The Mayor is statutorily required under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (GLA Act) to carry out a minimum of three public consultation events each year, two People’s Question Times (PQT) and one State of London Debate (SOLD).

The GLA has powers and duties under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (GLA Act) to promote the economic and social development of London, and improve the environment in, and promote tourism to, Greater London. Events have a profound potential to bring economic and social benefits to the city, and major events can raise the city’s profile and present a positive image to the world’s media and potential visitors.

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. Cultural events enrich people’s lives, improving their quality of life and general well-being. They contribute to the London economy in the generation of jobs – one in six jobs in London is in the cultural sector. Free events provide Londoners access to arts and entertainment which they may otherwise not be able to experience.

Major events stimulate London’s economy by being a catalyst for economic regeneration and creating publicity to increase the attractiveness of London to new visitors and investors – as well as to Londoners. They provide a platform to showcase London on an international stage and attract visitors to our vibrant city. They also encourage the fuller participation of London’s communities.

The core events programme responds to the ‘City for all Londoners’, as the programme supports 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; and enabling all Londoners to benefit from the city’s fantastic arts. Community events also link to the Mayor’s Strategy for Social Integration, ‘All of Us’. Furthermore, in the Culture Strategy it states, “The Mayor will continue to fund festivals and events with an emphasis on more community involvement, increasing quality, raising profile and increasing volunteering”. The events delivered as part of the Mayor’s events programme help deliver against these strategic aims, by celebrating our diversity as a city, and encouraging people to be proud of the enormous range of different communities that call London their home.

The GLA Events for London team produces and delivers the GLA statutory events. It also delivers many core community-focussed cultural events, as well as a series of events, services and ceremonies to mark key anniversaries or dates of community interest. These cover national celebrations such as St Patrick’s and St George’s Day, and religious festivals that reflect the five main faiths: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism; with events such as Eid, Diwali, Vaisakhi, Chanukah and events over Easter and Christmas. The Mayor’s New Year fireworks event, which supports international promotion for London, is also delivered by the GLA Events for London team (approved by the Mayor under cover of MD2243 for 2018, with a separate MD approval for 2019-2021 being requested).

In addition, the GLA provides support in the form of funding, venue waivers and officer support to a number of large-scale community led events, such as Chinese New Year, and smaller grass roots events that engage newer communities or those that we don’t yet work with, such as La Clave and Africa Centre Summer Festival that engages the Latin American and Black communities respectively.

Funding is also provided to support Pride in London (approved by the Mayor under cover of MD2251 for 2018-2022), and Notting Hill Carnival (approved by the Mayor under cover of MD2247 for 2018, with a separate MD approval for 2019-2021 being requested), which are large-scale, internationally renowned community-led events.

In addition to the core programme the Events for London team delivers ad-hoc responsive events; for example, vigils held in response to terror attacks, and subsequent commemoration events; the launch of the Millicent Fawcett statue to support the #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign; and events highlighting national sporting moments, such as the public screening of the football World Cup in 2018. In addition to these ad-hoc workstreams, in 2019-2020, the Events for London team will also support the public events associated with London hosting Euro 2020 matches.

The events programme needs to have the flexibility to be responsive to topical or community issues, which may benefit from positive impact and community engagement achieved through the GLA either supporting or delivering an event. Counteracting an increase in negative attitudes towards European communities as a result of Brexit would be one example of this. To ensure that the events team can respond to the smaller events that are ad-hoc or responsive in nature, there is a small events budget allocation identified within this proposal for 2019-2022.

Events programme review

The existing core events programme has been developed over a number of years, evolving across all Mayoral administrations; consistent throughout each Mayoralty has been the role of events to highlight Mayoral priorities and celebrate communities.

