Agenda item

Please introduce yourself and describe the roles and responsibilities that your current post involves, and an outline of the structure and remit of the Arts Development Unit.

I am the Head of the Kent Arts Development Unit. Our direct engagement with Extended Services is minimal, but there is a direct overlap between what we deliver and the provision of Extended Services.  KCC has always had some form of ADU, but the current Unit now has quite a different format. I have been here for two and a half years, and when I arrived I reviewed the structure and made dramatic changes.  

One of the challenges we had to address was how to provide best value for money.  The KCC used to provide arts services directly, mainly by staff running galleries, but this is a very expensive way of delivering arts activity in the county.  There were 26 officers in the team, and there are now 11.  These are arranged in two groups of specialist officers; arts and regeneration officers, who are split geographically to serve the county, and arts form officers.  We still provided some direct services, eg the visual arts officer runs the John Downton exhibition that you see at Sessions House, but the team’s main role now is to provide a strategic service across the county, to strengthen arts provision. 

The danger with arts is that we often take it for granted that there will be specialists to provide arts activity.  People working in the arts need to be a blend of two things; experts in their field (ie great artists) and good at communicating that skill to others.  The job isn’t as easy as many people think.  We need to find people who are both creative and good at communicating, for instance, with disaffected young people.  I see the role of the team as to generate opportunities, ‘feed the engine room’, to supply people to deliver arts services and encourage the emerging young artists for tomorrow.

Could your team become involved in Extended Services in school in any way?

Yes, the John Downton Award is already marketed to all schools in Kent, and this year we will pay particular attention to schools in areas where there was low take up last year.  We aim to get a new range of young artists taking part each year.  We also run the Kent Youth Theatre Festival, which is in its second year.  Many youth theatres are independently run but about one-third are attached to schools or an after-school activity.

In your view, what are the benefits resulting from the Unit’s involvement in Extended Services?  How would you measure success?

We have a performance management framework to judge our delivery against our annual operating plan and there are two ways of measuring success which are most relevant to Extended Services; leverage of money and levels of participation. 

The KADU’s budget is £1.1million per year (plus another £1million specifically for the Turner Contemporary), of which a considerable proportion is for grants for projects.  Last year we levered in £6million for the county.  We have a strong relationship with the Arts Council, which is built on mutual trust and respect, and my team are experts at applying for grants. For instance, my team was instrumental in writing the successful £3million Seachange bid for Dreamland last year.

Levels of participation measure how many people take part in an activity, and how many organisations we advise.  We give business advice, as creative people are not always business-minded people.  By helping them to become more business-minded, we help to make them more sustainable.  This part of our work is a meeting of good art and good governance, and it is often one of the most challenging parts of what we do.

We have a Youth Arts Officer, who comes under the direct management of the Kent Arts Development Unit but is shared with the Youth Service, and who runs the Youth Theatre Festival.  Youth Theatre has traditionally been seen as a middle-class activity, but the YAO builds in elements to the project to access hard to reach young people.

How do you reach young people in deprived areas, and how could they benefit from what you do?

We work with organisations which specialise in such work, for example Rhythmix, which is associated with Kent Music. These people are experts at relating to disaffected young people.  For example, we were interviewing musicians, and we found a young chap whose mother had died when he was young.  His father and his older brother were alcoholics but he had made a conscious choice to teach himself to play the guitar and avoid following their example.  He now teaches young people. Knowing the sort of the situation they are coming from, he can relate to them, and they look up to him because of his musical skills.

We use systematic measurement to see the benefit of what we do. For example we have been piloting a SEEDA funded  GIS-based planning tool which enables you to map levels of arts participation alongside employment, educational attainment, levels of obesity, etc.

The Select Committee is trying to identify creative ways in which Extended Services can be delivered, and how we can quantify its effects on attainment and other issues. 

Who benefits from the Unit’s provision of Extended Services?  Are there any groups of Kent residents who, in your view, find it more difficult to access the activities the Unit offers?  If so, why?

The messages I would ask the Select Committee to consider are:-

• if you want to engage young people, think first of ensuring that we are attracting, training and retaining talented creative people in Kent who will work effectively with young people;
• school premises are not a good place for activities in which you are trying to engage disaffected young people (or their parents), as they often have negative associations with school.  Don’t assume a school environment is right for everyone;
• the arts can provide a link or bridge from such disaffected people to their previous bad experiences of people in authority. Artists often provide a bridge between ‘anti-establishment’ and constructive life choices;
• transport to help access to activities is a major challenge.  After-school activities are most easy to attend if a pupil’s parents have transport and are willing to assist.

I am interested in what you say about youth theatre being seen as ‘middle-class’.  Are a lot of young people missing out on it because of this? Can you comment on the distribution of youth theatres across the county?

