Culture
Group
and
Tourism
DCMS Guidance on Integrating
Cultural and Community
Strategies
Report by:
Nina Bhakri
Date:
6 April 2004
Contact
Officer:
Nina Bhakri
Telephone:
020 7934 9938
Summary:
Job
title:
Emai
l:
Steering
Item
no:
3
Policy Officer
[email protected]
This report outlines the main aims and purpose of
draft guidance prepared by the Department of
Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) on integrating
cultural and community strategies.
DCMS is currently consulting with its partners
and stakeholders on The Draft Guidance. This
report outlines the DCMS consultation process and
how the ALG will be feeding into this.
Recommendation Members are recommended to note the ALG response
to the DCMS Draft Guidance on integrating
s:
cultural strategies (attached as Appendix 1) and
to consider ways on how the final guidance might
be promoted and taken forward across London.
Report Page 2
Background
1. Freedom and flexibilities introduced by the Local
Government Act (2002) have meant that local authorities
are no longer required to produce separate local cultural
strategies but to develop these within the community
planning process.
2. In response to this and other recent legislative changes
that will see an increased emphasis on local community and
partnership driven planning processes, DCMS recently
commissioned the preparation of Guidance On Integrating
Cultural and Community Strategies (The Draft Guidance).
The guidance aims “to aid the integration of planning for
cultural development with community planning and the
production of community plans and strategies”.1
3. Comments on The Draft Guidance have been invited by the
DCMS, with a deadline of 31 March 2004. The guidance can
be found at
www.culture.gov.uk/global/consultations/2004+current+consu
ltations.
The Case for Integration
4. A closer integration of cultural strategies with other
community planning strategies will enable councils to plan
their services through integrated and holistic approaches
driven by the social and environmental needs of their
communities.
5. Integrated cultural and regeneration strategies will also
build on partnership approaches to local service planning
and development. This is particularly important in the
physical regeneration of towns, cities and neighbourhoods.
Cases where major private developers have worked closely
with local councils and their partners illustrate how the
physical regeneration of areas has successfully created
“places for people”.
The Barriers and Challenges to Integration
6. DCMS has identified seven important barriers which
currently impede a closer integration of cultural and
community strategies:



1
A lack of empirical data on cultural impacts
Dispersal fragmentation of cultural services
Lack of effective leadership for culture
DCMS; Draft Guidance on Integrating Cultural and Community Strategies (2004)
Report Page 3




Translating strategic priorities into action
Getting communities to express the value of culture
Making partnerships work for culture and community
A lack of understanding of culture and its potential
contribution to well-being.
Aims and Purpose of the Guidance
7. The Draft Guidance aims to:



Help local authorities and their partners achieve
greater effectiveness in integrating cultural and
community needs for their areas.
Strengthen community strategies through promoting the
inclusion of cultural projects and activities.
Demonstrate how through integrated approaches culture
can support delivery of community priorities for
improved quality of life and community well-being.
Who is the Draft Guidance for?
8. The Draft Guidance is intended for everyone involved in
cultural and community planning. DCMS include “local
authority officers with responsibility for cultural and
community services and policy development; elected
members, particularly portfolio holders for cultural and
community sectors; community bodies and development
agencies; Local Strategic Partnerships; those engaged in
health, regeneration, environment, community safety and
other sectors to which cultural activity can make a unique
contribution”.2
The Content of The Draft Guidance
9. The Draft Guidance is presented in the following three
sections:



2
Section 1 introduces the aims and purpose of the
guidance and who it has been produced for.
It also
briefly describes how the guidance has been developed.
Section 2 establishes a definition of culture, sets out
why we should strive for integration and examines the
opportunities presented by the power of well-being.
Section
3
describes
the
obstacles
to
effective
integration, the challenges to be addressed and
DCMS Guidance on Integrating Cultural and Community Strategies
Report Page 4
proposes solutions illustrated by good practice case
studies.
Key Issues
10. The ALG has prepared a response to The Draft Guidance
attached in Appendix 1. The response addressed the
following five questions:





Are the intentions of The Draft Guidance clear?
Is the approach likely to meet the needs of the
intended users?
In what ways should The Draft Guidance be developed and
improved?
Do the barriers and case studies illustrated in the
report demonstrate the problems?
Are the lessons the right ones?
The Consultation Process
11. In preparing The Draft Guidance, DCMS has consulted
with a number of bodies including ODPM, Government Offices
of the Regions, the LGA, IDeA and NDPBs.
12. The consultation process gathered views on The Draft
Guidance from a wider audience through three national
workshops. The workshops were held in the North of
England, South East England and in London. The ALG
attended the workshop held in London on 26 January 2004 at
the Government Office for London, along with borough
officers.
13. The final version is due for completion soon after the
consultation period and made available through the DCMS
and other websites in April 2004.
The ALG response
14. The ALG response has been informed by the discussion at
the London workshop. It has also been circulated to
Culture and Tourism Steering Group members for comment.
The ALG response is attached at Appendix 1.
15.