Social integration is currently a key priority for the GLA; As outlined in ‘All of Us’, the Mayor’s Strategy for Social Integration, this is shaped by the level of equality between people, the nature of our relationships, and our levels of community participation. Over the past year, a review of the events programme was conducted to assess how our events are achieving these social integration aims and to help understand how the Mayor can best deliver them and communicate them to Londoners. The review has involved analysis of quantitative data already gathered (from research agency ICM Unlimited) as well as undertaking a phase of qualitative research.

Community events research

Since March 2018, the Events for London and Community Engagement teams, with the support of the Intelligence Unit and other research providers, have been conducting research and reviewing the core events programme; specifically, the six Mayoral-owned community events, held on Trafalgar Square, which the GLA delivers and finances almost entirely. This core programme comprises St Patrick’s Day Festival and Parade; Feast of St George; Vaisakhi; Eid on the Square; Diwali in London; and Africa on the Square (AOTS).

This review has been achieved through a range of methods, including assessing the market research questionnaires; independent researchers conducting face-to-face surveys to gather quantitative insight from attendees; enlisting community researchers at events to capture more qualitative attendee feedback; conducting a series of focus groups on predominantly non-event attendees; and developing new event advisory groups and partners for some events to explore and test new ideas.

The quantitative research has enabled us to understand overall satisfaction at each event, marketing and sponsor recall and economic impact, with the qualitative research providing more information on motivations, expectations and barriers for the events among both attendees and non-attendees.

Development of core events programme

The outcome of the research undertaken over the last year has been interpreted to inform the development of the core community events programme.

Trafalgar Square events

The research shows that there is a strong desire from communities to retain ‘high-profile’ community events on Trafalgar Square; feedback shows that they offer a sense of belonging in London. It is recognised that, whilst engagement with the ‘target community’ at these events is generally high, there is potential for improvement. Events on Trafalgar Square offer great value in their capacity to bring together different communities, supporting social integration, and profile London as a diverse and open city to visitors; the importance of this should not be underestimated, and therefore we would look to continue this where the events demonstrate broad appeal.

In delivering high-profile community events it is recognised that there is limited specialist skill-sets and capacity to resource such events within the communities, therefore it is important that the GLA takes an active role in driving these. It is equally important that the communities are engaged throughout the delivery process through established and active Community Advisory Groups. There are a number of GLA supported community events where the community takes responsibility for event delivery, including Chinese New Year, Pride and Notting Hill Carnival. In these cases, the GLA provides support through strategic grant funding. These events not only bring communities together but also create an international profile for London.

The GLA’s financial support for the grant funded events, particularly the large-scale ones, is a relatively small contribution to the overall event costs. Supporting these events enables Mayoral profile and highlights the Mayor’s support to the communities involved in the delivery.

All grant funding recipients are required to go through governance checks and are subject to project monitoring by GLA event officers, to ensure events are delivered in accordance with agreed objectives. Funding agreements are based on clear milestones and key performance indicators and release of funds is contingent on these being met. These milestones ensure the safety of GLA funding and cover any risk involved in supporting these events.

The condition of Trafalgar Square as a heritage site must also be taken into account when considering its use as an event location and associated risk of damage. Limiting the number of events held there should be considered, where third-party events are primarily about promoting other countries or cities, rather than engaging authentically with communities. However, this should be balanced with the scope for international promotion that these events also introduce.

Community event strategic interventions

There are some community groups where the GLA has less direct engagement or seeks to increase engagement to understand some of the specific issues these communities may be facing; for example, the Latin American community and the challenges faced by businesses through redevelopment, and the Polish and other European Londoners who have experienced negative attitudes following Brexit. In addition, other communities at the fringes of society, such as Refugee and Roma communities currently have limited engagement with the GLA. Working with the Communities Team, we would seek to make strategic interventions in community events that can connect with these harder to reach groups.

Local event small grants programme

To support our aim of enhancing engagement at local level, we will work with colleagues across the GLA in both the Communities and Culture teams, to further promote the Culture Seeds programme. We will do so via existing community networks and seek to identify strategic opportunities to support communities most at need, whilst maintaining the cultural integrity of the programme.

