Mayor's Cultural Leadership Board Minutes 29 March 2022

Ambassadors 

• Moira Sinclair OBE, Paul Hamlyn Foundation (Chair)  
• Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries  
• Ajay Chhabra, Nutkhut  
• Alice Black, Creative Industries Representative 
• Amy Lamé, Night Czar, Mayor of London’s Office 
• Bernard Donoghue, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) 
• Claire Whitaker OBE, Bid Director, Southampton City of Culture 2025 
• Jennifer Crook, Independent Producer (Apologies) 
• John Newbigin OBE, Creative Industries Representative 
• Dr Jo Twist OBE, UK Interactive Entertainment (Apologies) 
• Pam Alexander OBE, London Legacy Development Corporation 
• Sharon Ament, Director, Museum of London (Apologies) 
• Stuart Hobley, Director, The Linbury Trust 
• Madani Younis, Chief Executive Producer, The Shed (Apologies) 

Other Attendees 

• Dianna Neale, London Councils Representative 
• Chris McQuiggin, Special Adviser, Mayor of London’s Office 
• Senior Management & Policy Officers, Culture and Creative Industries Unit 

1. The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.  

2. The Chair noted Ambassador apologies as above. 

3. The Chair stated that there were no outstanding minutes. 

4. There were no declarations of any Conflicts of Interest regarding any of the items on the agenda. 

5. The Chair outlined the items for the meeting on the theme of “Getting London Back on its Feet”. They were:

   • Item 1 – Overview of the Mayor’s Priorities 

   • Item 2 – 24 Hour London 

   • Item 3 – Levelling Up Culture 

   • Item 4 – Tourism and Let’s Do London Campaign

1. The Chair invited the first presenter to speak. 

2. The Special Advisor for Culture and the Creative Industries introduced themselves and outlined their role within the Mayor’s Policy and Delivery Unit.  

3. They summarised the Mayor’s achievements to date and his ambitions for this term.  

4. The Adviser outlined the five priority areas (missions and foundations) for this term: 

   • Keeping Londoners Safe – Reducing Violence  

   • Affordable Housing and Physical Delivery – Affordable Housing and Regeneration 

   • Getting London Back on Its Feet – Economic Recovery  

   • Green New Deal – Climate Emergency and Air Pollution 

   • A New Deal for Young People – Mentoring Programme 

5. The Assistant Director for Culture and Creative Industries Unit noted that there are also cross-cutting priorities of equalities and health which the Mayor’s culture programmes are also contributing to.  

6. The Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries stated that the case for culture has been made across the GLA and that officers are now consulted by colleagues and included in cross policy programme delivery ranging from regeneration to social inclusion, the GLA widely understands the cross-cutting value. Creative Academy, part of the wider Skills Academy is an example of this, as is the embedding of culture in the London Plan which ensures spaces are now protected.  

7. The Chair opened the floor for questions and comments which included:  

   • The culture is ‘the golden thread of tourism that gives the economic value’ and that leisure spend is the last thing that people sacrifice.  

   • Skills for young Londoners mission is a great opportunity to diversify the creative industries workforce.  

   • The Chair noted young people and culture will be the focus of a future meeting.  

1. The Night Czar gave a short presentation on 24 Hour London, including the following: 

   • In addition to dealing with revenue shortfalls because of Covid, night time businesses are now facing business rate bills.   

   • Many venues have shortages of staff, particularly bar staff and bouncers because of difficulties securing visas, and are facing business rates. 

   • The Mayor committed an additional £100k to develop specialist training, online resources, and an interactive toolkit. 

   • Applications would open for up to three new Night Time Enterprise Zones in summer. 

2. The members were asked to consider the following questions and to contact  the Night Czar if they had any additional contributions following the meeting: 

   • What more do you think needs to be done to support London's night time cultural offer to thrive post pandemic? 

   • How can we better understand the needs of London's night time cultural workforce? Are there any other things we need to consider? 

   • How can we better support our cultural institutions to utilise their spaces across the 24-hour period? 

3. The Chair opened the floor to the group. There were comments and some questions which the Night Czar  

   • Cultural spaces are where people feel genuinely welcome and mix no matter their background. But young people often don’t feel safe especially at night. 

