• Share on Facebook
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Linkedin
  • Share by email
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Linkedin
  • Share by email

A major project supporting Birmingham?s fledgling creative businesses has co-ordinated development programmes from 18 different partners. Paul Cantrill explains.

A woman stands next a triangular piece of modern art made of wood

‘Equal II: The Last Mile’ was established in 2005 to develop the creative industries as a route to employment for creative talent and arts professionals in Birmingham. Co-ordinated by Birmingham’s City Council’s Creative Development Team and funded by the European Social Fund, it engaged more than 400 individual artists and creative businesses, and collaborated with 18 partner organisations across Birmingham.  

The diversity of the partner organisations, demonstrating the very wide range of arts and cultural offerings in Birmingham, allowed us to target the broadest definition of the ‘Creative Industries’, engaging participants working in everything from jewellery to music and the performing arts to scriptwriting. Furthermore, the range of programmes available from these partners enabled us to cater for artists and creative businesses at different stages in their development – mentoring programmes for those already in business, commissions and collaborations for mid-career arts professionals, and apprenticeships and professional development support for emerging individual artists and newly established creative companies. To give just two examples, we have supported a redundant car production line worker to become the Poet Laureate for Birmingham 06/07 and mentored a call-centre worker so they feel confident enough to make the jump to becoming a full-time musician.
Working with so many partner organisations brings a number of challenges. The key one for our team was to ensure clear and consistent communication to all the partners, so that all programmes delivered the core objectives of Equal II: The Last Mile. Our role therefore was one of co-ordination rather than delivery, and we nominated a member of our team as the main point of contact.
Consistent monitoring across all activities to demonstrate the on-going impact of the project was another challenge. Easy-to-use proformas enabled us to ensure project partners submitted all the required monitoring data in a consistent and useable format. These were also used to gather information from the individual artists and creative businesses that took part, so that we had information on participants’ journeys and personal experiences of the programme, and their contact details in order to track their progress.
Collaboration remains key as we continue the work of profiling and highlighting the successes of the artists and creative businesses who have taken part. The project’s delivery comes to an end with the annual Birmingham Design Initiative, Industry & Genius Awards 2007 this month, co-ordinated by one of our partners, Core Marketing, and with some of our participants shortlisted for awards. We are, however, still working in partnership with Audiences Central, the audience development agency for the West Midlands, in order to highlight the innovative approaches taken by all the partners and to illustrate the legacy the project has had within the City’s creative sector.
Ultimately the success of the programme has been the number of artists and creative businesses turning their talent into income. Our ambition has been, and continues to be, to grow local employment. We want businesses to make money from their ideas and creativity. The programme demonstrates the contribution that creative people can bring to economic development, making Birmingham a city that creative people want to live and work in. 

Paul Cantrill is Head of Creative Development Team for Birmingham City Council. w: http://www.creativecompass.co.uk