The Challenge for Culture in East London

 Culture, housing and Kinship in East London- new opportunities for investment

The IdeA website http://www.ideaknowledge.gov.uk/  refers to the publication  of 'The new East End’, which examines how life in London’s inner East End has changed since the 1950s. Published by Profile Books, it draws on the 1957 book by Young and Willmott, ‘Family and kinship in East London’.  The authors of ‘Family and kinship’ argued that housing policy and the welfare state could undermine family structures and support networks. ‘The new East End’ examines relations between the white working class and British-Bangladeshi populations of Tower Hamlets.  The book looks at the causes of hostility to newcomers to the area; it concludes that the welfare state and well intentioned housing policies have inadvertently contributed to racial tensions.

Kate Gavron, one of the authors of the book says: 

" There is a sense of community, or communities. There is definitely a sense of community among the white working class families still living in Tower Hamlets, and a very strong sense of community among the Bangladeshis.  There are a lot of people who want to buy houses in Tower Hamlets; it’s a nice place to live and near the centre of London…..more and more Bangladeshi families will move further out of London. They almost certainly won’t be able to live near each other so there will be a scattering effect.

Among the older white people who expressed hostility, their only solution was for them to have priority over the housing. But for most of them it was already too late because their sons and daughters were perfectly happy living out in Essex. Nobody really had any answers, apart from the provision of more social housing. Which should have happened from the beginning of the right-to-buy process, in my view. After all, this was a place where there was already an acute housing shortage and gentrification, the right-to-buy and the development of Docklands, all happening within one decade.  

It will be interesting to see if there are any further large migrations of one group. The Bangladeshis, Jews, Irish and the Huguenots went to the East End because of the docks and because it was the poorest part of inner London. Now the docks are closed there’s no reason for any one group to end up there.

It’s no longer a cheap area of London, so there may be no more large new communities arriving en bloc. There are, however, likely to be lots of people arriving from all over, including migration from other parts of London and Britain.  

I think that local authorities and the Government – and other organisations like the Young Foundation in Bethnal Green – are thinking hard about building communities, including looking at housing design.

For example they are thinking about how to combine the housing of families with young children and old people, and about how to encourage a feeling of neighbourhood, rather like the old neighbourhoods.

Whether you can construct this remains to be seen; to try to create a ‘village centre’ feel is a considerable challenge, especially when people nowadays are so mobile. There is a long way to go to rebuild the community spirit of the past."

Mirador:

There are challenges for agencies involved in the development of culture in the East End. The first entails working closely with all sections of the community to create and helping to retain the sense of community. The second challenge involves the development of policies and strategies for investing in culture as an integral aprt of the planning process.

How is this going to be done? I intend to talk to one or two people who are leaders in developing the thinking in this area and have produced initial results.

Culture and Economics

Various writers, researchers and consultants have put forward challenging arguments to outline the role of culture in the economies of cities, regions and countries where culture is seen as a major economic driver. For us here at Mirador, the issue is not whether culture has a positive role in economic development. We take that for granted although the case needs to be made!

I will be sharing various insights into this subject, which is attracting interest from a wide range of groups, to continually reaffirm our view that strategic investment in culture produces major benefits for the economy.

There are also some concerns. The first is about definition, ‘measurement’and validation of cultural concepts, their impact or outputs, contribution to wealth creation and the relationships between inputs and outputs, all aspects loosely described as the ‘evidence-base’ for culture. There are different views on what should be included and what should be excluded in the quantification or aggregation of cultural output. However, as long as the definitions are clearly stated and appropriate qualifications are provided, there is ample scope for developing the debate.

One of the most urgent concerns is how investment in culture can be secured to provide the greatest possible returns to the economy in terms of employment, value added, the creation of multiplier effects and the benefits that culture can deliver for the development of markets, the creation of economies of scale and through the forging of positive linkages in economies where culture is recognised as a major contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP).

