Third Report - Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda

The long-term challenges continuing to face our high streets and town centres are well documented. Cultural placemaking can be (and in many places already is) one way that local communities, government and arm’s-length bodies respond to these challenges. It is evident that placed-based cultural policymaking can help deliver on the missions set out in the Levelling Up White Paper, including improving pride in place but also local leadership, living standards, education, skills, health and wellbeing, so long as these are done in a locally-sensitive way. Our Report discusses the ways that national and local stakeholders can unlock these benefits through investment in local culture and creative people.

The Government should take steps to level up cultural opportunities and production across the country through its proposed statutory framework set out in the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill currently working its way through Parliament. We recommend that the Government commits to explicitly incorporating support for local arts and culture into the Government’s first Statement for Levelling-Up Missions, including the methodology and metrics for mission progress, for missions such as pride in place, living standards, wellbeing, education and local leadership. In its Response to this Report, the Government should provide clarity on how prospective methodologies and metrics might also recognise the idiosyncratic and esoteric nature, and capture the social, cultural and economic value, of many creative businesses. Finally, the Government should ensure that there is countrywide support available to local cultural organisations and local government achieve this progress. (Paragraph 16) Cultural placemaking

Despite the potential for the creative industries to help drive the Government’s Levelling Up agenda, funding and support for arts and culture emulates the broader geographic disparities that affect the UK economy and society as a whole. The Government and its arm’s-length bodies have taken some welcome steps to redress this imbalance. However, we are concerned that outside London and the South East, there are areas still not receiving the necessary investment to support their own local and world-class institutions, while in London and the South East, grassroots organisations in deprived areas are experiencing serious financial risk due to a handful of organisations receiving significant proportions of public funding.

We recommend that the Government and Arts Council England reconsider how they allocate funding by regions. We propose a model whereby world class, national cultural institutions, who often receive the most significant levels of public cash, are categorised and allocated funding separately from local and regional cultural institutions. This would allow for better comparisons between genuinely grassroots organisations and ensure those organisations in regions where there is a high concentration of national cultural institutions aren’t indirectly negatively impacted by well-meaning attempts to rebalance spending across the country. (Paragraph 39) 56 Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda

We also recommend that these national cultural organisations should have differing expectations as a condition of public funding, including greater accessibility for audiences nationwide and support for grassroots organisations, in a similar way as to how the “crown jewels” of sport have differing broadcasting expectations. One overall ambition for Levelling Up through culture should be that every region can boast world class institutions alongside a local, accessible grassroots cultural ecosystem.

Despite efforts to rebalance the geographic disparities in investment in arts and culture through flagship funds and competitive grants, we share concerns with the sector regarding the sustainability and accessibility of funding over the longer-term. We welcome that the Government has listened to our recommendations regarding guaranteed funding and the broadened scope for bidding areas aspiring to be the UK City of Culture as an important start. However, without further reconsideration as to how the sector can be supported beyond the current rounds of support, it is likely that many areas of the country will see their local cultural organisations continue to struggle.

We recommend that the Government should consider how it can support arts and culture through means other than one-off or flagship funds but, instead, generate sustainable public funding settlements and pump-prime private sector investment. Recent reforms to funding competitions like the UK City of Culture, such as guaranteed and expanded support for high quality bids, should also be applied across the sector. Alongside these plans, we recommend that DCMS and its arm’s-length bodies, in consultation with the sector, develop a comprehensive training programme that help build much needed skills- and capacity-building.

While our inquiry focused on the financial barriers to cultural placemaking, there are many factors that co-determine whether local places can develop and maintain sustainable cultural infrastructure. Our inquiry has heard potential policy recommendations from stakeholders across the sector and across the country; we hope that the Government continues to respond to the sector’s concerns. While many of these issues were known when DCMS published its last White Paper for Culture in 2016 (only the second that the Government has published), the sector now faces additional challenges. Local authorities must be empowered to step up and take the lead on addressing these barriers.

Consistent with the ambitions of Levelling Up, we recommend that local communities and stakeholders are given a greater role in decision-making. This could be done by building on the Community Ownership Fund, reducing the bureaucracy in funding application processes, encouraging more localised decision-making (as with the Arts Council’s area council, who could be appointed by and answerable to local government) and looking beyond just competitive bidding to incentivise collaborative, democratic, grassroots-oriented processes.