   • Night time Enterprise Zones (NTEZs) are an interesting example of trying to make spaces safer at night and inclusive of young people. 

4. What the impact of policing is on a 24-hour city particularly in relation to the opening and closing times of cultural venues. Policy officers stated that: 

   • Land around venues is often privately owned so this is an issue in terms of leaving spaces open for the public to socilalise. This also needs to be managed from a security perspective. 

   • NTEZs can help boroughs to work out some of the issues around access to spaces at night, but safety will always be top priority.  

   • Walthamstow offered a space for young people to gather as part of their NTEZ and that worked well. Sweden does a lot around access to outdoor space at night because of its short days in winter. Many issues around safety come down to lighting.  

5. A member stated that they have been involved in setting up a lighting advisory group in South East England which is being used, especially by developers.  

6. The Night Czar reminded the group to share the Women’s Night Safety Charter and encourage cultural institutions to sign up.  

7. It was suggested it might help to look more broadly at what other facilities stay open at night, for example, launderettes and cluster activity around them. 

   • An officer explained that kind of data is being drawn from the High Streets for All work.

1. A GLA Officer presented an overview of the government's plans for levelling up culture which included:  

   • The government White Paper set out plans to address the UK’s regional disparities  

   • There will be a 100 per cent increase to cultural spend outside of the Capital of £43.5m 

   • 109 Levelling Up for Culture Places (LUCPs) are the focus for the funding 

   • Projected 80 new National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) from the redistributed plan 

   • For the Capital, it will mean a cut of £56m in funding by 2025 to London- based organisations through a combination of removal of or reduction in funding to current NPOs and funding to organisations who relocate outside of London. 

2. The Chair opened the discussion to the group, shared their insights and made suggestions including:  

   • There is poor sector understanding of how London contributes to culture outside of the Capital. Some analysis needs to be done (Cost Per Head) on how much London organisations bring in that benefits the UK. 

   • Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) will be doing longitudinal research (five and ten year) which could incorporate the cost per head question. 

   • This will impact touring companies who are based in London because of the transport links.  

   • Culture at Risk Team need to be prepared to see an increase in NPOs that lose funding in the next round in October.

   • Smaller and diverse led organisations are worried they will not survive the cuts.  

   • Private/philanthropic funding opportunities will become more competitive and smaller organisation with less infrastructure already struggle to apply for multiple streams of funding. 

   • There was a consensus that there would not be a mass exodus of organisations out of London although some are saying they are considering it. 

   • What Boroughs are covered in the Levelling Up for Culture Places (LUCPs)? 

     • Arts Council Levelling Up for Culture Places are Barking and Dagenham, Brent, Croydon, Enfield and Newham. 

   • There may be an opportunity to create some federated social enterprises (geographic or thematic partnership) to save costs and collaborate.  

1. A GLA policy officer gave a short presentation summarising the key achievements of the Let’s Do London domestic tourism campaign including that:

   • Over 500 programme events and activations were delivered in 10 months.  

   • It attracted a £4.5bn in media reach and over 1,900 press and media articles. 

   • It supported over 1,700 organisations and creative freelancers 

   • 90 per cent of the organisation agreed that Let’s Do London provided additional value to the wider local economy 

2. The GLA officer invited the Board to summarise recently published ALVA UK data on tourism who stated:   

   • Outdoor spaces have recovered quickly and for the first time ever, forests were in the top five destinations.  

   • Tourism recovering most slowly in city centre attractions and indoor venues like museums.  

   • Sites in London were closed on average twice as long as other venues in England last year. Best estimates are that London won’t get overseas visitors back to prior levels until 2024-25.  

3. The chair opened the discussion to the group. Comments and questions included: 

   • How do we square tourism's reliance on international visitors with Net Zero?  

   • There is a need for outdoor events.  

   • Cultural organisations need to work out how to have a night time offer - most are currently only open when we work so appeal mostly to tourists. 

   • Let’s Do London is a case study in the power of convening. The Mayor’s investments encouraged partners to coalesce around a single idea.

1. The Chair asked if there was any other business. There was none.
2. The Board was reminded that the next meeting is scheduled for 28 June 2022. 
3. The Chair closed the meeting.