Development actions

Developing the events programme over the next three years will be through a series of step-changes made in consultation and collaboration with communities; this may vary from event to event, depending on the engagement process.

The development of the core community events programme will be an iterative process over the next three years, with the following development actions being undertaken:

• mapping work in 2019 to identify gaps and opportunities for strategic intervention to support specific community events more directly;

• Support increased visibility of the Cultural Seeds funding programme within local communities;

• Implement advisory groups for all events with standardised terms of reference;

• Continue to develop the event specific KPIs for each event;

• Clearer criteria for community events on Trafalgar Square and other Mayor’s owned spaces; and

• Review breadth and reach of marketing activities, with the aim of splitting these between those achieving pan-London reach (generating broader awareness of the community events) and community networks (to help drive community participation and engagement around the events programmes).

Proposed community events programme

2019/20

Whilst the community events programme is developing, the event deliverables during the 2019/20 fiscal year are outlined in the table 1, with development proposals for specific events highlighted below.

In terms of current shifts for 2019/20 within the core ‘owned’ events, the following activities are proposed:

The Feast of St George: As there isn’t a clear ‘community’ to develop an advisory board for this event, it is proposed that we engage with heritage groups such as English Heritage to provide community level input. A more targeted marketing campaign is also needed to support the event, as it’s not possible to rely on strong community networks who would support social marketing and word-of-mouth.

Vaisakhi: Focus on Langar (food donations in Sikhism), rather than a stage based-programme, drawing parallels around food kitchens, to help widen the appeal and broaden the audiences engaged with Vaisakhi.

Eid on the Square: Establish a wider community advisory board. Explore the removal of the main-stage programme focus and simplify the production set up.

Africa on the Square: We are developing an umbrella programme to support African events across London with the aim of enhancing the profile of existing community-led African events taking place in the summer and supporting the creation of an Africa in London summer season campaign. These will be supported by an enhanced marketing campaign led by the GLA. It should be noted that, at present, these plans are still in development stage in collaboration with communities and key stakeholders.

Diwali: Consider ways to reduce crowding issues on Trafalgar Square, for example free ticketing. Potentially link to a substantial ‘interfaith week’ event at City Hall in November 2019.

St Patrick’s Day: Explore a ‘community ownership’ model for the March 2020 event, with the GLA as a contributor to this community-led event. As part of a step-change, this could start with the community taking ownership of the parade.

Liberty: Develop the high-street touring programme of showcasing disabled arts trialled in 2018, by moving it to new locations. In addition, encouraging more ‘mainstreaming’ of disabled arts by greater inclusion of disabled artists across our programme.

2020/21 and 2021/22

In 2020/21 and 2021/2022 fiscal years it is proposed that the programme will continue to develop. This will include:

• developing a more enhanced community-led events funding programme for grass-roots, local community events through the Culture Seeds programme; and
• developing our engagement with harder to reach and disadvantaged communities through strategic funding interventions.

It is anticipated the budget for community events strategic funding would be contained within the baselined Events Programme budget. This would be within the small events budget line but would be subject to further decision forms.

As the community events programme develops over the next three years, through the joint working of the Events, Communities and Culture teams, the programme will be reviewed by the GLA Events Steering Group.

Other annual activity

The Greater London Authority is statutorily required under the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (GLA Act) to carry out public consultation meetings. These are in the form of People’s Question Time events and the annual State of London Debate.

People’s Question Time (PQT)

These events take place in a variety of locations across London’s boroughs providing the opportunity for the public to meet and ask questions to the Mayor and the London Assembly. It offers the Mayor and London Assembly the opportunity to discuss their plans, priorities and policies for the city with the London community.

