Culture encompasses:
‘…the performing and visual arts, craft, fashion,
media, television
and video, museums, artefacts, archives, design, libraries,
literature, writing and publishing, the built heritage, architecture,
landscape, archaeology, tourism, festivals, attractions,
and informal leisure
pursuits.’
(Department of Culture, Media and Sport. 2000)
At first sight the report The Cultural Landscape of Croydon by Jane Doyle, Director of
Community and Support Services, that will be considered by the Scrutiny and
Strategic Oversight Committee on Tuesday 11 November, looks very welcome with its use
of the above definition.
However a careful reading suggests that the way
forward by the administration and the officers is a top down bureaucratic
strategy which ignores the grass roots activists.
Inadequate Reflection of Grass-roots Activity
A short para. discusses the cultural landscape in
Croydon. Note that it does not include the developments of the last three years
such as the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Festival, the area festivals like the one
in Purley, the Save the David Lean Campaign, the activities of the local
history groups, the Croydon Heritage Festival and Fun Palace. But the most
significant omission is that of the grass-roots Croydon Arts Network that
developed out of the review of the management of the Fairfield Halls initiated
by South Croydon Community Association, and its involvement in initiating the Just
Croydon website for organisations and events.
Objectives
Doyle’s distillation of the key themes that
emerged at the Culture seminar on 8 July into five draft overarching objectives
seems to be spot-on.
·
To increase participation in, and
attendance at, venues, events and cultural activities
· The provision of services that reflect
the multi- cultural nature of Croydon and promote racial equality and harmony
·
To have a value for money,
sustainable, borough-wide, community led approach h to the delivery of cultural
activities
·
To recognise and maximise the
contribution that arts and cultural activity makes to the health and
well-being, education, cohesion and economic regeneration of Croydon
·
To raise awareness of the broad image
of arts and cultural activities on offer in Croydon already.
The discussion of the
need to understand the barriers to cultural participation is very welcome:
economic, social, geographic, communication, perception, aspirations, and
safety and convenience.
Consultation
The next stage of
wider community consultation is seeking the views of targeted and
under-represented groups and includes a survey which can be completed on the
web up to 31 December: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ambitiousforculture.
Key questions are:
·
Is the
Council doing enough to ensure that culture is important across the Borough?
·
What are
people’s three top priorities for culture in Croydon?
·
How do we
make sure that culture in Croydon reaches as wide an audience as
possible -
including those that do not traditionally participate in or attend events?
·
The Council
is designating an area of central Croydon as its 'Cultural Quarter'. What
activities should be happening there to best meet the needs of you, your family
and
your community?
·
If you never
attend a cultural activity in Croydon please tell us why not.
The consultation work
will be undertaken in three strands: youth, protected/marginalised groups,
wider community (inc. older people and ethnic minorities). It gives examples of
the organisations and activities through which views will be sought. Missing
from young people is mention of schools and Croydon College, and in relation to
wider community audiences events run by cultural organisations involved in the
Croydon Arts Network.
Minimum Public Subsidy
The paper recognises
the problem well understood by grass roots cultural activists that there is going
to be minimum public sector subsidy. The new Labour administration has
inherited from the Tories the idea in the Croydon Challenge of ‘bringing
together a broad range of cultural services that face similar financial
challenges together in a new delivery vehicle’, drawing on financial resources
from the redevelopments and investment that are underway in Croydon.
Criteria for Model
The following criteria
‘have been identified as being critical for any future model in Croydon’:
·
Identity and independence to grow and
innovate
·
Capacity and resources to deliver the Cultural
Strategy
·
Enables local participation
·
Minimise council financial risk ongoing
·
Maximises tax efficiency and income
generation
·
Reputational benefits and enables
partnership working.
The ‘early thinking’
is to set up a charitable Trust with company limited by guarantee status to be
the delivery vehicle. The plan is to report to Cabinet in December on the
concept of a Trust and ‘the principles that could underpin such a development.’
The paper includes
appendices on an officer briefing on Arts Council England’s funding in Croydon
written in October 2013, Lottery funding. These show how poorly Croydon
cultural groups have done.
Bureaucratic Approach
The obsession with
key outcomes and possible success measures as set out in another appendix, plus
the Trust idea seem to be an incredibly bureaucratic way of moving forward.
There will be many cultural activists who will see this as potentially
stifling, and will reinforce their view that they need their own umbrella group
(Croydon Arts Network) and strategy in order to engage in discussions with the
Council from a position of strength.
Opinion seems to be
divided as to the extent to which the new administration is listening on
culture.
The Cultural Quarter, which is not
mentioned in Doyle's report, was unveiled at the Cabinet meeting without public
discussion or pre-Scrutiny review. The claim at the 6 October Council
meeting by the Cabinet member for Culture that the vision of the Cultural Quarter was
discussed at the seminar on 8 July is not supported by wording in the report of it included as an Appendix to Doyle’s report.
The announcement that there will be a weekend
Croydon Arts Festival in the summer was made without consultation, picking up
suggestions at the 8 July seminar, but not the reservations many hold because
of the way local Festivals and the Heritage Festival have developed.
While the definition of ‘culture’
includes museums, artefacts, archives, the built heritage, architecture,
landscape and archaeology, the report does not reflect the admission by the
planners that over the years the heritage of the built environment has been
damaged, and does not address the heritage aspect of culture.
The brief for the Cabinet member for Culture
does not include an explicit brief on ‘heritage’.
Questions for the Scrutiny Committee
The Scrutiny
Committee can obviously question Jane Doyle on her report, but political issues
can only dealt through questions to Timothy Godfrey. There is no paper by him
dealing with them. So what questions could be asked of him?
·
Should his post’s terms of reference
specifically include a brief for ‘heritage’?
·
How does he envisage the need to
develop a strategy to make good the damage to the built environment the
administration has inherited which the
planners admitted
in their Sustainability consultation?
·
When will he propose a Cabinet
resolution that there will no more sales of items from the Riesco Collection
and that the former idea of a Trust for the Collection be re- examined.
·
Will he cite which sections of the
notes at the 8 July seminar indicate discussion
of the Vision for the Cultural
Quarter?
·
When will he seek to set up a forum
with the Friends of the Parks and Open Spaces?
·
How does he plan to involve the
history and heritage organisations in the
development of the heritage aspects
of cultural activities?
·
Will he set in motion the return of
Local Archives to its original premises in the
Library so that all the material
that was publicly accessible becomes so again, and
to turn the ground floor
room used by Local Archives into a gallery for the whole of
the Council’s art
collection?
·
Does he support the idea of trying to
acquire SEGAS House for a Museum and Cultural Centre?
How does he propose to end the
conflicts of interest he and other Councillors have
through their membership of
the Fairfield Halls Board of Trustees?
·
When will he propose a Cabinet
resolution to rescind the Tory decision to take
control of the Board of
Fairfield Halls?
For aspects of the background see:
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