Features

Down tools?

Andy O’Hanlon laments the delay of the Cultural Planning Toolkit and explains why it is urgently needed

Andy O'Hanlon
6 min read

A toolbox

Last month, South Cambridgeshire District Council approved its supplementary planning document for Public Art. The document expands on a policy approved in 2004 and explains the objectives involved in planning arts interventions as part of new developments. There were no balloons, red carpets or waving crowds, but since its inception this relatively minor planning policy has increased private investment in arts programmes across the District (population 150,000) by £750,000. The lack of jubilation reminded me that we are not celebrating the first birthday of a national cultural planning toolkit. This was meant to provide local authorities with business and organisational models, a system of tariffs and costs for securing developer contributions, and the preparation of guidance to support government planning and spatial strategies. The rationale for the toolkit rested on the fact that, unlike sport, there is no single comprehensive source of data or guidance or a model to provide for cultural facilities and activity in our spatial planning processes. Everything depends on what can be justified locally and is therefore subject to local financial pressures and political changes.
 

A spanner in the works
Back in 2006, the lack of such a national framework motivated Arts Council England (ACE), the Museums, Library and Archives Council, the Black Country Consortium, Thames Gateway South Essex Partnership and four regional cultural consortia (Culture South East, Culture East Midlands, Culture West Midlands and Living East) to commission the research, development and production of a cultural planning toolkit. The toolkit was a core element of a project entitled ‘Creating Cultural Opportunity in Sustainable Communities’, and was part-funded under the Treasury’s Invest to Save scheme. The work was due to be completed by January 2008. When, in November 2008, I asked for a copy of the document, it was explained that work on the toolkit had been delayed.
This is disappointing for those working in growth and regeneration areas. We need a toolkit that can help identify minimum standards for the number and type of arts facilities required for villages, towns and cities across the nation. As an arts development officer, I could really use robust arts planning tools that draw on trusted data about people, places and policy, and help in forecasting and building scenarios for social arts practice. A picture of the national arts scene that is made up of local detail would transform the way council chief executives and leaders view the arts and would be bound to influence national arts spending.[[As an arts development officer, I could really use robust arts planning tools that draw on trusted data]]
Tools for success

The obvious complexity of this ambitious project and the limited time available, coupled with the disbanding of the regional cultural consortia, may explain why this latest attempt at a national cultural planning toolkit has stalled. However, the project has successfully produced an interim research report by the Cities Institute, reviewing the cultural planning background and context for the future development of the toolkit. The report contrasts the positive planning assumptions and the substantial levels of investment that the sports sector have made to secure public open space and facilities, with the resistance to models and standards in arts provision shown by both arts policy and planning practitioners. Both the sports and arts sectors face similar fragmented and limited data sources regarding consumption, participation and lifestyle/preferences of their participants. Sport England recognised the need for better data in 2005 and two data-gathering projects (‘Active Places’ and ‘Active People’), in addition to the wider 2007 ‘Taking Part’ survey, enabled detailed analysis of need and provision. Over £1m was invested in order to create the suite of tools required to generate and maintain its planning support system. I have been unable to find any figures for investment in data collection and analysis by ACE, but the Taking Part survey did help to produce ‘Arts audiences: insight’, a nicely illustrated segmentation document that was published in August 2008, about the same time that the latest published plan ‘Great Art for Everyone’ emerged.
Scientific instruments
The Cities Institute report for ‘Creating Cultural Opportunity in Sustainable Communities’, makes particularly interesting reading in the light of Tim Joss’s radical proposition for new organisations to lead the arts towards a better future for artists, citizens and the state (AP181 and AP183). In his book, ‘New Flow’, he dreams of an arts research and development agency that might begin to compare with the national scientific research councils. The application of a more scientific approach has helped the sports sector make a convincing case to government. The arts sector might learn from this, and could also use much scientific work and academic study to help inform values and approaches surrounding arts practice and delivery for the public sector. The cultural planning toolkit is too important to be allowed to slip away. For those of us working in the arts it promises to establish some national planning principles that actively encourage the inclusion of arts activity in both established communities and new developments alike. Currently, there are no such existing terms of reference, and this situation makes it very difficult for local authority planning officers to justify the inclusion of the arts in local plans, except as an adjunct to other facilities.
As someone whose job it is to explain the case for the arts, sometimes to quite sceptical colleagues, I need to be able to draw on the best objective legal, planning and financial advice for arts organisations and artists. A cultural planning toolkit, along with a national checklist for local authorities (like the one ACE piloted in 2006) would help make the case for the arts irresistible. Yes, the development and maintenance of a toolkit will require further research. We can expect it to be expensive, but it really will be investing to save. It will help to create more jobs and audiences, and give us the tools needed to help safeguard the arts for the future. I have just heard the good news that the final touches are being added to the toolkit and it will be launched “in spring”. In the meantime, I will be blowing up the balloons for a local arts network event, when South Cambridgeshire will celebrate its own toolkit for anyone putting on a festival, film, play or concert, commissioning an artist, organising an arts workshop or making any kind of positive difference to the creative life of their communities. Roll on the cultural planning toolkit.