Two PQT events must be held each financial year, with November and March being determined as the most appropriate timeframe in consideration of the State of London debate timeframes. The two PQT events to be held in 2019/20, the last within this current Mayoral term, will be held in Enfield (November 2019) and Greenwich (March 2020). A borough location plan for the next Mayoral term will be agreed with the Mayor’s Office and London Assembly following the 2020 Mayor and London Assembly election.

State of London Debate (SOLD)

SOLD links to the publication of the Mayor’s annual report. It is a flagship Mayoral engagement and consultation event for all Londoners and provides an opportunity for direct engagement with members of the community to debate and provide feedback on the Mayor’s strategies and priorities for London. The event allows facilitation of a Q&A session allowing members of the audience to question the Mayor directly on issues of concern. Issues raised at the event can then be fed back directly into policy development.

The location for the June 2019 SOLD event will be the O2 Indigo. Annual consultation will take place with the Mayor’s Office and London Assembly on future locations and dates.

Supporting activity

Volunteering

Volunteering provides participants education or increased skills through working on aspects of an event. It is planned to continue to work with the Team London Ambassadors programme to give volunteers the opportunity to help to deliver the Mayor’s events programme. In addition, we will be encouraging increased volunteering by community groups at the community events – an outcome which is anticipated to develop further as communities take more ownership of the community events.

Access development

Access development will continue at GLA delivered events, to ensure commitment to best practice in terms of access and ensuring our events are open and accessible to all. These will include elements such as having BSL interpreters at GLA events, fully equipped portable ‘Changing Places’ disabled toilets, hearing loop provision and improved signage. This best practice will also be encouraged at GLA supported events and leveraged through our funding agreements.

Evaluation and reporting

Market research will be conducted at ten key events; as previously stated, there will be a strong focus on understanding the depth and extent of community engagement. The results will help support the development of the events programme over the next three years.

Following on from activity in 2018 at Eid, Diwali and Africa on the Square, it is also proposed that the Community Engagement team’s community research network will also work alongside this programme of research.

Budget

Programme costs

The gross cost of the proposed three-year Events for London core programme 2019-22 is £4,551,000, with a net cost to the GLA of £3,696,000 (NB: this assumes the leveraging third-party income estimated to be £855,000).

The dynamic nature of planning for events, and the often-limited control over external factors (such as the impact on security and crowd management measures of the evolving security threat), means that budgets for each GLA delivered event are indicated as a baseline. Alongside this, a revised and realistic approach to event sponsorship will take place this year to support the event budget. It is the intention that any over/underspends on individual projects will be contained within the overall events programme budget.

Sponsorship and other income

For the events delivered by the GLA, sponsorship, other income and concessions (if relevant and appropriate e.g. food and drink stalls/ tents on Trafalgar Square) will be sought. All external income sought will be in accordance with the GLA Sponsorship Policy. Should income not meet estimated targets, the events will, wherever possible, be scaled to accommodate delivery within the available budget. Where funds secured exceed the need and capacity of the event(s) in question, the core GLA contribution to the event will be reduced and reallocated to other events within the core programme that may not have reached their income targets, and to support ad-hoc small event activity.

In addition to cash income, the GLA Commercial Partnerships team will also seek benefit in kind, such as contributions to event programming or other content, to assist in the enhancement and promotion of events.

Commissioned outcomes

Bringing communities together and increasing the engagement with London’s communities is a key driver for our community events to support social integration. To achieve this, our overarching goals are to:

• Identify and target specific communities to support and highlight social inclusion across London;
• Utilise community events to highlight a specific theme that’s relevant to the GLA’s priorities;
• Maintain and develop a long-term relationship with the audiences;
• Raise awareness amongst communities of other policy areas;
• Set a target marketing reach for each community event after initial benchmarking; and
• Continue to review both qualitative and quantitative research to inform the programme’s development.

This activity will be measured through market research showing the diverse profile of event attendees, alongside the specific community audiences which the event targets. Audience engagement, awareness and sentiment is also measured through the event market research on recall and satisfaction levels, and through digital traffic and click-through rates on the GLA website. Each event will have specific targets for the audience demographic, based on benchmarking and community analysis.

