Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, diversity, England, funding, volarts
On Thursday afternoon I was at Arts Council England in Birmingham, with colleagues from our partner organisations Voice 4 Change and Black and Ethnic Minority Arts, to meet the new ACE Director of Diversity, Amanda Roberts. Amanda joined ACE three months ago and has a dual role as Director of ACE’s Birmingham office and national lead on diversity. Amanda updated us on her work to ensure diversity remains a priority within all of ACE’s funding streams. We talked about the Creative People and Places programme and the opportunities for black and minority ethnic groups to get involved. We discussed how to encourage more diverse work in ACE’s strategic touring programme. Amanda described the recent changes to the Grants for the Arts Lottery funding and how ACE is looking at better ways to track diversity within its funding. We also discussed the Cultural Commissioning Programme and the Creative Employment Programme. It was a very positive and wide-ranging meeting and we agreed to meet Amanda and members of her team again in a few months’ time.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ageing, England, research, vcs, volunteering, youth
I was in London again on Wednesday to take part in a meeting of the Volunteering Network – the forum which brings together the England Volunteering Development Council and the National Network of Volunteer-Involving Agencies. At Wednesday’s meeting we heard from John Mohan of the Third Sector Research Centre about the The Economic and Social Research Council’s plans to explore ‘Big Data’. This will bring substantial national resources to facilitate access to large scale datasets held by organisations, local and national government. It will enable extensive cross-referencing of community level data (whilst putting in place safeguards to avoid any disclosure of individual data). ESRC will create centres of expertise to facilitate access and generate high quality research. John said this could prove to be an incredibly valuable tool for the voluntary and community sector. It will improve our ability to describe the characteristics of communities and will tell us more about who our supporters and volunteers are.
We then had a presentation from Dame Julia Cleverdon (the former Chief Executive of Business In The Community) about the recently launched campaign for youth social action. Step Up To Serve is a national campaign to inspire a generation of young people through increasing the quality, quantity and frequency of social action for all young people aged between 10 and 20. In this context social action means practical action in the service of others – of double benefit to young people themselves and the community. The goal is to double the number of young people participating in social action to over 50% by 2020. That is an additional 1.7 million young people engaging in social action for the first time. The campaign brings together leaders from across UK civic society, led by HRH The Prince of Wales and with support from all of the main political parties. Dame Julia explained that Step Up To Serve was an attempt to get away from a short-term approach to youth volunteering that has seen successive governments launch new initiatives rather than building on schemes developed by their predecessors. She was adamant that we need a long-term, cross party, approach, stressing “this is not merely a lunch, a launch and a logo”. See: http://www.stepuptoserve.org.uk.
Finally we heard from Clare Delap of the Care Quality Commission about CQC’s new project with Community Service Volunteers and from Tracy Whittle of NCVO about a project to develop volunteering in care homes. NCVO has secured funding from the Department of Health until end of March 2016 to pilot volunteering in care homes with the aims of improving residents’ quality of life outcomes and strengthening local communities. Through the project’s learning, a national standard of good practice in volunteering for this sector will be developed. Working in five pilot sites and with volunteer centres and care homes, the project will aim to engage 350 residents in activities/ relationships with volunteers over 3 years. See: http://www.volunteering.org.uk/policy-and-campaigns/volunteering-in-care-homes.
Robin Simpson.
I was back in London on Tuesday to chair the second of our roundtable discussions on arts participation for older people in residential and day-care settings, supported by The Baring Foundation. This was another fascinating discussion about the potential for voluntary arts groups to support arts activities in care homes, the development of opportunities for care home residents to act as creative citizens and the role of care home staff who might themselves be members of voluntary arts groups. Those taking part in the discussion on Tuesday included people who had organised arts activities in care homes, representatives of amateur arts umbrella bodies, community arts organisations, experts in adult learning and people working in different aspects of social care. We looked at the potential benefits and opportunities from involving voluntary arts groups in this activity but also at the challenges in doing so. Our consultant, Helen Fraser, is now going to pull together the conclusions of our roundtable meetings and her interviews with a wide range of experts to inform the paper she is writing for us.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DCMS, DEFRA, England, funding, rural, volarts
I was in London on Monday to take part in the Arts Council England Rural Stakeholders meeting. This was the first of what will be a regular series of gatherings of cultural organisations with a particular interest in rural matters. Those around the table on Monday included representatives of the National Rural Touring Forum, the Rural Cultural Forum, Action with Communities in Rural England and the Rural Services Network, as well as civil servants from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The general feeling was that, while arts activity in rural areas is strong, rural local authorities are particularly challenged at the moment and support from local authorities is incredibly variable. Public transport is a key issue in rural communities and hidden deprivation is a massive problem. We talked about the opportunities provided by local action groups (LAGs) and local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) and the growing importance of European funding. We discussed the rollout of rural broadband and the importance of volunteers in the rural cultural sector. We also talked about how Arts Council England should be working with the wider sector, not just its National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs).
