Agenda item

This report provides an update on the work of the Where Culture Connects cultural compact and its future plans.  The compact is the Borough’s stakeholder partnership for cultural planning and delivery.

Harris Bokhari, Chair of the Cultural Compact introduced the item and provided an overview on the development of the Cultural Compact. He began by congratulating the work done so far by the Council, in particular Councillor Holder and over 80 local partners who were giving their time and energy on a voluntary basis to ensure culture was at the heart of everything that was done in the borough. He explained that as Chair, his key focus from day one was ensuring the council was maximising the return for taxpayers and ensuring the Compact was focused on delivering maximum impact for residents.

In the short term, the Compact had focused on 3 deliverable strands: 1. Cultural education / young people, 2. Destination management and 3. Infrastructure mapping. In the medium and long term, the Compact aspired for Hammersmith and Fulham to be known for something nationally, in a particular cultural field, similar to other boroughs. Harris Bokhari concluded his initial remarks by saying it was an extremely exciting time for anyone who cared about culture and cultural impact and the Compact sought to make a lasting legacy for all residents.

Val Birchall, Assistant Director, Culture Tourism & Sport, provided a presentation on ‘Where Culture Connects’ Cultural Compact Update. This included the following information:

• A definition of a Compact
• A chronology detailing how the Compact had developed.
• Details of the Compacts’ membership.
• Connecting Culture and Innovation - Information on how the Compact connected with Upstream.
• Details on the role and function of the Cultural Forum.
• Information of the Destination Management Partnership – including

new campaigns, current and future priorities.

• The role of the Heritage Partnership. Noting potential partners included:

• Details on Future Plans including:

1.     Capacity building programme

2.     Destination campaigns

3.     Youth culture festival

4.     Civic Innovation Unit

5.     Pay it Forward project

6.     Wayfinding and welcome

Councillor Ashok Patel commented that culture was a difficult concept to describe as it was a subjective issue. In relation to the launch of the Cultural Compact at a meeting of the Cultural Forum, he asked if there was a written definition of culture? In response, Val Birchall, Assistant Director, Culture Tourism & Sport explained that the Council had taken the definition used in the Borough’s Cultural Strategy which primarily focused on arts and culture and not food or sport. However, officers had also included heritage and softer forms of culture including community culture, as well as professional culture.

In relation to paragraph 14 of the report, Councillor Ashok Patel noted that the Destination Management Partnership had a campaign to promote Christmas in Hammersmith and Fulham, and asked what this entailed. In response, Val Birchall explained that it was called Countdown to Christmas, and was essentially a campaign for those organisations that had activity or hospitality businesses that wanted to get involved, to use the Countdown to Christmas branding to encourage people to enter online competitions and sign-ups. In doing so, they would better understand what the offer was over Christmas, and by joining the mailing list, the Destination Partnership gathered information it could use to promote and to encourage people to come back.

Harris Bokhari, added that the Compact had a wide and diverse interpretation of what culture was and sought to reassure Members the Compact was not taking a narrow view. He accepted there was scope to articulate what culture was in a stronger way and to come back to the committee on this in the future.

Councillor Jackie Borland commented that she was impressed at the scope and ambition of the project. However, in relation to the Countdown to Christmas campaign, she asked how this fitted in with the arts and heritage aims of the Compact. In response, Val Birchall explained that the key concept was to consider what factors drove people to visit the borough. And as the borough has a stronger cultural offer at Christmas, the Destination Partners wanted to use this for a campaign. She explained that ongoing research had shown the main reason people visited a destination was to enjoy the leisure activities that were on offer, so the broad cultural offer was at the heart of the Christmas campaign. But as the Destination Partnership also entailed hospitality, the hotels and the Business Improvement Districts, there was a focus on increasing footfall, duration of stay and retail spend in the borough.

Harris Bokhari commented that the culture sector was under resourced and it necessary to look for funding opportunities where possible. Christmas was a nationally held festival and underlining how culture was important for Christmas was a win-win for residents.