Attendance at events stimulates additional spending. We aim to generate additional spend in the local economy of up to £25 million. This figure is based on research conducted at GLA events; it should be noted that the true level of additionality of extra spending is difficult to determine precisely as the sample size of attendees at each event is relatively small.

Additional benefits

The additional benefits of the programme are:

• Enhanced positive global profile for London, encouraging economic investment and tourism;
• Education and increased awareness of other communities in London encouraging social integration and cohesion; and
• Increased skills through volunteering opportunities.

Whilst difficult to measure, there are a number of additional benefits that we are actively trying to foster through staging the events in our programme, including:

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

The events programme is planned to be inclusive and aimed at all Londoners. This will be achieved through the programme content, the broad and targeted approach to marketing channels, and access facilities at the event, specifically to reduce the barriers to attendance by people with disabilities or mobility issues. The events help people to feel part of our city and bring communities together, supporting social integration. They are also a chance for individuals to better understand their fellow Londoners and they support engagement with the city’s wide range of faith and community groups.

From focus group research about the events programme, participants value the range of events in London and appreciate the Mayor supporting these. They felt it important to celebrate London’s diversity and increase Londoners’ awareness of different cultures and traditions. They showed a commitment towards inclusion and that the Mayor cares about bringing people together. The events programme was seen as a good use of funding with clear benefits to Londoners.

Whilst many of the events within the programme engage directly with specific community stakeholder groups in their planning and highlight the contribution of specific communities (e.g. Pride – LGBT+ community; St Patrick’s Day – Irish community; Eid - Muslim community; Liberty – Deaf and disabled community; Diwali – Hindu community), the events are about bringing different communities together, sharing cultures and supporting social integration. From research undertaken across the events, on average 81% of attendees agree that the events represent the culture they are portraying well, and 62% had learnt something new about the culture of the community whose event they attended.

We will continue to develop our festivals to ensure that they are high quality, cultural events. Furthermore, we will work with communities to ensure our programme reflects their needs. Throughout the planning process of individual events, we work closely with the Communities and Social Policy Unit through project working groups to ensure that equalities considerations are mainstreamed into our event planning and delivery of the community events programme. We are also developing our community advisory groups to support the planning process and specifically seeking to increase our engagement with harder to reach communities.

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;
• ‘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;
• ‘All of Us’: Strategy for Social Integration: using sport, volunteering, arts and culture as powerful tools for social integration; establishing London’s reputation as a welcoming city for newcomers from other parts of the UK and abroad, with opportunities to feel a strong connection and positive sense of belonging to the city in which they are living;
• Culture Strategy: the Mayor will continue to fund festivals and events with an emphasis on more community involvement, increasing quality, raising profile and increasing volunteering; and
• ‘Inclusive London’: the Mayor’s equality, diversity and inclusion strategy: celebrate London’s rich diversity and bring communities together through a series of high profile, accessible and inclusive events and campaigns.

Consultation and impact assessments

Where events involve specific communities, these communities are engaged though a stakeholder group who are consulted and advise on the event. As noted, we are proposing to develop further the community advisory groups to help shape the event and support the planning process.

Public correspondence, via the GLA Public Liaison Unit, and market research at events is also used to assess impact and considered in future planning of events where negative comments and improvement suggestions may be reasonably addressed.

There has been a comprehensive community research programme during 2018, including ‘community researchers’ at the events and focus groups to understand each community’s views and the impact of the community events programme. A community feedback programme will continue alongside market research and data analysis.

Data protection legislation is taken into account for the events programme with regular consultation with the GLA’s governance team. We have processes in place to deal with data we receive and how we use it. This includes a process to seek approval for use of images taken of audience members and performers at our events.

