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.

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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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.’

Michael Eakin. Credit: Mark McNulty

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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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– 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.

Durham Lumiere Elephantastic. Credit: Matthew Andrews

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