MD2251 Pride in London 2018-2022

Under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (GLA Act), the Mayor has a statutory duty to promote the economic and social development and improve the environment in London. Events have a profound potential to bring economic and social benefits to London, and major events in particular can raise the city’s profile and present a positive image to the world’s media.

Community events celebrate the city’s diversity as its core asset, bringing people together in shared experiences and providing opportunities for social integration, ultimately bringing positive economic and social benefits to London. Culture also enriches people’s lives, improving their quality of life and general well-being. Free events provide Londoners access to arts and entertainment which they may otherwise not be able to experience.

London is one of the most important cities in the world for the LGBT+ community who make a significant contribution to the capital’s economy and dynamism. The Pride event and wider LGBT+ community events are an important opportunity to showcase London’s strengths for LGBT+ focussed tourism as world-class celebrations that have the support of the LGBT+ community in London and visitors from the rest of the UK and around the world.

While positive changes have improved the lives of LGBT+ people, there is more that needs to be done, working with London’s LGBT+ community to bring about societal and cultural change. The Mayor’s commitments to the LGBT+ community include a zero tolerance of hate crime and homophobia, promoting and protecting London’s cultural assets, clubs and pubs and improving public health by tackling the rising levels of HIV and breaking down the stigma around mental ill health.

London LGBT Community Pride C.I.C (LLCP), a community interest company, has delivered Pride in London since 2013, and was in receipt of a five-year funding plan (2013-2017) of £500,000 from the GLA. The intention was that following this funding period the event became self-sustainable.

During the past five years, Pride in London has continued to see growth and improved community engagement. It is the UK’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) event and parade that typically attract an annual attendance of up to a million people into central London. Independent audience survey research in 2016 (the most recent data set) showed that additional spend in the local economy from people attending Pride was approximately £26.3m.

However, with this success brings additional challenges and costs to the event, including the need to enhance crowd control measures, extend the event footprint to respond to increased numbers, and ensure that the quality of the event and content is raised in line with community and visitor expectations for a world-class event in London.

The current annual cost to deliver Pride in London is circa £1 million per annum. LLCP, a volunteer run community interest group, are responsible for covering these costs, which they do through seeking funding, sponsorship, donations and parade entry fees.

To support LLCP in meeting these challenges, and those of future development and growth, and ensuring this important event continues to be a success for London, it is now proposed to provide a further five-year funding plan of £500,000. This secured funding over five years will provide LLCP with increased stability and enable them to have multi-year conversations and deals with suppliers benefitting from economies of scale and also with commercial sponsors.

In addition to the internationally renowned Pride in London event, it is important to ensure that all sectors of the LGBT+ community are fully engaged. Whilst LLCP do much of this engagement with the wider community in delivering Pride in London, there is still additional opportunity to engage and support specific LGBT+ communities and stakeholder groups.

To enable this, a further annual budget of £75,000 (£375,000 gross over five years) will be used for focused event activities that further reach the wider LGBT+ community.

As such, the GLA is seeking to provide funding to support Black Pride. Without the GLA’s support of Black Pride it is likely that this important event, which supports a specifically marginalised community, may be at risk. The proposed level of funding to support Black Pride is still to be determined as detailed conversations are still required with the organisers to ascertain the type and level of support required.

Similarly, the GLA will be looking to hold a Pride/LGBT+ reception to engage directly with key LGBT+ stakeholders to build relationships and understand further key issues within the LGBT+ community, as well as seek opportunities to support and engage smaller, community-led events in London boroughs.

These LGBT+ events help support the Mayor’s manifesto pledge to “Continue to back major cultural festivals to celebrate London’s religious and racial diversity, and ensure Pride continues to be a fantastic, community-led showcase of all London’s LGBT+ communities.” These events mean that we are able to celebrate our diversity as a city and be proud of the huge range of different communities that call London their home.

The LGBT+ events supported and delivered as part of this programme will undergo periodical assessment and review with the GLA’s Communities and Events teams, to identify areas for potential changes and improvements in format, content or location to ensure the community engagement is being maximised; as well as identifying LGBT+ groups and communities the GLA doesn’t have a relationship with and where stronger connections can start to be developed through the events.

The gross cost of the LGBT+ programme 2018-2022 is £875,000.

Commissioned outcomes

By supporting Pride in London, we aim to achieve strategic, community and operational benefits, as well as supporting its governance, with the following objectives:

- Strategic

• Build Pride in London’s reputation as a leading LGBT+ event in London, the UK and beyond recognised for its excellence, creativity, diversity and inclusion.
• Continue to develop a strategic overview that allows Pride to be sustainable and safe.
• Continue to grow the Pride in London as a vehicle for additional community engagement, education and entertainment. As a result, the event will serve to enhance London’s reputation as a good place for LGBT+ people to visit and live, whilst continuing to campaign for more equality, diversity and protection.

- Community Engagement

• Maintain and develop community relationships.
• Actively consult across the LGBT+ community on plans for the Pride event.

- Operational

• Organise and deliver the Pride Parade in the West End.
• Organise and deliver a programme of entertainment. To include but not limited to Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Golden Square and Soho (exact locations may be subject to change over the course of the period).
• Ensure regular liaison with, and updates to key stakeholders including GLA, Met Police, London Fire Brigade, London Ambulance Service, Westminster City Council, etc. Including seeking comment and agreement from relevant safety planning groups.

