MD2167 Culture Seeds

Culture contributes to the Mayor’s vision for a more connected and integrated London. Building a more integrated city means giving people the opportunity to participate in civic life regardless of ethnicity, faith, culture, age-group, income or background. Cultural activities positively promote social integration and cohesion by bringing people together in the creative process through participation and engagement in public performance.

In the publication ‘a City for all Londoners’ the Mayor stated his ambitions for London and belief that for a city to be successful, Londoners in all their diversity must live well together. Culture can be a leading uniting factor for communities across London. Culture enriches people’s lives bringing social and health and well-being benefits, also accounting for one in six jobs in London and being a main driver of regeneration.

However current statistics show that, even though London is internationally renowned as being a leading global city in terms, only one third of Londoners feel that they currently make the most of the amazing and varied cultural offerings right on their doorstep. London is home to globally renowned cultural institutions, yet too many Londoners are still not engaging in culture or cultural activities.

Culture Seeds is a new £1.16m micro-grants programme to support local talent, nurture bright ideas and connect communities at grassroots level through culture between autumn 2017 and spring 2020.

Great ideas come from each and every Londoner. The micro-grants will stimulate and support brilliant ideas generated by grassroots community organisations who are unlikely to access other forms of grant funding.

Internal consultation indicates a strong appetite from across a range of GLA teams to connect with
and promote Culture Seeds to communities and stakeholders with whom they engage. These micro-
grants will enable team across the GLA to engage and connect with small organisations and
community groups and broaden access to cultural activity for all Londoners and community groups.

Eight grants rounds will run from October 2017 to May 2020. Each round will allocate approximately £120,000 with flexibility to respond to expected higher seasonal demand to support outdoor and summer activities. Grants will be available within the range £1000 to £5000. This will ensure investment is deployed to attract small and micro projects.

Culture Seeds will be primarily aimed at individuals and organisations that are often too small or informally constituted to apply for grants. These small grants will make a big difference to communities by generating locally relevant cultural activity. The top priority is to connect with London’s ‘hard to reach’ communities in a simple but effective way. As an example, this could include granted individuals and organisations holding local cultural events aimed at young people or running cultural workshops for local communities to widen access and engage more Londoners with culture and the arts.

A key objective is to reach communities and projects that are potentially harder to reach. A light touch application process with up to 10 questions/1000 words or video applications are being developed to ensure organisations do not face barriers to access grant funding. Proportionate due diligence will be employed, in line with the GLA’s grant funding toolkit, to manage risk. Applying organisations will be subject to a credit check and smaller un-constituted groups will be required to provide two reference letters and relevant financial documents. Reporting will be kept streamlined so that organisations can focus on the delivery of their Culture project, keeping the bureaucracy of monitoring and reporting in proportion to the grant.

We hope the leverage of funded projects will support the Mayor to calculate the value added into the grassroots community sector.

The validation and decision-making process comprises assessment and scoring against criteria by GLA officers. Applications meeting all the basic criteria will be shortlisted for review by an awarding panel meeting quarterly. Grant approvals will be subject to applicants meeting necessary due diligence requirements.

Organisations and projects applying for Culture Seeds micro-grants will need to demonstrate the
following:

• A creative approach at the heart of the proposal. Activities funded by Culture Seeds must be shared creative experiences made by Londoners that build bridges between communities. Grants can be used to fund arts and cultural projects and activities in London’s communities. This includes visual and performing arts (including music), heritage projects, digital art, cultural events/festivals, literature, spoken word or creative writing.

• Evidence of leadership and proposed partnerships are in place.

• Commitment to openness, community participation and fostering connections between different communities.

The Culture and Creative Industries Unit will procure a grants management system to administer the grant awards and to ensure that they can be managed in the most efficient most user-friendly way possible due to the volume of grants and size of the programme. An assessment has been undertaken to ensure a grant solution which is best value and represents the best fit for the demands of a microgrants programme.

Evaluation will start at programme inception, tracking the logic model and capturing the social, cultural and economic impacts of the investment. Culture Seeds will be evaluated to assess the impact of the investment and local activity. Geographical spread, grant level, activity type and beneficiaries will be monitored. Findings will feed into programme development over years two and three, especially identifying communities and geographical areas where fewer applications have been received.

A set of Key Performance Indicators will track impact and deliverables for the programme. Metrics will include numbers of events, direct and indirect beneficiaries and audiences, volunteers, event type, map of partnerships and investment leveraged. Assets created will include showcase films and photography for promotional and documentation use.

Grant recipients will have access to resources, surgeries and local borough networks. Designing-in capacity building will support legacy for grant recipients by better connecting them with networks in their local area and better placing them to connect with pan-London opportunities. Culture Seeds will celebrate local talent and new partnerships by harnessing the creative interests of local people and voluntary organisations, arts centres and libraries. It will empower local people and organisations to support and develop creative talent and brilliant ideas on their doorstep.

A Coordinator post will be created as part of the management of the project. Currently the grade of the post is unknown.

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.

This new programme will be open to all individuals and organisations that meet the specified criteria and who wish to apply for grant funding. The funding will be issued fairly and transparently, with all applications being scored against equal criteria.

The Culture and Creative Industries Unit will ensure that any organisations who apply have firm and robust equality policies in place at their organisations and 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.

Culture Seeds programme aims to enable greater access to funding for grassroots organisations who seek to create positive impact in their local communities, and increase the opportunity for those individual and organisations to apply for funding who previously may not have had such access to other grant funding schemes.

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

The Culture Seeds programme will deliver against the following Mayoral commitments:

• A City for All Londoners, wherein culture is outlined as the golden thread, both for integrating and strengthening communities and supporting more liveable and successful places.

• That all Londoners can benefit and participate from the city’s arts and culture.

• The Mayor’s vision for Healthy Streets, which are more welcoming to people and encourage them to make active and sustainable travel choices, for example by contributing to the healthy streets aspiration of ‘things to see and do’.

Approval is being sought to authorise the expenditure of £1.16m on a new micro grant programme which supports culture within community contexts.

The proposed programme is expected to run over four financial years in which expenditure of £410,000 is expected to take place in 2017/18 and £250,000 in each of the subsequent three years.

As grants are issued, most likely prospectively, applicants will be subject to due diligence checks.

Sections 1 to 2 of this report indicates that the decision requested of the Mayor 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 Mayor 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 Mayor should have particular regard to Section 3(above) of this report.

Section 2 of this report indicates that there may be contributions towards the costs of third party projects which amount to the provision of grant funding and not payment for works, supplies or services. Officers must ensure that:

- The funding is distributed fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equalities and in manner which affords value for money in accordance with the Contracts and Funding Code; and
- Appropriate funding agreements are put in place between and executed by the GLA and the recipient of the funding before any commitment to fund is made.

All other services or supplies required must be procured by Transport for London
Procurement (who will determine the detail of the procurement strategy to be adopted) in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code. Officers must liaise with Transport for London Procurement in this regard and ensure that appropriate contracts are put in place between and executed by the GLA and the successful bidders before the commencement of any such services or supplies.