The main points in the ALG response are as follows:
The guidance needs a clearer step by step approach to
enable practitioners across sectors to see how and at
what level culture can be incorporated into policy and
planning processes.
Report Page 5






The guidance should aim to meet the needs of services
outside the cultural sphere.
The role of the private sector and how to influence it
in relation to culture and local development processes
should be given more prominence in the guidance. The
economic impact of culture should also be recognised.
Links to regional cultural strategies, other regional
strategies and national initiatives, such as the
Communities Plan, should be made.
The role of culture in promoting and valuing diverse
communities should be emphasised. This is particularly
important in a diverse city such as London.
Funders have an important role in supporting the
cultural sector through linking cultural priorities to
other non cultural agendas and services.
Local initiatives illustrating successful grass roots
led cultural projects in deprived neighbourhoods should
be used to underline the case for culture in a wider
regeneration and social inclusion agenda. The ALG has
gathered such case studies through its research on
culture and neighbourhood renewal in London.
16. Creative Cultures is a consultancy developing the
guidance for DCMS. They will present the Guidance to the
ALG Culture and Steering Group meeting. This will provide
a further opportunity for the ALG to feed into the
consultation process and to discuss with Creative Cultures
how the DCMS might consider taking forward and promoting
the guidance in London.
Equalities Considerations
17. Cultural strategies should also enable equal access to
cultural services for the most excluded groups (ethnic
minorities, disaffected young people, disabled people).
Recommendations
18. Members are asked to note and agree the ALG response on
the
DCMS
Draft
Guidance
on
Integrating
Cultural
Strategies, attached as Appendix 1.
Background Papers
DCMS, Guidance on Integrating Cultural
Strategies Consultation Draft; January 2004
and
Community
Report Page 6
Appendix
1
DCMS Draft Guidance on Integrating Cultural and
Community Strategies
Response from the Association of London Government (ALG)
The ALG welcomes the DCMS draft guidance on integrating cultural
and
community
strategies
(“The
Draft
Guidance”)
and
the
opportunity to comment on this.
The ALG represents all 32 London boroughs, the Corporation of
London, the Metropolitan Police Authority and the London Fire and
Emergency Planning Authority.
General Comments
The ALG welcomes the development of this guidance and looks
forward to working closely with the DCMS to support London
boroughs in implementing it in its final form, exploring its
application and impact across London.
Recent and forthcoming legislation is continuing to support the
move towards a more joined up service delivery against locally
defined priorities driven by the needs of local communities. The
role of local partners is seen as central to implementing this
approach towards integrated and holistic solutions. A range of
legislative tools has the potential to ensure the further
successful implementation of this approach.
The focus is on the Council’s role in improving the economic,
environmental and social well being of communities. Culture has a
significant role to play in ensuring the effectiveness of this
approach. There is an increasing recognition by some Government
departments of the value of culture. It is therefore important to
capture the opportunities presented by the legislative
environment to raise the profile of culture and raise awareness
of its impact on a range of borough services. The DCMS Guidance
has therefore been developed at an opportune time to enable this
to happen at a strategic and corporate level.
The specific responses and additional recommendations are as
follows:
Section 1: SETTING THE SCENE
Purpose and aims of guidance
Report Page 7
The guidance should widen its strategic links to include other
local authority planning legislation and regional economic
development strategies. From a London perspective, there should
also be a stronger and clearer link established with the Mayor’s
draft cultural strategy. These strategic links could help to
strengthen culture’s profile in a legislative context. Although
this is national guidance, it would be useful to consider how
local strategies and priorities can link with regional cultural
strategies.
It is also important to link it into wider central Government
plans and strategies, such as the Communities Plan. Culture’s
role in the major regeneration planned for the Thames Gateway and
M11 corridor should also be highlighted - for example, on how
strategic bodies and partnerships such as the Urban Development
Corporation in the Thames Gateway might be used as an opportunity
to link culture into regeneration. Only with the provision of
cultural and other community facilities, can sustainable
communities be developed in these growth areas. This will need
support from central Government as well as regional and local
agencies.
There also needs to be greater clarity on the definition of the
term “integration” and assistance on the practical steps to
achieve integration, to show how it can become a reality.
Who it is for?
The guidance should identify more clearly how partners from a
range of sectors and interests (e.g. planning, development and
regeneration) can enable the integration of cultural strategies
into service and development plans.
The role of private sector developers in local planning is also
significant. This should be bought out more in the document.
Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are also of significant
importance in integrating culture with other services at a local
level. Their role and the way in which they can influence this
process should also be highlighted in the document. A number of
LSPs have been successful in achieving this (Newham; Croydon) and
their case studies could be used to illustrate how culture can be
integrated into other strategies to achieve wide impact. The ALG
has undertaken research into culture’s role in neighbourhood
renewal in London and has a number of case studies that could be
shared with the DCMS.
The guidance should also identify the main stages of policy and
planning processes that cultural strategies can feed into. For
example, there are important changes taking place in local
planning legislation - how can cultural strategies feed into
Report Page 8
these at an early stage to ensure cultural priorities are
reflected in final plans?
Section 2: THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE AND THE CASE FOR
INTEGRATION
The case for integration
The economic case for integration should also be highlighted. The
economic benefit that can be brought into an area through the
creative industries sector is one example of this. In London, the
creative industries are worth £21 billion a year and currently
creating one in five jobs in the capital3.
The guidance should aim to enhance the case for culture more
clearly to meet the needs and priorities of planners and those
involved in economic and social regeneration through, for
example, links to priority indicators for these areas.
Cultural services are also included as one of the building blocks
for the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process. This
should also be highlighted in the document.
The case studies
Whilst the case studies provide valuable examples of approaches
to the identified barriers, a more balanced selection of case
studies should be presented to include local grass roots projects
and initiatives, particularly in deprived neighbourhoods4.
Section 3: BARRIERS, CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
What are the barriers?
Most of the main barriers have been identified. However,
increasing difficulty in accessing appropriate funding streams
also poses a significant barrier to developing cultural services.
This is linked to a lack of quantifiable evidence on the impact
of culture.
Barrier 3: Dispersal and Fragmentation of Cultural Services
Although cultural services are dispersed across a number of
council services and departments presenting considerable
challenges; there are valuable opportunities for developing
LDA Press Release, ‘Downplay creative sector at our peril’ warns Creative
Industries Chief, 22 September 2003
4 For example, the Museums Family Learning Scheme and Housing Estate Projects
in London Borough of Redbridge. Please contact Sue Thiedeman at LB of
Redbridge for further details.
3
Report Page 9
joined up approaches and potentially pooling of resources across
a range of services and departments through Local Strategic
Partnerships and the development of Local Public Service
Agreements.
Barrier 6: Getting Communities to express the value of culture
One of the key priorities of social inclusion strategies is
related to diversity and equality. The guidance needs to
incorporate into this section the role of diversity in culture
and how local communities from a range of ethnic backgrounds can
also express the value of culture. This is a particularly
important issue for London boroughs given the diversity of
London.
The case studies presented in this section could also be widened
to include a number of innovative initiatives at the local
neighbourhood level in deprived areas where communities have led
the planning of their local environments (LB Southwark, for
example, have worked with local residents to design and install
innovative lighting schemes to improve the local environment and
with the residents of the Bellingham Park Estate in Peckham to
develop street art and landscaping schemes).
Barrier 7: Making partnerships work for culture and community
The private sector is an important partner, particularly in local
planning and development processes. There are important examples
of how local public private sector partnerships have jointly
transformed the environment. Private sector developers Argent St
George have worked closely with Camden Council and its partners
to link community needs with local development plans for the
King’s Cross area.
Summary and Conclusions
The following gaps should be addressed when finalising the
guidance:

