Civic leadership, partnerships and initiatives that make a difference Successful partnerships with local authorities and other organisations in cities like Liverpool and Durham are vital in delivering the Arts Council’s mission of Great art and culture for everyone. Here in the North there are several local authorities whose policies demonstrate they share our agenda for the arts. Civic leaders in places like Liverpool and Durham understand that the arts are key to a community’s well-being and prosperity. As well as lending support to the five goals through which the Arts Council strives to achieve its mission, such enlightened leadership has relevance to one particular goal: through Goal 4 we seek to ensure that the leadership and workforce in the arts, museums and libraries are diverse and appropriately skilled.
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Liverpool: culture as rocket fuel
We have worked with Liverpool City Council to jointly invest more than £14 million a year in Liverpool’s arts sector. At a difficult time for the city we have helped them to maintain their investment, and to lever the investment to develop a significant cultural and arts scene. The Capital of Culture in 2008 was a catalyst for the city and enabled it to make the most of its cultural richness. Culture remains very much at the heart of the city’s policies today. In his introduction to Liverpool City Council’s Culture Action Plan 2014/18, the city’s first elected Mayor, Joe Anderson, speaks of having ‘great ambition for this city, and culture to me is the rocket fuel for its continuing regeneration’. The document sets out how the vision which he and the city council share, of making Liverpool ‘a distinctive global city’, will be achieved; partnerships with the Arts Council and other agencies will play a crucial role.
In Harmony. Credit: Mark McNulty
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Michael Eakin. Credit: Mark McNulty
Current examples of the difference the cooperation between Liverpool City Council and the Arts Council makes within the city include: • The imminent refurbishment of the Grade II*- listed Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Through our Capital investment programme Arts Council England has awarded £7.5 million towards the £12 million refurbishment, and Liverpool City Council has also approved a £2 million capital contribution • The impact which In Harmony Liverpool – part of the national music and education programme – is having on children’s musical achievement, wellbeing, personal, social and emotional development, family relationships, school culture and the community of West Everton where it is based. In Harmony Liverpool is supported by Arts Council England and run by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (RLPO) and local partners It is not surprising that the RLPO is at the centre of key developments within the city. Michael Eakin, the Chief Executive of the Liverpool Philharmonic, is an important player not only in his own organisation but also within the city. The Liverpool Post Leaders Awards recognised this in 2013 when he was awarded not only the title of Cultural Leader of the Year, but was also named Liverpool City Region Leader of the Year. Speaking after receiving the honour Michael Eakin spoke warmly of the support his orchestra gets from the city – both from the city council, and from the audiences: ‘they have a real sense of ownership I have not experienced in a musical organisation anywhere else.’
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Cultural networks LARC and COoL help Merseyside’s regeneration
The partnership between the Arts Council and Liverpool City Council has supported and encouraged the growth of culture sector-led networks and leadership in the city such as LARC (Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium) and COol (Creative Organisations of Liverpool) – a similar consortium for small/medium-scale arts organisations in Liverpool. LARC is an alliance of seven of the city’s major cultural organisations: FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Tate Liverpool, The Bluecoat and Unity Theatre. An account of their joint vision and values can be found here. LARC was set up to play a leading role in helping regenerate Merseyside, its first job being to lead the programming of the European Capital of Culture 2008, ensuring world-class events in that pivotal year. Its current impact is demonstrated by an impressive array of statistics for 2011/12: • The seven LARC organisations together attracted £32 million of new money into the Liverpool city region. They had a total turnover of £26.2 million and increased every £1 of public investment by 112 per cent with income from other sources. For every £1 of Liverpool City Council investment they attracted £7.65 of income from other sources • Across the seven organisations there were 1,278 performances, exhibitions and events. Some 449,000 tickets were sold, helping to bring in £7.3 million in cash and 4.3 million visitors • LARC represents 530 permanent staff, supports 1,052 full time jobs in the Liverpool city region and offers opportunities for 881volunteers • Between them the seven organisations delivered 6,068 workshops and educational sessions with nearly 120,000 participants • Investment in the various LARC organisations also establishes important international connections not only for Liverpool but for the UK as a whole. Recent LARC international connections include the Everyman Playhouse exporting major productions to Russia, Ireland,
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Alex Hassell & Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker at The Curran Theater San Francisco. Credit: Shane Reid