We know there is much youth theatre activity going on across Kent, but we encourage companies to make contact with us so we can see how best we can be involved and help maximise involvement.  We continue to be proactive in discovering new youth theatres.

You say that you lever in funds for the KCC, to help pay for cultural activities.  Could a school’s Extended Services activity help them lever in funds for their school?

Most of my team’s fundraising success has come from Lottery applications, and, as I have said, my team is very good at levering in funds.  The question to ask with Extended Services levering in is ‘where would the money be levered from?’

Please explain the importance of creative education to engage with young people and to contribute to the knowledge economy. 

There has been extensive national research about this.  Cultural education as part of the school day develops transferable skills, eg problem solving, negotiation, team work, which are very useful for enhancing employability.

The creative industries sector is one of the few sectors which has continued to grow, even in the recession.  Sales of theatre tickets, for example, have continued to increase as people want to have affordable treats.  Kent has a slice of the creative economy and is well placed to increase its share.  The creative economy is predicted to increase up to 2013, and Kent can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity.  To succeed, Kent will have to foster a suitable workforce, hence the need to develop young people’s creative skills.  We need to help by signposting young people to cultural opportunities. 

Why is your team, rather then the private and voluntary sector, involved in delivering the Youth Theatre Festival?

We are delivering a 2010 target and have been awarded an Inspire mark for our work (this is the mark awarded by the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games for cultural activity that is part of the Cultural Olympiad).  All activities are originated by the creative sector, and Youth Theatre leaders lead it.  There is a two-day residential part of the Festival.  The safeguarding issues are significant, so if, in the future, the festival is run by the voluntary sector, KCC, as the safeguarding authority, would still need to have some involvement.  We do not compete with the creative sector - we support it.

You say that your team is not involved in the delivery of Extended Services, but are you involved in any way in these sorts of activities at a more local level? As a local Member, I am involved in a number of projects in Swale, such as ‘Litter Angels’, ‘Polkadot’, Sheppey ‘Safe’, ‘Viva Divas’ and ‘Sheppey’s Got Talent’. How aware are you of these local projects, and would you want your team to be involved in them?

I know that my North Kent Arts and Regeneration officer has done much work in Swale, so I’m sure she will know about the projects you have listed.  I will check that she is aware of them. To answer the question ’would I wish to be involved?’ I would need to be clear about what it was a project needed of us.

I think organisers would want guidance on how to make their original idea sustainable.

My team gives a lot of this sort of advice, so we would be happy to advise, once we are made aware of a local project.  The team’s involvement would be via the local arts officer for that area.  I will pass on your contact details.  This sort of links helps us to create a network of cultural expertise.

The Select Committee needs to identify ideas for the future delivery of Extended Services which are innovative and creative.  Do you have any views on this?

I don’t have a great knowledge of Extended Services, and it seems a very complex area to get into.  I cannot offer any ideas as I don’t feel that I understand the context of it. 

How can we direct schools to work with you more, so they can take advantage of what you can offer and the resources that you have?

While we do have access to funding opportunities, we have to be very tough in whom we can help, as we have to achieve the very best value from the public money that we are spending. We have to turn down many good applicants as we cannot afford to help everyone we would want to, so I would not wish to raise anyone’s expectations of getting funding through us.

Could activity providers charge participants for their activities, instead of getting money from you?

Most already do. They earn some money from charging for participation, ticket sales and subsidiary sales, and get some money from grants, such as lottery funding.  Projects never get 100% of their funding from any one source.  We signpost them to sources of funding to which they can apply.

One way to evaluate the success of Extended Services it to link young people’s creativity to their employability. Can you suggest any ways to measure this?

There are a few ways of doing this;

·        The Museums, Libraries and Archives have developed Generic Learning Outcomes (GLOs) as a simple way to measure the benefits of engagement and participation;

·        ‘Folkestone Forward’, run by Des Crilley, evaluates its success by using a star rating model; and

·        ‘Shepway Find Your Talent’ gathers data in a very simple, child-friendly way.  Children can add stickers to an evaluation questionnaire to say ’Yes I do’ or ‘No I don’t’.  This model in particular is designed to measure the depth and breadth of a child’s cultural engagement.

The ‘People United’ programme was started in 2000 by Tom Andrews, following his time on the Clore Leadership Programme, a national programme to develop cultural leadership.  Tom was part of the first wave of people to undergo the Clore training, and later set up People United to promote kindness.  This project comprises a series of engagement activities for children, to develop the idea of being kind to each other. A pilot scheme started in three primary schools in the UK. He is currently working on a town-wide project with Herne Bay.  The outcomes of this are being monitored by the University of Kent.

Please could you send the Select Committee some examples of the people who apply to you for funding, examples of those who are successful in winning funding, and an explanation of the criteria you use to determine applications?