Recommendation 1

HM Government · verbatim extract Accepted

The Levelling Up White Paper set 12 Levelling Up ‘Missions’ to anchor ambition and provide clarity over the objectives of public policy for the next decade. It also identified key drivers and commitments for achieving the missions and underpinning metrics to show how progress could be monitored. Delivering on these missions will improve people’s lives by improving living standards, spreading opportunities and enhancing economic growth, restoring local pride, spreading opportunity and empowering local leaders across the country. The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill sets out the framework for formalising the Levelling Up missions, including those missions identified by the Committee as providing opportunities for place-based cultural policymaking - through publishing a missions statement, and through a statutory duty to publish an annual report to analyse progress. This will enable public scrutiny and ensure the Government is accountable for delivering the Levelling Up missions. DCMS is working closely with DLUHC to develop the metrics and drivers of the Wellbeing and Pride in Place exploratory missions. DCMS has recently commissioned a major ‘what works’ evidence review to help us understand how to best design and deliver interventions which increase pride in place through the culture and heritage sectors. This is being delivered by Arup, the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and the London School of Economics (LSE). In addition, DCMS is supporting DLUHC to recognise the value of cultural and heritage participation to people’s sense of Pride in Place and individual wellbeing, and the particular potential that cultural and heritage activities have to drive positive change in these areas, in ways that reflect the unique and distinctive characters and histories of communities and places around the UK. DCMS has also significantly invested in the Culture and Heritage Capital (CHC) Programme, a world-leading research and development programme to help the culture and heritage sectors demonstrate their value to society in order to make a stronger case for investment in culture and heritage assets. The CHC Programme was officially launched in January 2021 with the publication of ‘Valuing culture and heritage capital: a framework towards informing decision making’,3 which details the framework for how to assess value for money through robust appraisal and evaluation methods for the cultural and heritage sectors, looking beyond GDP. This approach will capture the value of the sometimes idiosyncratic and esoteric nature of cultural and creative businesses and services. The CHC methods have been applied in the assessment and evaluation of bids for the £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund. A £3.1m research fund has recently been co-funded with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to expand the innovation around the methods with economic and humanities researchers.4 There are specific strands as part of this research call which will develop techniques around how people value emotions, spirituality, pride and non-use values. Over time, the CHC Programme will create a series of innovative outputs and products such as interactive maps, typologies for cultural and heritage assets, publicly available statistics, and guidance documents that allow for more nuanced and improved articulation of the economic, social and cultural value of the culture and heritage sectors in decision-making - in line with the Committee’s recommendation above. This will innovate existing economic methodologies and draw from the arts, humanities and heritage science disciplines. We recognise that place-based cultural, heritage, and broader investment is key for enabling local organisations, partnerships, and wider stakeholders, such as local government, to bring life and local communities back into high streets, town centres, and public spaces. As set out in the DCMS evidence submitted to this inquiry last year,5 the Government is already providing significant support to local and regional cultural and creative organisations and partnerships, and to local and regional government in order to galvanise place-based activity and achieve progress against the Levelling Up Missions the Committee has set out. For example, the £2.6bn UK Shared Prosperity Fund has a particular focus on Pride in Place and supports the UK Government’s wider commitment to level up all parts of the UK by delivering on each of the levelling up objectives: • Boost productivity, pay, jobs and living standards, especially in those places where they are lagging. • Spread opportunities and improve public services, especially in those places where they are weakest. • Restore a sense of community, local pride and belonging, especially in those places where they have been lost. • Empower local leaders and communities, especially in those places lacking local agency. The Fund is a central pillar of the UK Government’s ambitious Levelling Up agenda and a significant component of its support for places across the UK. It provides £2.6 billion of new funding for local investment by March 2025, with all areas of the UK receiving an allocation from the Fund via a funding formula rather than a competition. The Fund’s prospectus and interventions toolkit confirm that a range of cultural, heritage, and visitor economy initiatives are in scope for the Fund.6 The £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund is also investing in local infrastructure projects that improve everyday life for people across the UK, focusing on regenerating town centres and high streets, upgrading local transport, and supporting cultural and heritage assets such as museums, libraries, theatres, heritage sites, sports facilities and visitor attractions. The second round of the Fund, announced in January 2022, made 31 ‘culture and heritage’ awards to projects across the country, totalling £546m.7 In addition, the Fund’s second round also included the potential to support up to two large ‘flagship’ cultural projects, to boost local pride in place. As such, Morecambe, Lancashire, will receive £50m for the new major visitor attraction Eden Project North, transforming a derelict site on Morecambe’s seafront to create a world-class cultural and visitor destination. Overlooking the natural beauty of Morecambe Bay, the seven inter- connecting gardens and pavilions will be curated with horticulture, art and exhibits.8 Other culture, heritage, and visitor economy projects supported by the Levelling Up Fund include the £8m Lincolnshire Wolds Culture and Heritage Programme, saving three of the Lincolnshire Wolds’ most at-risk heritage and cultural sites, and £19m to transform the much-loved Hexagon Theatre and build a new modern