Key information
Decision type: Director
Reference code: DD2107
Date signed:
Decision by: Jeff Jacobs , Head of Paid Service
Executive summary
The GLA launched the Culture Diary in April 2014 to connect London and the UK’s cultural and creative industries to the world. The Culture Diary demonstrates the capital’s capacity for strategic cultural leadership at an international scale, and was approved by MD1316 to 31 March 2016. The Diary is externally funded by the GREAT campaign continued funding for 2016/17 which was approved through MD1621.
This decision seeks approval for the receipt and expenditure of up to £115,000 in grant income to enable the continued delivery of The Culture Diary in 2017-18 until the proposed move to a Government Department in Summer 2017 to continue to build upon its success, to maximise both London and the UK’s cultural exports and provide opportunities for the culture sector to develop new partnerships and investment.
Decision
That the Executive Director of Communities & Intelligence approves:
• The receipt and expenditure of external grant funding from GREAT campaign up to a maximum of £115,000 to enable the continued delivery of The Culture Diary in 2017-18.
Part 1: Non-confidential facts and advice
1.1 The Culture Diary was originally developed by the GLA to help plan and co-ordinate cultural activity in London during the Olympics in 2012. Following the Olympics the Diary continued to be used as a resource for London’s culture sector as a planning and clash chart. In February 2014, the GLA entered into an agreement with the British Council (on behalf of stakeholders GREAT campaign, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), VisitBritain (VB), Arts Council England (ACE), British Council (BC), Department of Culture & Media (DCMS) and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) now Department for International Trade (DIT)) to enhance the Diary as an international planning tool with funding for £285,000 until March 2016 (MD1316). The Diary is fully funded externally with no GLA funds.
1.2 Subsequently MD1621 approved the further receipt and expenditure of external grant funding, totalling £162,500 for 2016-17, from the GREAT campaign and Arts Council England to continue the delivery of The Culture Diary and to build upon its successes.
1.3 Over the past 3 years, the GLA has worked to develop the Diary website and provide information and resources to both the Culture Sector and government agencies (BC, FCO, VB and DIT). The Diary brokers relationships between the London and UK cultural and creative sectors and international producers, promoters, venues and embassies, driving international collaboration and export of the UK’s rich cultural offer.
1.4 The GLA’s ongoing leadership in this project continues to demonstrate the capital’s capacity for strategic cultural leadership at an international scale – connecting the UK’s cultural and creative industries to the world via London. The Culture Diary remains a key tool in projecting London as an outward facing City, reinforcing the message that London remains open to the world, which in the current climate is particularly important and relevant.
1.5 The Culture Diary Team provide an invaluable resource to the culture sector in London and the UK
planning to work internationally, providing free resources, guidance and advice and a directory for
users to create collaborations, opportunities and more recently cultivation events, for example:
• In 2016, the Team curated and produced the 3 creative industry showcases for London in British House, Rio, engaging 30 members of the Culture Diary network (including Shakespeare’s Globe, Science Museum, Studio Wayne McGregor, Royal Opera House, Royal Ballet, Youth Archive, up-and-coming London artist including Nadia Rose, Elf Kid in a Grime Showcase generating so far £600,000 ROI for the UK culture sector, Equivalent Ad Value £505k and media circulation 18.6m.
• Co-ordinated a cultivation event with the British Consulate in Shanghai, China in August 2016 in collaboration with Sir Matthew Bourne and New Adventures Sleeping Beauty in Shanghai, generating a projected £800,000 in ROI in direct export sales for London and the UK creative economy.
• Developed relationships with the British Ambassador and British Embassy in France to support touring exhibitions and productions of Culture Diary members including Barbican International Designing 007 and Akram Khan. For 2017 the Culture Diary is planning a campaign around the David Hockney exhibition touring to the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
1.6 Since its original inception and launch, the Culture Diary has been a considerable success. Users who originally registered for 2012 Cultural Olympiad were successfully migrated into a new and rebranded website. The active user base now stands at 8000 compared with the 4,104 who originally registered for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
1.7 The website has been continually developed throughout 2016-17 and as a result, has achieved
approximately 30,000 unique visitors per annum (up from 20,000 in 2015-16). Due to
improvements in the functionality of the site, the number of events uploaded from the sector has
increased by 300% per month (average 600 events/month).
2.1 The Culture Diary will continue to connect the culture sector with business opportunities via government agencies for mutual benefits.