A clearer step by step approach which will enable
practitioners across sectors to see how and at what
level culture can be incorporated into policy and
planning processes.

The guidance should aim to meet the needs of services
outside the cultural sphere through illustrating how
culture can directly influence the planning and social
inclusion policies and priorities.

The key role that the private sector plays and the
substantial resources this sector can bring into local
Report Page 10
development processes provides an important opportunity
for culture to be integrated to ensure holistic,
integrated and sustainable approaches which meet the
social, environmental and economic needs of local
communities through developing “places for people”5.
5

Local initiatives illustrating successful grass roots
led cultural projects in deprived neighbourhoods should
be used to underline the case for culture in a wider
regeneration and social inclusion agenda. A greater
emphasis on how local communities from a range of
ethnic backgrounds can also express the value of
culture is also needed.

Clearer relevance for planning and regeneration
departments could be developed through illustrations of
case studies linked to the policies and priorities
appropriate to these sectors.

There should be strengthened evidence for
case for culture, through for example the
of the creative industries in influencing
economies. The creative industries sector
particularly important in London.

Funders have an important role in supporting the
cultural sector through linking cultural priorities to
other non cultural agendas and services. The London
Development Agency (LDA), for example, has incorporated
training and employment in the creative sector as part
of its priorities and measures in its previous European
Social Fund (ESF) Co- financing programme.
Argent St George “A framework for Regeneration”
the economic
contribution
local
is