Councillor Pat Patel (Cabinet Member for Customer Services, Culture, Leisure & Sport), supported by Hannah Harris (CEO of Plymouth Culture), Victoria Pomery (CEO of The Box) and David Draffan (Service Director, Economic Development) introduced the report and highlighted -

a)    Cultural activity in Plymouth was abundant and remained a key component in delivering and driving Plymouth’s destination agenda;

b)     There were over 380 creative and cultural enterprises within the city and the sector in Plymouth remained stable, despite the effects of the COVID19 pandemic;

c)    Plymouth was successful in securing £12.34 million of Arts Council NPO funding;

d)    A cultural mapping tool had been developed to help better understand how people access cultural services and how;

e)    British Art Show 9 was open and had already attracted over 47,000 visitors;

f)     An investment strategy with the aim of driving new and increased funding into the sector to broaden and deepened engagement with local residents and communities was the priority;

g)    A mapping activity had been undertaken to improve the consistency of data being collected around who was attending cultural events;

h)    There was also a focus on looking at the impact of culture on people’s lives and if people were cross-pollinating;

i)     The figures would help to gain a deeper understanding of the barriers that people face in accessing events;

j)     The cultural sector had challenges ahead but it was important to look at how the value of culture could benefit other agendas in the city;

In response to questions it was reported –

k)    There was an understanding of the value of the cultural sector in economic and social terms and it would be important to look at the data to not just understand who was accessing events, but also who wasn’t and to ask why, rather than make assumptions, to understand the data further;

l)     Early indications were that impact was being made in some areas identified as ‘hard to reach’, but more analysis and work on this would take place;

m)  There had been a lot of work done nationally to better understand the broader impact and value of culture and Plymouth Culture would be taking this on board and applying it locally;

n)    Over 10 years previous, a similar data collection activity was undertaken in Plymouth and research indicated that incentives were not the right method to driving usage and national data showed the same, so the ‘Tap-In’ app was taking a different approach in providing users with more information on events that they might like in the city;

o)    The ‘Tap-In’ app was in the pilot phase and did not have a function within it to book for events;

p)    All feedback from users would be reviewed and solutions looked into for the evolution of the functionality of the app;

q)    The cultural partnership had been formed, comprising of a cross-section across Plymouth with the aim of linking culture into other agenda’s and was linked closely to the growth board;

r)    Feedback on the ‘Tap-In’ app was really important;

s)     Important to translate the value of culture into for other agenda’s;

t)     The latest Census data would be incorporated into the Culture Plan and could be reported on in the future;

u)    8 out of 10 organisations in Plymouth were offered renewed NPO funding, with the remaining two in conversation with the Arts Council about alternative funding routes;

v)    Collaboration, data collection and reflecting diversity in programs were priorities;

w)   There was more cultural investment in Plymouth was quite significant compared to other areas;

x)    Data at The Box would continue to be collected and analysed to influence programs, to address barriers and to build up case studies;

y)    It was important that Councillor’s shared cultural information on their social media pages to reach more members of the public.

The Committee agreed to –

1)    Note the report;

2)    Receive more detail on the audiences that were not being reached and proposals to reach them, in the Annual Report in 2023;

3)    Receive more detail on how data on diversity had influenced cultural programs in the Annual Report 2023.