Agenda item

To examine North Tyneside Creates - A Cultural Plan for North Tyneside 2023-2030 and the Authority’s commitment to work with partners to develop the North Tyneside Cultural Partnership, to drive forward the delivery and monitoring of the Plan.

At its meeting on 22 May 2023, Cabinet had approved North Tyneside Creates - A Cultural Plan for North Tyneside 2023-2030 and authorised the Director of Regeneration and Economic Development to work with partners to develop the North Tyneside Cultural Partnership, to drive forward the delivery and monitoring of the Plan.

Steve Bishop, the Council’s Head of Culture, had accepted an invitation to attend the meeting to present details of the plan and discuss the development of the North Tyneside Cultural Partnership. The Chair of the Partnership, Katy Fuller, and Vice-Chair, Stella Hall, had also been invited to the meeting but were unable to attend.

The sub-committee received a copy of the report presented to Cabinet on 22 May 2023 and a copy of North Tyneside Creates - A Cultural Plan for North Tyneside 2023-2030. Steve Bishop described the policy context within which the plan had been developed. He also set out details of the work undertaken to inform the plan, including a joint cultural needs assessment, asset mapping and consultation and engagement. He also highlighted the 10 challenges facing the cultural sector which were identified in the plan and commented on how the Partnership would go about addressing them.

Members of the sub-committee discussed the proposed approach to investing and transforming the cultural offer in North Tyneside when the following issues were raised:

a)    The risk of self interest groups having an undue influence on the work of the cultural partnership.

b)    The disproportionate spread of cultural activities concentrated in the coastal and riverside areas of the borough and the need to deliver a cultural offer in the north west of the borough and to enhance access to events, possibly through greater use of technology.

c)     The importance of involving, and providing for the needs, of young people.

d)    The risk of cultural assets being rationalised leading to restricted access to cultural activities.

e)    It was noted that the plan did not contain specific targets or timescales. This was partly attributable to the volatile nature of funding which made it difficult to forecast increases in cultural activities. The partnership would however be setting a range of objectives in formulating an implementation plan. There were other mechanisms to assess the impact of the plan including benefits realisation tools to be used as part of the town centre masterplans.

f)      The potential to encourage and support more music festivals in the borough.

g)    The important correlation between the Cultural Plan and the Local Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategy “Equally Well A healthier, fairer future for North Tyneside” which recognised the importance of the wider determinants of health including cultural activity.

h)    The need to consider innovative and radical options to address inequalities in accessing cultural activities.

During the discussion the sub-committee identified the following potential subjects for further scrutiny:

a)    the implementation plan to be formulated and agreed by the Cultural Partnership;

b)    the Cabinet’s policy priorities for its Ambition for the North West which will help guide the development of Village Plans and a Transport Plan; and

c)     benchmarking data with other local authorities on the amount of spend on cultural activities and the split between capital and revenue funding.