Partnership Investment Plan 2018 – 22 Updated July 2018 Aims The aim of Partnership Investment is to attract and secure new sources of money not traditionally spent on arts and culture for children and young people in the Local Cultural Education Partnership (LCEP) areas. Partnership Investment should result in measurable increased investment from partners in response to a strategic challenge that the LCEP has identified. In the Bridge role descriptor, Arts Council England note that sources of Partnership Investment can include, but are not limited to: Local Authority budgets; Children’s/Youth Services; Looked After Children budgets; Local Enterprise Partnerships; Health; Housing; Schools; Academy Chains; Pupil Premium; Sports Fund; FE and HE; Library services; Music Education Hubs; Private sector; Trusts and Foundations The role descriptor goes on to describe success as: Improved, longer term and sustainable investment in cultural education in the Local cultural education partnerships Quantifiable improvement in levered in investment in local cultural education partnerships as a result of Bridge partnership investment The role descriptor outlines the following which also informs our thinking: Aims: The investment process will be transparent and developed in collaboration with Arts Council England, taking consideration of other Arts Council initiatives and investments locally. To include innovative models of demand led activity To be focused on the Local Cultural Education Partnerships agreed with Arts Council England or in response to exceptional investment opportunities Cultural organisations will be supported to develop sustainable outcomes and focussed relationships with new strategic partners Specific requirements: The Partnership investment framework will include increased cultural opportunities for CYP including Artsmark and Arts Award targets and use of the quality principles Use of logic model approach to determine resources, outcomes and impacts based on identified local challenges
Co-investors must be strategic partners and not the delivery partners Minimum of £25k per investment; minimum 100% cash match. Four year Partnership Investment plan agreed with ACE by May 2018, reviewed annually; Partnership investment plan published by June 2018. First partnership agreement in place by January 2019 Minimum of 2 investments in the first year, 4+ in subsequent years; Investments should be for more than 1 year in duration One cross–area/national agreement in place for April 2019; 6 cross–area/national programmes developing between 2018-2022 developed between Bridge areas to maximise shared resources and learning, resulting in improved arts and cultural provision for children and young people within a locality Proactive sharing of learning/dissemination embedded
In addition to the above Arts Council England released the following statement to provide further clarity regarding the use of Partnership Investment: The Arts Council expects that Partnership Investment will support the strategic development of Local Education Partnerships as a priority focus where ever possible. This may include resource to support capacity, planning or evaluation of LCEP progress. Investment outside of this scope will only be agreed in exceptional circumstances. Our ambition is that LCEP areas will continue to grow and thrive over the next four years and we consider Partnership Investment to be central to this success. Partnership Investment must not be used to facilitate programme delivery, it is not an alternative to project grants and the Arts Council will not support the approval of applications where this is the case. Our ambition is that Partnership Investment will support local areas to create new financial sustainability for cultural education. Therefore at least 100% match funding must be sourced from alternative non-arts income. This cannot include Lottery funding or support in kind. Bridge Organisations will support LCEP partners to develop their cultural education offer locally and will be able to advise on how Partnership Investment can support their strategic development and future sustainability.
Festival Bridge SMART Objectives We will: • Achieve at least 100% match and target to secure 200% • Make at least 3 investments each year • Ensure that each investment will have management and monitoring included in contract to ensure they deliver increased cultural education opportunities • Work with the Bridge Education Network (BEN) to deliver South East and national investments that match our allocation and benefit children and young people in the Festival Bridge region Festival Bridge Allocation Festival Bridge will allocate £125,000 per year to Partnership Investment. With the minimum investment level set at £25,000, this enables us to make up to 5 investments per year. A total £500,000 will be invested through the 4 years of this programme plan. This fund will be split into two strands of delivery at the following proportions: • £425,000 will be allocated to securing local and regional investment • £75,000 will be allocated to national investment
Festival Bridge Area Investments Securing Local and Regional Investment In a change to our previous approach to delivery of partnership investment we will launch an annual open access Partnership Investment Challenge Programme. The challenge programme will deliver the ACE role descriptor criteria focussed on supporting the strategic plans of the 10 LCEP areas in the Festival Bridge area. We will launch an annual challenge through each of the sub-area Cultural Education Challenge Steering Groups (New Anglia, Cambridgeshire Culture and Peterborough Culture Board). Each of these groups will have a clear financial allocation and Festival Bridge staff will work with them to shape priorities for investment based on the strategic planning of the LCEPs within the geographic area of the group. The intended outcomes from the identified priorities could be delivery orientated or might support R&D developments for a single or multiple LCEPs. Activity outputs will be aligned and monitored against LCEP logic models. The strengths of this approach is that it should enable a capacity develop at sub-regional and local level whilst enabling outcomes to be achieved for co-investors at a level that is meaningful for their aims. Decision making for this strand will be made under guidance from the sub-regional strategic steering groups, with sign off from our Norfolk & Norwich Festival Trust Bridge Committee and the Festival Bridge’s ACE Relationship Manager. Over the four years of this plan we intend to allocate £425,000 (up to 17 x £25,000) which we intend to allocate: £250,000 (59%) to the New Anglia Working Group £125,00 (29%) to Cambridgeshire Culture £50,000 (12%) to Peterborough The above allocations have been derived considering the following factors: 1) Population of CYP in Bridge area: a. New Anglia 63% b. Cambridgeshire 28% c. Peterborough 9% 2) Number of LCEPs in each area: a. New Anglia – 6 (60%) b. Cambridgeshire – 3 (30%) c. Peterborough – 1 (10%) 3) Rounding to nearest £25k By rounding to the nearest 25k there is a slight under allocation to the New Anglia area. Festival Bridge will look to redress this where possible through prioritisation of national investment. National: Over the four years of this plan we intend to allocate £75,000 towards national PI. Working with the other 9 Bridge organisations (BEN), and focused on ACE’s requirement that we identify and secure investment from national partners, BEN will commission modest consultancy services to ensure: a) that we have in place the resources, shared knowledge, ToR, partnership agreements, case studies, and relevant documentation to be bid and commission-ready
