Ensuring cross-cutting delivery systems

The early rounds of comprehensive performance assessments (CPA) carried out by the Audit Commission have shown that most local authorities have found the services commonly grouped under 'Environmental Services' to be amongst the most challenging ones to deliver. The challenges that lie ahead for waste management and recycling, street cleansing and maintenance, grounds and parks management, highways engineering and especially parking services are going to be phenomenal for service providers in the region.

It is clear that inter-borough collaboration will be critical to ensure success in providing a clean and safe environment for 2012. This will require a new vision to inform service delivery models, support investment planing and plan resource management in general.

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

Inviting partners and collaborators

Mirador has identified five new programme themes for future development. Each programme will be explored further in its own right subject to its ability to attract funding , partnerships and collaborators.Fillum! And Sanskaraz  are new productions with some interesting background experience of running them.  We have completed initial research and development into the following: 

• The Water’s Edge – a River Festival
• Talking Faces – Festival of Masks and Mask-making
• Sanskaraz – the Story of Rites of Passage, winner of a Millennium Festival Award in 2000.
• Patang! A Festival of Kites and the Ephemeral Arts of the Spring, when kites are usually flown.
• Fillum! An International Film Festival, also featuring cinema and sport

We welcome requests for outline information. Please write to: Kalwant Ajimal at kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com

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.  

Making London’s Creative Capacity to work

Cultural planners and providers, arts organisations, community groups and individuals working in this exciting area of  London’s economy have the creative capacity to deliver a wide range of marketable outputs and services, all of which can add value. However they must engage with delivery organisations and invest in audience development more than ever before in order to develop their capability to deliver.  What are the key actions that London must prioritise to facilitate joint development of culture during the next ten years? How can a case of strategic investment in culture be sustained?  Culture is a key driver for London’s economy but what is its present share of London’s gross domestic product (GDP)? What is the potential for incremental growth by the time the Olympics are held? What types of  legacy programmes can be achieved for the ten year period after the Big Event in 2012? A case for investing in a programme of long-term investment is clearly sustainable. However, it must be realised at the outset that no single organisation can deliver the desired results on its own. This is especially a key issue for local authorities – they have been supporting culture in London and have a variable record of achievement. But their role must change from being funding-led providers to strategic developers of partnerships.

Drumbeat/Heartbeat- a New Festival of Percussion

Mirador has been working on a proposal to develop a collaborative Festival known as Drumbeat, Heartbeat - An International Festival of Percussion 2007-2012. An artistic policy statement is being finalised and the aim is for Mirador to put together a representative consortium, consisting of percussion and dance groups, percussionists with special repertoires derived from cross-cultural presentation and community dance enthusiasts to work together to produce a regional festival within 15-18 months. A small partnership team consisting of Mirador and three percussion groups has already been formed. Partnerships with local authorities, producers, arts funders and schools will be crucial. We invite proposals from agencies and providers outlined above. All enquiries will be considered on their own merit.Mirador guarantees that all proposals will be treated as private and confidential until such a time that their owners are prepared to release information to the market or to other collaborators. For further information and details please email me at kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com