2.2 It will continue to provide a free online platform to collate UK culture events and a culture organisation directory, showcasing London and the UK’s extremely diverse and rich cultural offering, ensuring that the London remains to be seen as a world leading cultural city.
2.3 The Culture Diary will continue to offer opportunities to UK embassies to galvanise on UK cultural events taking place in their markets by encouraging posts to create campaigns, cultivate events and promotions. Success will be measured based on the number of attendees, media exposure and relationships developed for the culture sector and post business objectives for export and inward investment
2.4 The outputs and success of The Culture Diary will also be measured by support provided to partners to reach their objectives including:
• Department for International Trade (DIT): The Culture Diary will continue to track introductions made between the UK Culture sector and businesses in the UK and on territory. We will meet on a monthly basis with DIT to monitor the pipeline of warm leads developing into business sales. The main measure of success is based on a target of 20:1 ROI for all activity.
• The Britain is GREAT campaign: to be integral in the global branding and marketing of the UK culture and creativity offer, creating international opportunities and advising GREAT on the Global Challenge Fund allocated to London and the UK for cultural promotion.
• British Council: The Diary will continue to work to develop connections for cultural organisations through key partners like British Council. Conversations will be monitored via a business tracker spreadsheet.
• Arts Council England: Ongoing support of ACE in reaching international objectives by communicating funding and grant opportunities via the Diary and linking ACE funded organisations with overseas partners.
2.5 During 2017/18 the Culture Diary team will move from the GLA to a government department. The move will take place by the end of July 2017 at the latest and is being co-ordinated by the GREAT campaign. The Culture & Creative Industries team at the GLA will manage the Culture Diary team until the move is finalised. It was initially planned for the move to be complete by 31 March 2017, but this has taken longer than envisaged and so the GREAT campaign have requested an extension to July 2017 to complete the process.
2.6 Officers within the Culture and Creative Industries Team have been in consultation with the GLA HR
team regarding the employees who will be affected by the Culture Diary moving to another government department and the employees who will be affected have also been made aware of the proposed move.
2.7 Therefore this decision seeks approval for the receipt of grant funding up to a value of £115,000 to enable the continued management and hosting of The Culture Diary and the team until an agreement has been finalised regarding a new organisation taking up all aspects of the delivery of the diary, including the relevant GLA employees, hosting and day to day management.
3.1 Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the Mayor of London must have ‘due Regard’ of the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation as well as to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.
3.2 The cultural organisations who are engaged with the Diary and in receipt of public funding through the relevant arts funding bodies (ACE, Creative Scotland, Arts Council Wales) are committed through their funding agreements to proactively apply the principles of the Equality Act 2010, and to regularly refresh their equality and diversity policies and practices.
3.3 The Culture Diary provides opportunities for organisations from a range of Cultural sectors to engage with each other in order to work collaboratively and actively fosters closer working between a diverse range of both organisations and individuals.
4.1 The Culture Diary directly helps deliver the Mayor’s policy pledges by:
• Promoting the city’s cultural riches to Londoners, the UK and the world.
• Ensuring that London remains a world cultural leader.
• A City for All Londoners, wherein culture is seen as the golden thread, key to our future success, both for integrating and strengthening communities and supporting more liveable and successful places.
4.2 GLA Officers will continue to consult and liaise closely with stakeholders from across the cultural sector to maximise the impact of The Culture Diary in providing a platform for both London and the UK.
5.1 Approval is being sought for the receipt and expenditure of up to £115,000 in grant funding, to enable the continued delivery of the Culture Diary project in 2017-18. The grant funding will be provided by the GREAT campaign.
5.2 The Culture Diary is completely funded externally with no GLA contribution.
6.1 Sections 1 to 2 of this report indicates that the decision requested of the Director concerns the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conductive or incidental to the promotion of economic development and wealth creation, social development or the promotion of the improvement of the environment in Greater London; and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the GLA’s related statutory duties to;
• Pay due regard to the principles that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
• Consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
• Consult with appropriate bodies.
In taking the decisions requested, the Director must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibit by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristics (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Director should have particular regard to Section 3 (above) of this report.
6.2 Officers must ensure that the GLA utilises the funding received from GREAT campaign in accordance with the terms of the Grant Agreement.
6.3 Officers must ensure they liaise with HR and Legal (as applicable) in relation to any staff affected by
the Culture Diary moving from the GLA to the Government Department as the move is likely to mean the employees assigned to the project will be entitled to be informed of and consulted formally about the move.
Signed decision document
DD2107 Culture Diary 2017-18 (signed) PDF