b) that we have the support in place to identify potential sources of PI relevant to both SE and national work, and to maximise our chances of success of securing commissions, enterprise investment and social investment activity. Decision Making For both the national and local strands we will follow the following process: 1) Proposals are reviewed by Festival Bridge Senior Managers 2) Festival Bridge Senior Manager recommendations are agreed at Bridge team meetings 3) Bridge Committee sign-off decisions In addition to the above For national projects (NB process in development with the national Bridge network) 1) Opportunity identified by a Bridge representative 2) Pitched to Bridge colleagues by email or at network meeting 3) If agreed, working group formed to develop idea to proposal 4) Proposal taken to Bridge network (meeting/email) 5) Local Bridge decision making followed (see above) For Local Programmes To be defined by each of the Local groups but must allow for the process above to be achieved. Process for Discovering and Developing Co-investment Relationships The process for generating investments will be developed by the relevant partnerships (BEN for national; New Anglia, Cambridgeshire Culture and Peterborough Culture Board) Festival Bridge will advise on the form of this but will not dictate a common process. However a minimum expectation is that a brief proposal will be developed, to include defined partner investor, budget and programme of expenditure. Festival Bridge Decision Making Criteria Festival Bridge decision making will review the contribution of the proposal to the following elements of the Festival Bridge strategy: 1) Does the proposal contribute to our vision and mission? 2) Does the proposal demonstrate co-creation between sectors and or young people? If not in the development of the proposal, will co-creation be realised through the outcomes of the proposed investment? A minimum expectation of an investment would look to see collaboration between a cultural sector partner and one other agent from another sector. 3) Does the proposal meet Festival Bridge values of: a. Change – we use our resources to deliver positive and sustained improvement to the cultural education offer. b. People – through informal or formal processes we look to empower those working in the region c. Collaborative – everything we do is based in good partnership d. Place – we are not off the shelf; we are shaped by the localities in which we work e. Honesty - we expect integrity in everything we do 4) Does the proposal contribute to the sustain ability of LCEPs? 5) Are Artsmark and / or Arts Award relevant to the proposal and used appropriately? 6) Does the proposal contribute to the Festival Bridge R&D priorities:
a. Early Years Cultural Education b. Skills c. Wellbeing d. Digital e. Proving impact of cultural education f. Children and Young People Voice 7) How has the proposal responded to Arts Council England’s Quality Principles for work with Children and Young People Risk Risks of the Local Strand: Ability to Secure Match: although Festival Bridge have, to date, secured Partnership Investment in the region, the conditions for investment are extremely challenging and financial outlook steeped in uncertainty. As such securing ‘new’ sources of investment may become increasingly difficult Capacity: this model requires some capacity from other partners to support the promotion and decision making Objectivity: operating through the steering groups requires key partners in the region to act openly and fairly The relatively large allocations are intended to inspire ambition, yet could encourage opportunism. The ‘Challenge Programme’ approach runs the risk that the investment is seen as a grant pot. Considerable effort will be needed to ensure Festival Bridge is not perceived as a funder and the programme is correctly understood as investment. Risk of the National Strand: Complexity of Scale: By working across multiple organisations it inevitably requires a broader collaboration and thus increased risk. Scale of Investment – These partnerships will also require a larger scale of partnership investment and the sources of which have yet to be identified. Local Impact – This approach, to a degree flips the Festival Bridge locality led approach and could result in building frameworks with less local relevance and potentially then less impact. Risk Mitigation: The key mitigating factor for the above risks is the strength and expertise of the Bridge network and ACE colleagues in delivering regional and national collaborations. Close attention will be paid to the development of leads towards this strand. Communications The refreshed Festival Bridge website will include a clear description of the approaches described above. The website will include description of how local, regional or national potential partners can invest or raise an expression of interest in any existing and future targeted opportunities In delivering the above approaches we are making our PI plans more transparent than previously, however we are in no way expecting this to diminish the level of officer time spent on identifying and developing the investment partnerships. Festival Bridge staff will continue to be the primary mechanism for communicating the partnership investment opportunity and will discuss the potential for investment with key stakeholders and partners through the course of all work
The local and national models will each have a marketing plan devised at a time appropriate to the approach. This marketing plan will highlight the opportunity and mechanism to propose investments. Evaluation and Monitoring This strategy will be monitored through the broader Festival Bridge evaluation and monitoring processes. Outputs and outcomes of the investments will be monitored or evaluated through the delivery agreement with oversight from the Festival Bridge team. Implementation Milestones: Milestone BEN review commissioned BEN Interim Findings Decision making and FB criteria agreed by Bridge committee Plan agreed by ACE Bridge define decision making process and development plan LCEPs informed of process and supported to identify need
Deadline Spring 2018 June 2018 June 2018
Responsible Michael Michael Michael
July 2018 July 2018
Michael Michael
July 2018
Plan on website BEN Network Meeting
August 2018 September 2018 September 2018
Steph & Rachel Michael Michael
Strategic Steering Groups identify their distinct approach and FB designs logic-model to determine resources, outcomes and impacts based on the identified local needs and opportunities Local approaches enacted
From September 2018
Michael, Steph & Rachel tbc