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday evening I attended the Voice 4 Change AGM. Voice 4 Change is the national umbrella organisation for black and minority ethnic voluntary sector organisations in England. Voluntary Arts and Voice 4 Change are working in partnership to support BME voluntary arts groups. The keynote speaker at the Voice 4 Change AGM was the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hilary Benn. He spoke about a range of current issues affecting the voluntary and community sector. He said the Lobbying Bill threatens a fundamental right to express a view to those we elect. He described the ‘graph of doom’ for local authority spending and pointed out that the largest funding cuts have been felt in the poorest communities. Hilary Benn noted that the pace and scale of changes in immigration, most recently from Eastern Europe, have created tensions – particularly with previous immigrants – but he was encouraged by the way communities still come together and work together. The voluntary and community sector is a lifeline, bringing people together. He spoke about the need to rediscover a contributory society, the campaign for a living wage and said the greatest challenge of all is our ageing population.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: funding, olympics, UK, volarts, volunteering
On Wednesday afternoon I took part in a meeting of the seven projects funded by the Big Lottery Fund/Spirit of 2012 Trust ‘Keeping the Spirit Alive’ programme. The Big Lottery Fund has established the £40m Spirit of 2012 Trust to take an ongoing role in supporting the legacy of London 2012. The Trust will focus on volunteerism, attitudes to disabilities, and the potential of young people to be more involved their communities, using sport, culture and the arts, with other major events (such as the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games) providing a spur. It was incredibly interesting and inspiring to meet representatives of the other six funded projects and to learn more about their plans. We found a lot of commonality between our projects and huge potential for collaboration. You can read about all seven projects at: http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/press-releases/uk-wide/041113_bs_uk_big-big-sing-goes-uk-wide
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday morning I was at the Young Vic in London to take part in the weekly What Next? meeting. Our guest this week was the Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall. While he was working at the Royal Opera House, Lord Hall was an enthusiastic supporter of What Next? and a regular attender at the weekly meetings so it was good to see him return in his new role. I took the opportunity to speak to Tony Hall about the Up for Arts projects Voluntary Arts is running with three BBC local radio stations in the North West of England, in partnership with BBC Outreach. We discussed the potential to link mainstream TV series (such as the forthcoming programme on amateur painting) with such grassroots work to increase arts participation, supported by BBC local radio.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in London for my last meeting as a member of the NCVO Members Assembly. The first session of the day focussed on the draft new NCVO Strategic Plan. I took part in groups discussing the questions ‘how could NCVO work better with infrastructure organisations?’ and ‘is it realistic to ask members to share their knowledge and practices with others?’ After lunch we took part in the NCVO AGM and I am delighted to report that my place representing Recreation and Culture on the NCVO Members Assembly is to be taken by our old friend Jacqui Devereux from the Community Media Association. In the afternoon we looked at ‘Campaigning and the current environment’ and discussed the situation regarding the Lobbying Bill. The Bill is about to go into committee stage at the House of Lords, and NCVO and its voluntary sector partners will be trying to secure further changes. In response to significant changes in the campaigning environment a Campaigning and Lobbying Standards Group was established in September 2013 and will hold its first meeting next week, chaired by Sir Stuart Etherington. Finally we looked at ‘Preparing for the 2015 General election’, discussing the feedback to NCVO’s consultation on campaigning priorities for the election. I have enjoyed my time on the NCVO Members Assembly: it has been good to have the opportunity to influence NCVO’s work but the meetings are also a very valuable networking opportunity and provide a useful update on key voluntary sector issues.
Robin Simpson.
Cultural Playing Field 