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Australia and the USA; FACT collaborating with galleries in Denmark, the USA and Holland, and participating in a pan-EU project Connecting Cities; and Tate Liverpool exhibition collaborations with Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland The Arts Council is currently supporting several LARC projects: • We have awarded over £90,000 to Flux Liverpool, a pioneering arts festival engineered by young people aged 14-25, which runs from 17 July-2 August 2014. A celebration of young people’s creativity and entrepreneurialism, Flux takes a new approach to embed young people with, and in, the arts of the city region. It is a partnership project between young people, LARC, National Museums Liverpool, Creative Organisations of Liverpool (COoL) and Open Culture, and is additionally supported by Liverpool ONE and IdeasTap. Events on offer throughout the 17-day celebration include Young DaDaFest and Blueprint Festival 2014 for Circuit at TateLiverpool • We awarded £316,500 from our Cultural Destinations programme to enable LARC to work with Liverpool City Council, Liverpool City Region LEP and other visitor economy organisations in the city to identify new ways of using the existing arts and culture offer to support the business tourism agenda • The Liverpool Creative Apprenticeship Scheme, initiated in 2007, is now running on a rolling recruitment basis. Since the programme began, 24 separate organisations, covering the public, private and voluntary sectors, have recruited a total of 34 apprentices who have been given paid opportunities to gain access to on the job training, skills and experience in the arts and cultural sector. Now LARC has attracted £78,500 in funding from our Creative employment programme against a commitment to deliver, working in partnership with Liverpool City Council, Arts Council England and Creative and Cultural Skills, 18 apprenticeships and 17 internships over the next two years. The funding is being matched virtually pound for pound by the organisations involved • To date the scheme has appointed eight apprentices and nine interns. These include an internship supporting the research, planning, implementation and evaluation of a national tour by a highly successful local theatre company; a marketing internship responsible for the effective positioning and promotion of a local international arts festival, with particular responsibility for developing and managing the festival website and e-marketing initiatives; and an education and participation apprentice working with a community arts organisation to deliver a programme of arts sessions and interventions with and for learning disabled adults. Other examples in the North of what the Arts Council’s Creative Employment programme has to offer unemployed people aged 16-24 (graduate and non-graduate) with an interest in the arts and cultural sector can be found here and here.
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Durham County Council leads the way with a cultural agenda
Durham County Council is another local authority which sees the importance of investing in culture in a tough economic climate. Led by Councillor Simon Henig, who is also Labour’s lead councillor for Culture, Tourism and Sport for the Local Government Association, it supports a wide programme of cultural events and festivals to stimulate the county’s economy. Their Year of Culture 2013 brought in excess of £30 million into the region
Lindisfarne Gospels, Durham. Credit: British Library Board
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Highlights included: • Lindisfarne Gospels Durham: a sell-out exhibition staged on Durham’s World Heritage Site in Durham University’s Palace Green Library. A unique partnership with the British Library saw the Lindisfarne Gospels return to the North East and displayed in context with a number of other gospels for the first time. Some of the most precious objects from Anglo Saxon England were gathered together to tell one of North East England’s most enduring stories about the city’s famous saint, Cuthbert, and one of the world’s most precious books The exhibition was delivered by Durham University working in partnership with Durham County Council, Durham Cathedral and The British Library. It was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England. 100,000 people from 58 countries attended the exhibition – demonstrating that it had global as well as regional and national appeal. The learning team worked with over 20,000 children and tens of thousands of people attended Lindisfarne Gospels inspired events across the region. It brought £8.3 million into the region’s economy and was the winner of the Tourism Event of the Year and Tourism Experience of the Year award at North East England Tourism Awards 2013. • The Arts Council-supported Brass:Durham International Festival in 2013 involved 300 acclaimed artists – local, national and international ensembles and creative collaborations
Durham Lumiere Aquarium. Credit: Matthew Andrews
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Durham Lumiere Elephantastic. Credit: Matthew Andrews
– performing at 69 events in 26 venues. It was worth £1 million to the local economy. The 2014 festival runs from 11-14 July and includes a number of commissions, among which is the world premiere of Fractal Sparks, a visual effects spectacular accompanied by specially arranged songs by Jo Hamilton, staged in Durham Cathedral • In 2013 the light festival Lumiere delighted audiences for the third time with a spectacular raft of installations and projections illuminating Durham’s buildings, streets and public spaces. The festival was managed by Artichoke and supported by Durham County Council, Arts Council England and Lottery funds. The 27 light sculptures and installations included the world’s biggest helium balloon, a phone box filled with real fish, a Christmas Tree made out of 3,000 plastic bags donated by the public and a giant 3D projection of an elephant stomping down Durham’s famous Elvet Bridge Lumiere 2013 entertained 175,000 people over four evenings and attracted £4.3 million into County Durham’s economy.