Agenda for Culture, Tourism & Enterprise Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Thursday, 24th November, 2011, 4.00pm
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Agenda and minutes
PDF 194 KBVenue: Council Chamber, Hove Town Hall. View directions
Contact: Julia Riches, Scrutiny Support Officer
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Minutes: PROCEDURAL BUSINESS
Declarations of substitutes
There were none.
Declarations of interest
Councillor Mo Marsh declared an interest as a Board Member of the Brighton Dome and Festival.
Declaration of party whip
There was none.
Exclusion of press and public
In accordance with section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, it was considered whether the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during the consideration of any items contained in the agenda, having regard to the nature of the proceedings and the likelihood as to whether, if members of the press and public were present, there would be disclosure to them of confidential or exempt information as defined in section 1001(1) of the said Act.
RESOLVED: that the press and public are not excluded from the meeting. |
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MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING Minutes: MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING
The Chair informed the Committee that the Scrutiny Panel looking at the retails sector had been established and consisted of Councillor Gill Mitchell, Councillor Phelim McCafferty, and Councillor Carol Theobald. The Panel would be holding a scoping meeting shortly.
The Minutes from 29 September 2011 were agreed. |
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CHAIR'S COMMUNICATIONS Minutes: CTEOSC members had been sent a copy of the final version of the Brighton & Hove City Employment and Skills Plan for 2011-2014. A draft version of this plan was bought to CTEOSC in March 2011 for comment so it was not necessary to have the final version as an agenda item for this meeting. If members had any comments on the final version of the plan, the Chair advised them to email them to Cllr Amy Kennedy.
Following unanimous approval from Planning Committee, the Royal Pavilion Ice Rink returned on 12 November and runs until 22 January. Changes to the site layout had enabled a larger ice pad and a reduction in the height of the main temporary building, which had improved overall appearance.
Visitor numbers across all sites continued to rise. The service had 489,000 visits so far this year which is a 42,000 increase on last year. Royal Pavilion visitor figures were up this year to date by 26,000 and Brighton Museum visitor numbers were up 14,000 on last year. Hove Museum had its busiest first 7 months of the year since 2004 thanks to the success of family programming with 5,400 visits to the popular Robots exhibition in October alone.
The 4th City Sports and Physical Activity Awards were held at the Amex Community Stadium on Wednesday 12 October 2011. Notable successes included a double for Carden Primary as “Sports School of the Year” with their teachers Lis Nobbs and Rachel Shepherd awarded “Sports Teachers of the Year”. Rottingdean Cricket Club 1st team received “Club of the Year” for reaching the final of the national village cricket competition.
Cine City has launched with another great programme of films – this is now the ninth film festival for the city and once again there is a wide ranging and impressive programme – the festival runs until 4 December.
16 Days – a programme of events to mark the international day for the elimination of violence against women begins tomorrow.
The City Employment & Skills plan was launched at the Amex Stadium on the 4 October. Among the main priorities is the need to create 6,000 new jobs by 2012.
The city council continued to find new ways of supporting the independent retail sector; the launch of the ‘Dressed for Success’ initiative had resulted in 42 businesses benefiting from tailored advice on how to dress their shop frontage to attract new business. As an added incentive for shoppers to get involved they were being encouraged to vote for their favourite display; the successful shop front would win a trophy.
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PUBLIC QUESTIONS No public questions have been received.
Minutes: There were none. |
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WRITTEN QUESTIONS OR LETTERS FROM COUNCILLORS No written questions or letters have been received. Minutes: There were none. |
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ARTS COUNCIL Presentation by Stephanie Fuller, Arts Council. Minutes: The Chair welcomed Stephanie Fuller, Senior Manager, Regional Planning, Arts Council England (ACE) to the Committee. Ms Fuller gave a presentation then took questions (for copy see minute book).
ACE worked to get great art to everyone by championing, developing and investing in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives. The national development agency for the arts, ACE supported a range of artistic activities from theatre to music, literature to dance, photography to digital art. They had recently taken on new responsibilities for museums and libraries. For the first time, ACE had published a 10 year vision “Achieving great art for everyone” which was followed by “Culture, Knowledge and Understanding” when ACE took on libraries and museums.