- Finance, Governance and Staffing

• Ensure transparent reporting of Pride in London’s activities.
• Demonstrate financial accountability.
• Work to actively attract, recruit and retain a diverse volunteer base, both at operational and Board level - subject to the availability of volunteers appropriately qualified to fulfil vacant roles.

Supporting the LGBT+ reception, Black Pride and small community LGBT+ event activities in outer boroughs will enable direct engagement on LGBT+ community issues and ensure the community are engaged on mayoral priorities.

Additional benefits

The additional benefits of the programme are:

• Increased positive global reputation of London.
• Positive profile for London, encouraging economic investment.
• Education and increased awareness of the LGBT+ community in London encouraging social integration and cohesion.
• Increased skills through volunteering opportunities.

While difficult to measure, there are other additional benefits that we are actively trying to foster through Pride in London, including:

• Increased sense of community through volunteering opportunities and social interaction at events.
• Encouraging a sense of pride in Londoners for the city they live in.
• Enjoyment and satisfaction to support the well-being of Londoners and improving their health and wellbeing and quality of life (particularly where Londoners disposable income is limited and free events offer access to the arts and entertainment which they may otherwise not be able to experience).

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; and
• advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.

While Pride in London and the LGBT+ events are predominately to engage the LGBT+ community, this includes a specific focus to ensure BAME and disabled LGBT+ groups are engaged. The events are also planned to be inclusive and aimed at bringing people from different communities together to help foster good relations between people, which is achieved through the programme content, the broad and targeted approach to marketing channels, and access facilities at the events.

Key risks and issues

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

In approving the Events Programme, this directly links to:

• Manifesto Commitment – Access to the Arts: Continue to back major cultural festivals to celebrate London’s religious and racial diversity, and ensure Pride continues to be a fantastic, community-led showcase of all London’s LGBT+ communities.
• City for all Londoners: Making London a fairer and more tolerant city open and accessible to all, and one in which we can all live and prosper free from prejudice. Enabling all Londoners to benefit from the city’s fantastic arts and culture.

Impact assessments and consultation

The impact assessment of the events will be done through the multi-agency planning process (Licensing Operational Safety Planning Groups), including Westminster City Council (or other local authority impacted), MPS, TfL, LAS, LFB and other key stakeholders to the specific event. This is an essential part of the Premise Licence process. Key agencies will be consulted as part of this multi-agency process.

Neighbours on Trafalgar Square are consulted regularly and through established quarterly planning meetings.

The LGBT+ community are engaged though consultation meetings about the event. Pride in London is led by a community interest group, who take the views of the community as part of their planning and event delivery. In addition, the GLA’s community engagement team will do further engagement with London’s LGBT+ community.

Public correspondence, via the GLA Public Liaison Unit, and market research at the event is also considered for future planning where negative comments and improvement suggestions are made and may be reasonably implemented.

Procurement

Events receiving funding will be based on funding agreements, with pre-determined milestones to receive the funding. All events will be managed by an events officer from within the Events for London team.

Any events activity delivered directly by GLA officers will, where appropriate, be via a call-off from the existing events framework for event production services, or in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code of seeking best value where any spend falls outside of the events framework.

This decision is seeking to create a five-year funding plan for Pride in London and LGBT/ Community run events for the period between 2018-19 to 2022-23 at a cost of up to £875,000.

The proposed expenditure will be administered via a combination of:

1. A five-year funding agreement with ‘London LGBT Community Pride C.I.C (LLCP)’ to deliver Pride in London from the 2018-19 financial-year up the value of £500,000 and;
2. £375,000 being spent by the GLA on LGBT+ Community run events during the same period, some of which via funding agreements and some directly through contracts for services.

The expected phasing of expenditure over the five-year period is noted below:

With regards to funding for this programme; an annual budget of £75,000 has been included within the Events for London Base Programme budget from 2018-19 onwards to fund the LGBT Community Events expenditure.

For the Pride in London funding agreement, the annual grant will be drawn down from the Authority’s External Relations Budget up to the maximum of £500,000 with the Major Events Reserve called upon if required. The indicative annual grant has been set at £100,000 per annum. However, this will be subject to negotiation with the delivery organisation and may vary according to annual requirements. Any variation to this will be incorporated into the funding agreement and annual changes being subject to grant variations. The overall grant, however, will be capped at £500,000 for the five-year period.

The foregoing sections of this report indicate that:

(a) the decisions requested of the mayor concern 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, conducive 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

(b) in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

- pay due regard to the principle 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 prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (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.

Officers have indicated in paragraph 4.4.2 of this report that the:

(a) framework under which it is proposed the event services required are to be “called-off” in accordance with relevant procurement law; and

(b) the services required have been procured fully in accordance with the requirements of that framework.

Officers must ensure that appropriate “call-off” documentation is put in place and executed by the successful bidder(s) and the GLA before the commencement of the activities.

For the other services not under the framework, officers must ensure that appropriate contract documentation is put in place and executed by the successful bidder (as appropriate) and the GLA before the commencement of the services.

Paragraphs 1.8 and 1.11 above indicates that the contribution of £500,000 to LLCP, and a further amount to be determined to UK Black Pride, amounts to the provision of grant funding and not payment for services. Officers must ensure that any 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.

Officers must ensure that an appropriate funding agreement is put in place between and executed by the GLA and recipient before any commitment to fund is made.