and building societies) made a decision to set a target date of 31 October 2018 for closing central cheque clearing. Cheque use has been in decline since 1990 and it the trend is expected to continue and accelerate. The Payments Council was concerned that, unless the phasing out of cheques was managed, there was a possibility that cheques could be withdrawn by individual banks before adequate alternatives had been developed for all groups of consumers, or that banks would start to increase charges for using cheques. Our workshop gathered together representatives of 15 voluntary arts umbrella bodies (including the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild, the Braid Society, the Guild of Glass Engravers, the British Clavichord Society and Open Morris) to look at the implications for voluntary arts groups. This session was one of the most popular events we have run for voluntary arts umbrella bodies: the future of cheques is clearly a hot topic for our sector. The Payments Council stressed that a final decision on the future of cheques will not be taken until 2016 (contrary to press reports that cheques are definitely being phased out) and that there will have to be viable alternatives to cheques before any final decision is taken to close central cheque clearing. I was very impressed by the thoroughness and openness of the Payment Council’s consultation process and it was great to have the opportunity to tell them about the particular needs of voluntary arts groups across such a wide range of artforms. If you are concerned about how your group would cope without cheques I would recommend the report by Optimisa Research for the Payments Council: ‘Charities, clubs and societies use of cheques and requirements for alternatives’. You can read the Executive Summary at http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/files/payments_council/new_website/optimisa_exec_summary_report.pdf. Many thanks to Voluntary Arts Treasurer, Geraint Lewis, for encouraging us to develop this workshop with the Payments Council and thanks to everyone who attended.
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday morning I was at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in London to meet Stuart Edwards. Stuart is Deputy Director of the Quality Improvement Division at BIS and is responsible for the Department’s informal adult and community learning reforms which will consider how the £210m Adult Safeguarded Learning budget can best deliver the vision set out in the Government’s Skills for Sustainable Growth white paper. They will also look more broadly at how to create the conditions that will promote and support the vision for informal adult an community learning set out in Skills for Sustainable Growth. Stuart and I talked about the important contribution of the voluntary arts sector to informal adult and community learning and discussed how the contribution voluntary arts groups might make to joining up informal adult learning within communities.
Robin Simpson.
Cultural Playing Field 