There is a further challenge for agencies involved in the development and promotion of culture as a driver for economic development. Using the example of input-output analysis, there is perhaps scope for developing a model to project various levels of economic growth and to ascertain how different levels of investment in culture can be optimised to produce a given rate of return. Is the art or science of economic modelling able to provide such an analysis? If this was at all possible, perhaps people who campaign for investment in culture would be able to quantify the real benefits to the economy and society.

Many years ago the National Health Service used to say that they were investing £Xmillion in improving their service. Today, they report that an investment of £xmillion has yielded a specific number of hospital beds, operating theatres and a known increase of trained staff. In other words, the focus of reports has shifted from inputs to outputs. In the UK, where the developmental activities connected with increasing the capacity of cultural providers is mostly grant funded and the entertainment and leisure industries receive a combination of public and private sector investment, it should be possible to project the outputs that a given investment in culture should realise.

Critics of this argument may even justifiably say that you can only assess outcomes and outputs if you can measure them. A study of the economic impact of the Brighton Festival provides interesting conclusions. I hope to return to this later.

The Times Supplement: Working Towards 2012

The first of many supplements, The Times Supplement, dated 17 May 2006, offers a fairly comprehensive coverage of some of the key issues.  Its coverage of historical information is particularly interesting.

The main shortcoming of the Supplement, in my view, is the lack of coverage of Culture and its importance for 2012 and the period of up to ten years after the Olympics, described in the cultural sector as the 'legacy'. It would have been helpful to see a coverage of what the five London Boroughs which are hosting the Olympics, and indeed the rest of London will be doing to develop their cultural provision for 2012, how international visitors and the local audiences will be entertained and most importantly, how local communities will take part in developing cultural programmes.

Readers who missed the supplement can still read it at www.timesonline.co.uk/towards2012

Just Out!

The economic importance of the creative industries 

What does the term 'creative industries' mean? How significant is the creative sector? What opportunities does the sector present?

In the past, consensus on defintions has not been easy to achieve. As a result the estimates of the size and importance of the creative sector vary.

This is straight from NESTA's website.  Please see the Page tab above marked 'Publications and Research'.

Cultural Planning in East London for 2012

The submission of a successful bid to host the London Olympics in 2012 has created unprecedented euphoria and enthusiasm. However, many 'nervous' observers on the sidelines may feel that the people and organisations in charge of planning and delivery may not be able to meet their targets. Of course, people who work in culture bring their own personalities, confidence and experience to bear on the challenges in which they are involved. It is not going to be easy to reach consensus.

Mirador sees its role as a neutral and objective observer and as a supportive commentator. In general, this blog aims to put forward fewer personal opinions and more of professional contributions. I do not have any privileged access to information and the reader is reminded to look again at the Disclaimer for this blog. 

How does Mirador see the exciting developments in the cultural arena during the next few years leading to 2012 and the legacy programme of the Olympics?  Mirador will offer commentaries by addressing the key needs and priorities. It most cases the observations will be generic in nature and will not be designed to offer advice or comments on the work programmes of any specific delivery organisation. Mirador may also work with a few of the agencies involved in cultural planning and delivery. In these cases, compliance to client confidentiality will override all other distractions.

 Here are some initial observations: 

• It would be very interesting to see how the five London Boroughs that are the ‘official’ hosts for the Olympics will review, develop and reconfirm their joint cultural policies and strategies during the next few months. This exercise should result in repositioning of cultural provision in the whole East London ‘region’.

• For ‘repositioning’ to be successful, the London Boroughs will also need to look at their markets differently. Traditionally, cultural services departments addressed their local markets that are confined to their boundaries. Success in 2012 will require that all service providers look at regional marketing plans for some services and national and even international marketing strategies for others.

• The participating boroughs will be best advised to look at their new challenges in terms harnessing their collective motivation and developing co-financing options, confirming joint structures for delivery in key areas and adopting shared performance management criteria where applicable.

• Investment in developing homegrown cultural productions must start now. For any local producers and presenters to have a reasonable chance of offering their services to the procurement and programming agencies for 2012, local producers will need to invest in strategies to make their outputs meet quality, cost and other competitive criteria.  Local arts and cultural producers may even need to review their aims and objectives, challenge their structures for delivery and then commit themselves to developing their capacity to deliver.