In Autumn 2010, ACE received a cut of almost a third to their grant in aid from the Government. This equated to a cut from £449m to £350m. This year, a 6.9% cut was passed to the regularly funded organisations. By 2014/15 the overall cut to organisations would be almost 15%. By the end of four years administration costs had to be cut by 50%.
Between 2011 and 2015 ACE would invest £1.4b from the Government and a further £0.85b from National Lottery funding for the arts. 60% of funding went to regularly funded organisations, 9% in grant to the arts, 8% to development funds, 7% to creativity, culture and education, 8% to other lottery programmes and 8% to administration. There were four main funding streams. National portfolio funding was £956.5m and consisted of sustained funding. It would be awarded to organisations willing to take on a sectoral leadership role. Strategic funds had a budget of £202m and were partly for grants and some commissioning work. Capital programme funding was £200m. Grants for the Arts had an annual budget of £48m.
In the South East, £45,818.795 of strategic funding was awarded to organisations for 2012-15. Brighton & Hove organisations received almost 20% of all funding across the region, around £10m. This was a testament to the quality of arts in the city. ACE received 80 applications for Grants for the Arts funding from April to September 2011 and 48 were successful.
There was £43m nationally for museums and £3m for libraries. For museums, the Renaissance major grant programme was being relaunched and plans for transition funding were being worked on. ACE had a two stage approach to libraries; the future libraries programme and the libraries development initiative. ACE worked in partnership at a national level with the Local Government Group and would be offering support. . Following questions, Ms Fuller explained that ACE did not provide ‘core funding’ for libraries: that was down to local authorities, but they supported libraries and funded enhanced activities. She stressed that any decisions on cuts to library services were Member decisions and ACE would advocate on behalf of libraries but did not have a role in core funding decisions. There may be increased lottery funding as more people played the lottery.
Sally McMahon, Head of Libraries and Information Services, told the Committee that they were participating in a number of collaborative bids for Library Development Funding and was confident at least one would be successful.
The Chair thanks Ms Fuller for a most interesting and informative session. |
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UPDATE ON COMMISSIONING CULTURE FOR DIVERSE AGENDAS Minutes: Paula Murray, Commissioner for Culture, introduced the report. Commissioning services to reduce and alleviate domestic violence was a pilot for Intelligent Commissioning. They were working through the Arts Commission, as an independent body, to engage the cultural sector with this agenda. It started with two workshops where arts organisations were presented with the data on domestic violence in the city and held group discussions. A core of organisations emerged from this that would form a network to take the work on and bid for future funding. There would be events to mark the UN 16 Days initiative aiming to end violence against women and girls that runs from November 25th to December 10th. Members of the Committee expressed their thanks and appreciation for this work.
In response to a question, Ms Murray explained that the programme of events came too late to be included in the Dome and Festival programme. However, going forward there would be longer lead times and more publicity through the normal channels. One of the issues discussed at the second workshop was how to include this work in such large events as White Night. It was agreed that some of this work could be an open access event in a large outdoor setting, although some of it was not appropriate for these venues. The Committee discussed alternative venues (for example hospitals, parks or supermarkets) and how to reach those at risk of domestic violence. The idea of more publicity, including on the radio was also discussed.
The Chair thanked Ms Murray for informing the committee about this excellent project.
RESOLVED: to thank the Brighton & Hove Arts Commission for its proactive role, and to receive an update at a future meeting. |
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LIBRARIES CONSULTATION - SYSTEMS THINKING APPROACH Additional documents: Minutes: Sally McMahon, Head of Libraries and Information Services and Kate Rouse, Libraries Manager introduced the report and Ms McMahon gave a presentation (for copy see minute book).
