Powerpoint presentation from morning workshop 'Bridge Intelligence' at The Mighty Creatives Creative & Connected:2 conference.

1. State of Our Region
Bridge Intelligence Gathering
March 2012

2. Workshop structure (EF)
1.Introductions and purpose of today
3.The intelligence gathering process – what we have done to date
5.What we have found out so far
7.Workshop – discussion sessions around five key questions
9.Presentations
11.Summary and next steps

3. Introduction and purpose of today (EF)
Introductions
Karen Birch, TMC
Daniel Poole, TMC
Elly Fletcher, Focus Consultants
Lucy Pike, Focus Consultants
Purpose of today
- To share the findings of the Intelligence Gathering research to date
- To provide the space and opportunity for discussion and debate around some of the key
emerging questions from the research so far
- To reach some conclusions today about possible partnerships and opportunities for the
future.

4. Bridge Intelligence: Introduction (KB)
• 10 bridge organisations undertaking an annual data and intelligence
gathering exercise
• Arts Council England’s Cultural Education Profile Tool
• Regional State of the Region Reports
• A partnership between TMC, Focus Consultants and Dubit Limited
• A baseline, snapshot and routine intelligence gathering.

5. The intelligence gathering process – what we have done so far
(EF)
The very first step in an ongoing audit and review of the cultural sector in the region and its offer
and engagement with children and young people.
Looking at four crucial research questions:
Research question 1 - Who are the region’s children and young people and what challenges do they
face?
Research question 2 - What cultural opportunities are on offer for children and young people in the East
Midlands and where are the gaps?
Research question 3 - What are the main threats and opportunities for children and young people’s
services in the cultural sector?
Research question 4 – What support does the East Midlands cultural sector need to improve and
develop the offer to children and young people?
Why?
To look at gaps in provision / challenges for the sector / what support is required to enhance the offer
and ultimately to inform the development of the Bridge Programme of activities and support

6. The intelligence gathering process – what we have done so far
(EF)
Consultation, consultation, consultation – we have spoken with over 100 individuals and
organisations across the sector – NPOs, museums, libraries and arts organisations – as well as local
authorities
Listening – Young people’s lives and their experiences and opinions of arts and culture
Socio-economic analysis – Data analysis, looking at the key characteristics of the region and asking
ourselves, what are the key challenges faced by children and young people today in the East Midlands
Strategic context – Comprehensive review of the strategic context across each geographic area in the
region
The national funding environment – Exploration of current and potential funding opportunities across
the sector, including changes to the commissioning agenda for young people’s services
Data gathering – Lists, lists and more lists!

7. What we have found out so far (EF)
Who are the region’s children and young people
and what do they need?
Pockets of the East Midlands see children and young people facing significant
challenges of deprivation and unemployment and, in some rural areas, isolation
•By 2017, there will be over 1.38m children and young people in the region
•Nottingham and Leicester are the youngest cities
•Some urban areas of Nottingham, Leicester and Derby have some of the
highest rates of deprivation
•The former coalfields too experience some real disadvantage
•A strong need to tackle low educational attainment and youth
unemployment in these areas
•As the third most rural region, there is a need to reach out to isolated young
people in rural communities.

8. What we have found out so far (EF)
Who are the region’s children and young
people and what do they need?
Young people’s leadership is and will continue to be an essential
component to the success of the region’s cultural sector
•Over to Daniel from TMC
What young people have told us
•Over to Daniel from TMC

9. Bridge Intelligence: Young People Insights (KB)
• Series of case studies that document the reality of young people’s
cultural lives
• 10 young people age 14 – 25 living in the East Midlands
• Recruitment and sample
• Blogs, immersion days, videos and workshop
• Final case studies.

10. TMC Blog (KB)

11. TMC Blog (KB)

12. TMC Blog (KB)

13. TMC Blog (KB)

14. Akshay’s blog (KB)
how would you improve the arts and cultural activities in your area?
maybe make them more appealing? i think that maybe if i was involved with them earlier in life for longer i might enjoy them
now, but now that i am my age i don’t really have any desire to get involved.
anything you wish was offered in your area?
not really, like i said, i’m not too big on the whole arts and crafts thing
what would encourage or inspire young people to get involved?
if it was fun, a good mix of people (my friend group don’t get involved in any of it, and nor do i), something you could pop into
your personal statment for a bit of extra credit, i don’t see why people wouldn’t want to go!
what does art and culture mean to you?:
“Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don’t.”
Lord Raglan

15. Our State of the Arts (DP)
Art’s Fate, Our State, You Rate
Intro
•Launched end of Feb 2012
•10 YP across the East Midlands
•Employed at TMC as Cultural Researchers
•Get a snapshot of YP’s opinion of arts in the area
•3 areas of enquiry
 Seeing
 Asking
 Researching

16. Cultural Bursary (DP)
• Each Cultural Researcher was given a Cultural bursary to complete a
programme of events
• Workshops, shows, concerts, talks etc
• Encouraged to see what they are passionate about and also things
they have never seen or done before