Alongside its impact on individuals and households, the cost-of-living crisis poses an existential threat to the cultural, sporting and media organisations and infrastructures that are at the centre of our communities at a time when they need Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda 57 certainty following the Covid-19 pandemic, even despite the Government’s welcome announcement of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme for businesses, charities and public sector organisations in September.

The Government needs to engage with these sectors as a matter of urgency and bring forward targeted support in response to the current crisis, such as through VAT or business rate relief, to prevent exacerbating long-term scarring on organisations already hit hard by Covid-19. (Paragraph 68) Participation and social mobility

It is a matter of serious concern that despite the UK’s status as home to successful, world-renowned creative industries, the sector is experiencing a significant and ongoing national skills shortage. This has compounded the issue of poor social mobility in the creative industries that successive governments have failed to address. Indeed, despite the Government’s recognition of the need to provide greater opportunities for people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds in the 2016 Culture White Paper, the creative industries remain among the worst for social mobility. We find it incredible that the UK cannot deliver on the provision of skills needed to meet the employment needs of the sector and equip our potential future creatives with the best possible opportunities to succeed. This shortage must be addressed if the UK is to maintain its status as a stalwart in arts and culture in future.

Current working arrangements within the creative industries, such as the emphasis on freelancing and volunteer work, lack of work experience opportunities and need to relocate to London and the South East, are anathema to the aspirations of levelling up people’s prospects across the UK. We are particularly concerned by reports of poor working conditions experienced by people working in the creative industries, and how they have contributed to the low levels of social mobility and inclusivity of the sector.

We encourage arm’s-length bodies, especially those responsible for administering funding on behalf of Government such as the Arts Council and Historic England, to take further steps and ensure that organisations in the sector are working to improve working conditions across the creative industries as a key part of delivering on the ambitions of levelling up.

Arts and cultural education is important in its own right for the social benefits it brings, but it is also an important factor in addressing issues of poor social mobility and the national skills shortage. While we welcome the Government’s efforts to introduce a National Plan for Music Education and Cultural Education Strategy, we have heard that education policy in the main can have a detrimental effect on the provision of education, training and skills development in this country. We remain concerned that cultural education is still seen as of lesser importance to the curriculum, which feeds negative perceptions of careers in the creative industries, discourages people with necessary skills from pursuing those careers and compounds issues of social mobility within the sector. (Paragraph 94) 58 Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda

We recommend that the Government take tangible steps to address the national skills shortage and incentivise cultural activity in education, starting by ensuring the long- term viability for schools that provide vocational, industry-backed qualifications. It should also expand the model of music education hubs outlined in the National Plan for Music Education to other disciplines with the cultural sector where the UK enjoys international renown and comparative economic success, such as TV, film and theatre.

We have little faith that national government and arm’s-length bodies are taking a joined-up approach with local government to Levelling Up cultural infrastructure. Though cultural policy is devolved, and indeed central government should continue to resist centralising impulses, DCMS has a greater role to play in convening and facilitating collaboration between local government, national and local cultural institutions, arm’s-length bodies and other stakeholders between and across local and regional levels nationwide, enabling the sharing of research, data and best practice, and ensuring that local stakeholders have the skills and experience to demonstrate local leadership and effective decision-making.

The “cultural compacts” initiative appears to have had a positive impact in bringing together local stakeholders, driving strategic planning for culture and facilitating local engagement, contingent on examples of best practice.

The Government should continue to support the initiative by aiming to at least double the number of compacts, and explicitly target rural areas in this expansion to better understand and develop a blueprint as to how they can be established beyond urban centres. Consistent with the “fifth pillar” of Levelling Up (reporting, external advice and external scrutiny), the Government should also commit to reporting back on the success of the cultural compacts initiative by the end of this Parliament.

As part of this process, the Government should also undertake an audit of necessary skills in cultural placemaking and collaborative policymaking, and provide a roadmap as to how the provision of these skills and best practice can be delivered and shared to local authorities and partnerships that need and want them.

The services and spaces offered by public libraries remain an important part of a community’s infrastructure for people who are digitally excluded or who live in deprived neighbourhoods.

The Government should support the development of a network of hubs providing cultural spaces, workspaces and free, fast internet access in places most in need of levelling up in order to modernise library service provision. (Paragraph 114) Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda 59