Local authorities and statutory agencies, including Westminster City Council (or other local authority impacted), Metropolitan Police Service, Transport for London, London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and other key stakeholders to the specific event, are consulted and the event impact assessed via the multi-agency planning process (Licensing Operational Safety Planning Groups), and key stakeholder meetings. This is an essential part of the Premise Licence process.

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

Procurement

Events delivered by the GLA will be procured by TfL Commercial in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code, generally using the Events Framework for event production services. Events receiving funding will be on the basis of 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.

Community events programme

The total estimated gross cost of the community events programme 2019-20 to 2021-22 is £4,551,000 and the net cost to the GLA is £3,696,000, with the balance £855,000 being funded via third party income in the form of sponsorship income, grant contributions and stall revenue. The proposed expenditure for the programme is phased as follows:

1. With regards to the GLA’s net cost to the community events programme, a budget provision of £1,232,000 has been included in the GLA base budget from 2019-20 onwards to fund the portfolio of events, with future budget allocations being subject to the GLA’s annual budget setting process. Depending on the delivery of each event, there may be some budget realignments and reallocations required across projects, which will take place in-year as required.
3. In line with previous years, during the duration of the proposed three-year programme, the Events Team have budgeted for income totalling £855,000 (as per above) to enhance and supplement some of the events proposed. If the income target is not met, project’s expenditure will be reduced to the funding available. Any income secured over and above the income target will be used to enhance specific events and, where appropriate, the GLA will look to reduce the GLA contribution where enhancements to events are not required.

As detailed within the main body of this report, the Event Team deliver several other events during the year, outside of the current portfolio of community events currently seeking approval. These events will be subject to separate approval via the Authority’s decision-making process.

Market research expenditure

During the same period as above, an annual budget provision of £60,000 has been earmarked from within the Intelligence Unit’s budget from 2019-20 onwards to fund customer feedback and insights into the community events programme on an annual basis to 2021-22 (total expenditure for the period being up to £180,000).

The foregoing sections of this report indicate that the decisions requested of the Mayor fall within the: duties of the GLA to carry out a minimum of three public consultation events each year; to promote tourism to, in and through, Greater London; and the general powers of the GLA to promote and/or to do anything which is facilitative of or conducive or incidental to the social development and economic development and wealth creation within Greater London. In formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought, officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

(a) pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
(b) 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
(c) consult with appropriate bodies.

The GLA may seek sponsorship when exercising its general power under its power to charge third parties for discretionary services under section 93 of the Local Government Act 2003 provided that the charges levied do not exceed the costs of provision; and when discharging its duty to promote tourism to, in and through Greater London, it may charge for its services and receive contributions towards its expenses in carrying out any of its functions in relation thereto.

In taking the decisions requested of him, 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 and foster good relations 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 (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

The Mayor may delegate the exercise of the GLA’s functions to any GLA staff member should he wish to do so.

In the event that the Mayor is minded to make the decisions sought, officers must ensure that:

(a) they are content that the GLA can comply with any conditions to which the provision of any third-party funding, sponsorship or other income to the GLA is subject, seeking legal and finance advice as necessary;

(b) they do not act in reliance of such third-party funding until legally binding commitments are in place in concerning the provision of the same;

(c) any supplies and/or services required for the delivery of the proposed programme must be procured by Transport for London Commercial who will determine the detail of the procurement strategy to be adopted in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and appropriate contract documentation is put in place with and executed by the GLA and proposed service providers before the commencement of the required supplies and/or services;

(d) to the extent that the GLA intends to award grant funding to third parties in respect of projects falling within the remit of the programme, such funding is distributed fairly, transparently and in manner which affords value for money in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and appropriate funding agreements are put in place with and executed by the GLA and proposed recipients prior to making any commitment to provide such funding; and

(e) the terms of all agreements entered into in respect of the programme do not have the effect to fetter the discretion of any successor administration, considering in particular the London elections taking place in May 2020.