library in Reading. DCMS and its Arms-Length Bodies supported DLUHC’s assessment process for both the first and second rounds of the Fund by providing expert comments, with DCMS Ministers having an advisory role in the Ministerial decision-making process for the second round. Lastly, the Community Ownership Fund is providing £150m over four years so that local community groups can take ownership of local institutions that have fallen into disrepair or are under threat of closure and give them a new lease of life, ensuring they continue to provide vital services, create opportunities and boost local economies. The latest round of successful projects was announced in December 2022, with theatres, community centres, and historic parks across the UK benefiting from a share of £6.7m.9 DCMS and its Arms-Length Bodies also provide a range of capital and resource funds and wider initiatives that support local and regional government and organisations in the sector across the country, and enable them to deliver progress against the Levelling Up Missions. The Spending Review 2021 confirmed that the Cultural Investment Fund (CIF) will invest up to £128.4m of further capital investment in innovative cultural and creative projects, public libraries, museums, and cultural and historic visitor sites over the Spending Review period, across the country and predominantly outside London. In March 2022, the recipients of the £48m first round of the Cultural Investment Fund were announced. The Cultural Investment Fund includes the Cultural Development Fund (CDF) - DCMS’s largest existing ring-fenced funding explicitly for culture-led regeneration projects outside London - which has invested over £90m across its initial two rounds to support 12 projects all over the country, from Wakefield and Worcester, to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, and Middlesbrough. The results of the third round of CDF will be announced in spring 2023. The Cultural Investment Fund also includes the Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND), a capital fund administered by Arts Council England, tackling the urgent repair and infrastructure needs of accredited regional and local museums across England and enabling them to continue placemaking as landmark institutions. Round 1 saw thirty-one museums sharing £18.8m across England. £16.9m is available in 2022/23, and a further £46.4m available across the following two years. Finally, the Cultural Investment Fund also includes the Libraries Improvement Fund - a capital fund also delivered by Arts Council England to improve the infrastructure of public libraries as accessible, free to use, safe and trusted spaces found in all communities across the country, that can play a key role in levelling up. The Fund supports many public libraries to upgrade their buildings and digital infrastructure to meet the changing needs of users. £5m was allocated to 25 projects in Round 1 (2021/22), directly benefiting around 70 branch libraries. Round 2 of the Fund was launched in 2022 (also £5m). Historic England’s flagship £95m High Streets Heritage Action Zones programme is increasing people’s pride in their local civic spaces by supporting heritage-led regeneration in 67 English high streets all over the country - from Buxton to Plymouth - bringing local historic buildings back into use as housing, businesses, and creative and community spaces. The programme includes a £7m Cultural Programme, co-delivered by DCMS Arms- Length Bodies Arts Council England and National Lottery Heritage Fund, delivering community-led cultural and creative activities and events on high streets, empowering people to feel even more included in and proud of the history of their local areas.10 So far, almost 1,000 public events and projects have been delivered. Similarly, the £15m Transforming Places Through Heritage programme, delivered through the Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF), restores local heritage buildings to community ownership and new uses. It transforms village, town and city high streets and civic spaces, helping them to thrive, strengthening and empowering local people and communities, building cohesion and pride in these places, and encouraging local economies to prosper. Historic England’s Heritage Schools programme integrates communities, encourages civic pride and increases aspirations of local children. The programme supports and offers training to teachers in 62 Levelling Up Priority Places, developing children’s understanding of their local heritage and its significance, and bringing it to life, increasing a sense of civic pride by using local, familiar heritage to develop a sense of place and identity. Since 2012, the programme has engaged over 1.5m young people with their local heritage, providing better access to heritage in almost 2,000 schools in some of the most deprived areas of England.11 The Committee highlights the positive impact of the UK City of Culture competition. The competition is a flagship DCMS initiative and a proven model for cultural placemaking. It empowers places to use this programming as the catalyst for further investment, driving economic growth and regeneration - on high streets, in city centres, and in any and all public spaces. This in turn promotes social cohesion, grows people’s pride in these places, and makes them places where people - locals and visitors alike - want to spend time. As the Committee has noted, for the first time in the history of the competition, in 2022 DCMS gave all eight long-listed places £40,000 to support the development of their bids, providing a level playing field for all. • Bradford - selected as UK City of Culture 2025 - was also awarded £275,000, allowing them to maintain the momentum built during their bid, and start to deliver on their plans. The three runners-up - Southampton, Wrexham, and County Durham - are receiving £125,000 in grant funding to take forward some of the ideas in their bids.12 • Coventry - the UK City of Culture 2021 - has seen significant economic and social benefits as a result of the title, receiving £172m direct investment and an additional £500 million of regeneration activity in the city. Latest evaluation figures suggest all 42 neighbourhoods of the city had activities taking place across them, 43% of tickets were issued to citizens who were facing adversity, and over a third of the cultural programme was co-curated with local communities.13 The Government agrees that support for place-based cultural, heritage, and creative policymaking can help local organisations and local government deliver progress on the missions set out in the Levelling Up White Paper. As outlined above, we have taken - and are taking - positive and decisive steps to ensure a fairer distribution of cultural and wider funding, in support of this.