• Investment in developing capability should receive top priority. Many organisations will have the capacity to deliver but they may not be capable.

• Many of the major arts and cultural organisations in the East London- North East London axis have excellent track records, they have secure command of resources and show clarity of vision. Most of these organisations are attractive candidates for incremental funding that should be tied to regional parameters for delivery and new programme development based on an expanding market. It will be very interesting to see how arts organisations develop during this exciting period.

• There is scope for investing in the renewal of at least a dozen town centres. Mirador hopes to express its views on how new ‘cultural hubs’ may better serve the needs of visitors and residents during the next ten years.

• Community engagement and participation is going to be vital. There are interesting proposals on the ground and a few recent initiatives have demonstrated merit. However, there is no substitute to developing and adopting community consultation plans which are fully inclusive and flexible.

• Cultural provision and skills development will go hand in hand. How is the region going to review its skills agenda and which agencies are going to be taking the lead in planning and delivery? Investment in lifelong learning should provide the discipline and content for the key outputs relating to the skills agenda for 2012.

The worst-case scenario is unacceptable

The worst-case scenario is unacceptable. Instead Mirador aims to work with its present and future clients and partners to address the following:

• Innovation and creativity. The markets for culture are changing  and the challenge in the next ten years is to resist a culture of providing ‘more of the same’.

• New entrepreneurialism.  Local authorities and their partners will need to be much more entrepreneurial than has been the case in the past.

• Competition. Audiences, especially new audiences, can be very selective about where they spend their money.

• Investment in education and skills. Cultural providers and their staff will require access to lifelong training.

The worst-case scenario

The worst case scenarion presents major losses to the local cultural economies if cultural planning was to fail and local provision is not enhanced to meet the demands of new or expanding markets.  A worst-case scenario prevails where:

• arts and cultural producers, community groups, local authorities, arts funders and business sponsors fail to analyse and scrutinise their options for growth by promoting culture as a driver for the local economy 
• cultural planners are unable to attract skilled workforce or invest in their training 
• lack of strategic planning frustrates the development of future capacity to deliver cultural output 
• cultural programmers may be driven to procure new artistic work from other countries at the expense of alienating local producers 
• lack of investment in partnerships fails to leverage resources into the economy 
• lack of planning fails to identify co-dependencies, namely the delivery of secondary services such as catering  
• lack of development of culture as a cross-cutting agenda precludes new investment from builders and planners

Our Framework for Delivery

Mirador has developed a framework to support the joint delivery of its productions and programmes. The following components are included in each project, wherever possible, subject to funding.

The Core Programme:

• Dedicated Festival or other events·        
• Access workshops·        
• Multimedia expositions·        
• Open air events·        
• Community engagement and inclusion·        
• Partnerships 

Key components to generate efficiencies in the commissioning and delivery process:

• Touring Exhibitions
• Dedicated websites
• Resource packs
• Cross-artform outputs
• A dedicated blog to animate the planning and delivery process  

Anticipated Outcomes of the Mirador Framework 

• Added Value
• Maximising cross-cutting initiatives
• Delivering excellence
• Audience development 

Addressing our key programmes for cultural diversity

Mirador is interested in developing a series of productions to implement its own programmes for addressing cultural diversity in London. The main components of our projected programme for delivery are:

 ·         Social inclusion

·         Capacity building through partnerships

·         Modernisation of delivery mechanisms to undertake large scale work

·         Creating effective links with learning and skills development

·         Investing in more viable structures for delivery

·         Confirming the basis for monitoring and evaluation

·         Developing co-financing options 

The above aspirations are also connected to the process for the determination of a major events strategy for London from 2006 to 2012.

Cultural Diversity

There are several practical approaches and ‘theories’ relating to the promotion of cultural diversity. The notion of ‘cultural relativism’ (Note 1) suggests that different people have their own frameworks for looking at the world.  They try to explain what they see by resorting to a series of production values and judgements which can be very inspiring, especially for continually developing productions for a mix of audiences: schools, the residents of London and visitors, for example. Note 1: the source of the concept of cultural relativism is not known to the writer.