Councillor Jackie Borland welcomed the latest infrastructure map as there was so much going on in the borough. However, she highlighted it was important the Council did not put all its focus online, as the digital divide (online accessibility for older residents) meant that some residents would struggle to access it. In response, Val Birchall commented that officers were investigating different ways of presenting this information, including using Library trails, potentially a visitor information centre with tear-off maps of the borough and speaking to hotels to ensure they were conversant with points of interest within the borough.

Councillor Adam Peter Lang commented that he was pleased by the enthusiasm which had been expressed despite the Council being unsuccessful in the recent London Borough of Culture Bid. He highlighted the three strands of the strategy and in particular Culture and Creative Education and underlined how important it was to continue working with schools and universities. He also stressed the importance of the Compact engaging with informal groups. In response, Val Birchall confirmed that engagement work was a work in progress and the report did not include a full list of everyone the Compact was working with, but she assured the committee that it was working with a broad range of groups associated with young people.  She asked Committee members if they had further ideas of who else could be contacted.

Adding a further comment, Councillor Adam Peter Lang hoped that the Compact was sufficiently inclusive to ensure it engaged with as wide variety of groups as it developed in the future. Val Birchall explained that the Compact was intended to be a tight executive group, and the sub groups doing the work were completely inclusive. She noted that the Compact was working with HQI[RV1]  to ensure it engaged with young people entering the commercial music sector who had gone through unconventional or informal groups.

Harris Bokhari welcomed the committee’s comments on inclusivity and underlined it was important the Compact had impact. He commented he was confident the way in which the Compact was set up meant it could make a real impact.

The Chair, Councillor Rory Vaughan, asked about successes and how these could be demonstrated, as well as its impact in schools and the importance of using statistics to reinforce these achievements. He commented it would be helpful if future presentations could include this information. The Chair commented that he liked the partnership structure which had been set up, as this had a clear line through from the Arts Commission through to the Cultural Strategy. He welcomed the focus on destination management and how the Cultural Strategy and Visitor Economy work had been combined together and looked forward to seeing examples of how this had worked in future reports.

The Chair asked how the different work streams would learn from the campaign as they took these forwards. He also asked about Schools Arts Week, the breadth of the campaign, how it worked and what the lessons learnt were.

In response, Val Birchall explained that in relation to the Countdown to Christmas and those type of campaigns, there were a significant number of statistics as it was a part of the GLA funded High Streets Data Project which gathered information on footfall and spend. The Council had also engaged with London and Partners to talk to them to help identify patterns of travel and visitors across the whole of London. Val Birchall explained that a raft of information was being sent to the Destination Partnership tomorrow and when that information had been dissected, officers would be in a position to identify what the next steps might be.

In relation to Schools Arts Week, this was a contained project which allowed the Compact to speak to education colleagues and act as a springboard for future projects. This offered a range of workshops schools could choose from, aimed at Year 5 classes and the feedback from this would inform other projects. Val Birchall explained that building partnerships from scratch was a long-term endeavour, as the Compact needed to get everyone together, agree what was needed, try a course of action and then assess the outcomes.

Recounting a previous Policy Accountability Committee meeting, when a hotel representative attended to talk about commercial ventures, the visitor economy and attracting visitors to the borough, the Chair asked about future funding opportunities stemming from commercial successes. In response, Val Birchall explained that by looking at the product strand, officers were currently examining when hotels were underoccupied and what opportunities there were to attract other visitors to increase footfall and promote the visitor economy.

The Chair noted the Summer Programme and asked if there was a specific theme this year. In response, Val Birchall confirmed that the Summer Programme was due to be discussed tomorrow by the Destination Partnership. She explained there was an idea to hold a festival over the summer period. And having spoken to partners it was noted that the riverside was under-utilised as a visitor attraction and there were ongoing discussions about how the Council could promote this more effectively.

Closing the item, the Chair, Councillor Rory Vaughan confirmed that the Committee were encouraged by the progress which had been made on the Visitor Economy and joining up with the Upstream Industrial Strategy. The Committee looked forward to a further update on the development of the Cultural Compact and its impact in due course.

RESOLVED

1. That the Committee review and comment on the report.