In 2010 the Libraries Service carried out a new consultation process “systems thinking” where people are engaged in conversation with open questions. Managers and staff spoke with 2,328 people who made almost 10,000 comments on Libraries Services in the city. The questions were: what have you come into the library to do today? And what do you value about libraries? The results showed that people come into libraries of a vast range of reasons, such as community, social or family, as well as for borrowing stock. The main reason people came into a library was for stock (48.8%) and the second reason was for ICT (10.7%). 87.2% of people were satisfied with the libraries but 12.6% were not satisfied and that would drive the action plan for the future. Of those that were satisfied, the largest reason for attending was for books (33.4%) but there were a range of other demands on the service met satisfactorily (for example, DVDs, ICT, community and social, environment and staff). Where demands were not met and people were not satisfied, the largest reason for this was stock selection (28.8% and an additional 6.6% on stock layout and shelving). The second highest dissatisfaction was around the environment, including refreshments, facilities and noise.
The top 80% of things people valued about their libraries included stock selection, nice environment, facilities and welcoming staff. Where people’s expectations were not met, the top reasons given were: 23.5% cited a fear of cuts; 20.7% stock availability and layout; and 12.1% noise. The issue of noise was a difficult one: 16% found it too noisy but 35% found the noise ‘ok especially from children’ and 49% found it peaceful and quiet.
An improvement plan was in place to address the areas where the service was not meeting people’s requirements, including improving the range of stock and the processing and flow of stock between libraries.
The systems approach would continue alongside other surveys and customer comments to help develop the new libraries plans for 2015.
In response to questions, Ms McMahon explained they were in the process of appointing a temporary stock officer. There was no one genre of book missing but 28% of dissatisfaction was around quality and range of book. . While the majority of libraries had toilets, two do not have access to toilets (Woodingdean and Westdene) and in two other libraries the access is limited (Saltdean and Rottingdean). Jubilee Library now had a café. It was suggested that there was merit in looking both at what had worked in the past and what hadn’t nationally and it was agreed this would be useful and this information would be brought to the forthcoming libraries workshop. On the issue of ebooks and research journals, there were some ebooks available but there was a cost associated with research journals.
Ms Mahon told the Committee that part of the stock project would be to look at what was bought and where books were located. There was not room for all books in each library but it was about moving books around efficiently. For out-of-print books there was the option to borrow from another library or it could be bought second hand.
RESOLVED: to note the work and the actions in the action plan.
The Chair informed the Committee that due to changes in the budget timetable, if the Scrutiny Workshop on libraries went ahead on 29 November 2011 then the information from the budget would not be available as that information was not available until 1 December 2012.
It was agreed to defer the workshop until after the budget figures were available. The date was agreed as 5 January 2012 at 4pm.
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OUTDOOR EVENTS POLICY Minutes: Ian Shurrock, Commissioner for Sports and Leisure introduced the report. The report emphasised the benefits outdoor events can bring to the city, and was also a scoping paper for an outdoor events policy and as such listed a set of challenges that the review should focus on. He asked Members for their views.
The Chair welcomed the inclusion of ward members in those who are consulted prior to an event. She suggested they could also be involved in the evaluation after the event as well. Following a question on recycling, David Murray, Strategic Commissioner, Culture told the Committee that there was a lot of work on environmental management protocols and recycling was greatly improved. The issue of informing more people of events coming up was raised and Mr Shurrock agreed to check whether ward councillors were currently informed prior to events being agreed. The issue of publicising events more widely so people and businesses could plan accordingly was also discussed.
In response to a question, Mr Murray told the Committee that work was underway to see what people wanted for the Queen’s Jubilee next year and also to try and find out more about the Olympic Torch.
RESOLVED: to recognise the benefits of outdoor events and that Members’ views inform the forthcoming outdoor events policy. |
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Minutes: The next meeting of the Committee was 1 March 2012. Further items suggested for the agenda were filming in Brighton & Hove, inviting Frank Gray from the Arts Commission, and updates on plans for the Olympic Torch and the Queen’s Jubilee. |
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ITEMS TO GO FORWARD TO CABINET, THE RELEVANT CABINET MEMBER MEETING OR COUNCIL To consider items to be submitted to the next available Cabinet, Cabinet Member meeting or Council. Minutes: There were none. |