17. What are they saying? (DP)
• At the moment they are a very small group across the east
midlands
• Reviews of arts establishments and shows seen are generally
positive
• Finding that without a bursary attending some of the shows they
wanted would be hard
• Some discussion around how difficult some art forms are to access
in their area
• Many have commented knowledge amongst their peers on what's
on offer is low

18. Development Plans (DP)
• How do we make Our State of the Arts Bigger, Better and more useful for
YP and the sector?
 Wider expansion of contributions
 Empower the YP involved to take ownership of the space
 Create an opportunity for a truly open space to discuss opinions on the arts in
their area
 Make OSA a resource for the sector to view what young people think of what's
on offer, and what is missing where they live
 A chance for like minded young people to share views and advertise their
events to a captive audience
 Provide TMC and open resource for young people to tell us what they think,
without the pressure or commitment of more typical forums and meetings.

19. Last but not least……(DP)
Come see what people are saying;
www.ourstateofthearts.co.uk
@stateofourarts

20. What we have found out so far (EF)
What cultural opportunities are on offer for children and young
people in the East Midlands?
Although there is already a diverse offer across the region’s cultural sector for children and young people, there
are some significant gaps in provision
•A diverse offer
•Significant heritage and cultural assets
•Good examples across the sector of engagement with children and young people
•Some significant gaps and a need for:
 More extra-curricular activities directly targeting children and young people from identified deprived
communities
 Increased opportunities for kinaesthetic learning
 Increased collaborative delivery of activities across museums, arts, libraries and schools
 Increased outreach activity in communities and schools
 Longer term programmes of delivery, which enable participants to develop relationships with providers and
have certainty and consistency about what is on offer.

21. What we have found out so far (EF)
What are the main threats and opportunities for
children and young people’s services in the
cultural sector?
Cuts to core funding are presenting real threats to the delivery of
children and young people’s services in the cultural sector
Changes to the way local authorities commission arts provision may
present opportunities for new organisations, those that have historically
not been core funded, to step up and present innovative new proposals
for funding
The move from maintained schools to academies is likely to dramatically
change the way externally delivered services to schools are
commissioned
Changes in national strategy and policy present new opportunities for
the East Midlands cultural sector and funding its offer to children and
young people.

22. What we have found out so far (EF)
What support does the sector need to improve and develop the offer
to children and young people?
Partnership working is key to the successful delivery of cultural opportunities to children and young people – the
cultural sector needs support to create effective partnerships
A clear need for support to organisations to:
•Identify potential partnerships and collaborative approaches
•Broker new relationships between education, industry and the voluntary sector, and improve cross sectoral partnership
working
•Improve connectivity between organisations with different skill sets with a view to reaching some of the region’s more hard
to reach groups and deprived communities
•Develop longer term strategic approaches to projects and programmes.
Development of innovative new projects and proposals and support with funding will be crucial to the
improvement of cultural services to children and young people – the cultural sector needs support and
information to achieve this.

23. Workshop – discussion sessions (EF)
Five key research questions
2) Partnerships - How can libraries, museums and arts organisations collaborate more effectively to deliver services for children
and young people? What can we learn from each other? How can we best capitalise on each others’ strengths? How might we use
each other to access some of the more hard to reach communities?
3) Pilot ‘hubs’ - The Henley Review proposes the creation of pilot ‘hubs’ using the music education hub structure as a model to
pilot others across different cultural forms. How could this work in practice in the East Midlands? What types of organisations
would work best as part of a collaborating group? What cultural forms in the East Midlands would best fit the hub model? What’s the
alternative?
4) Schools - Changes are happening rapidly across the education sector, where Government is encouraging schools – now both
Primary and Secondary - towards the academy model. What effect is this already having on the East Midlands in relation to
delivery of cultural experiences for children in schools? What threats or opportunities does this present for the future of cultural
education and cultural experiences for children and young people in schools? How might this change the way in which the cultural and
creative industries partner with schools, including commissioning of services? What opportunities could there be out there for strategic
commissioning of services?
5) Leadership - The State of our Region Review has highlighted some excellent examples of young people’s leadership within
cultural organisations across this region and nearly all organisations consulted to date has agreed that young people’s
leadership is important. What support programmes or initiatives could be put in place to encourage young people’s leadership
in cultural organisations in the region? What examples of best practice are out there and how can we learn from them?
6) Funding - The issue of funding cuts across the sector has consistently raised its head as a major barrier to delivery of children
and young people’s services in the cultural sector. As the funding environment changes, what opportunities are out there for
development of innovative new funding models for children and young people’s services? How can the cultural sector capitalise
on this chance to develop new partnerships and potentially access previously unreachable funding opportunities? How can the cultural
sector, the education sector, the voluntary sector collaborate to access a new mix of public and private funding in the future?

24. Presentations (EF)
Feedback from the presentations

25. Summary and next steps (KB and EF)
This is just the starting point....
• Immediate research is about to happen to explore the key threats and opportunities for the
education sector
• Ongoing research will continue to update and develop the intelligence audit, and inform Bridge
Programme development.