Archived decisions

Contact: Nicola Horsey, ext. 5423 [email protected]

1. Introduction

1.1 amh is the audience development agency for Hampshire and the former Southern Arts region, and is, unusually, a local authority-based initiative. The majority of audience development agencies nationally are predominantly Arts Council funded.

2. Background

2.1 amh (Arts Marketing Hampshire), in its present form, was set up in 1986

as Solent Arts Marketing, as a consequence of an initiative in the

1970s to offer marketing support to Arts Council large-scale

touring organisations coming into Hampshire. It has since become one

of the biggest audience development agencies in the country.

amh now works to enable and support high quality arts experiences,

through the strategic development of audiences for (and participation in)

the arts and cultural activity in the county of Hampshire and the wider

region.

2.2 amh fulfills this brief by providing research, monitoring and evaluation,

training and mentoring, initiating generic campaigns and providing

audience development campaign and project support, working regularly

with over 30 Hampshire-based organisations.

2.3 Up until November 2003, amh was known as Arts Marketing

Hampshire, but the name, along with the new logo, was changed to

reflect amh's evolving role. This now includes:-

· working with clients and funding bodies from the wider cultural sector than the traditional `arts' including museums, libraries and country parks.

· moving away from providing direct marketing support for organisations and moving closer to providing support in developing audiences as part of a long term strategy.

3. Current situation

3.1 amh currently has turnover of some £300,000 annually, of which approximately £127,000 is grant aid (£61,000 from Hampshire County Council's Arts Service and £56,000 from Arts Council England, South East ACE,SE. The rest of the turnover is raised by providing services directly to local arts organisations).

3.2 With the demise of MAX (the equivalent agency in Oxfordshire) and

the merging of the two regional arts boards into ACE,SE, amh has been

asked to work further afield than simply Hampshire, providing increased

opportunities for development.

3.3 Arts Council England, South East are proposing to increase their grant by an additional £100,000 in 05/06 and offer a grant of £132,000 in 06/07 and 07/08, in order to establish amh as the only regularly funded audience development agency in the Government Office South East region.

There are two other, independent, agencies in the South East, which will continue to operate, and will work, with amh's guidance, to deliver elements of the regional audience development strategy.

4. Other issues

4.1 To fulfill the wider regional role, amh plan to set up an Audience Development South East programme, and establish a new role of Chief Executive to promote and coordinate this programme. The proposal is that the current Director would take on this role on a three year secondment basis, and the Director's post would be offered to internal interview only, for a similar three year secondment basis. After 07/08, the ACE,SE funding is likely to be renewed if the programme is successful, but the size of the grant cannot be guaranteed at this time.

5. Impact Assessment

5.1 amh are currently working on business planning, organisational development and Human Resources issues with specialist consultants, and with departmental champions for the process within Recreation and Heritage, to ensure the impact is beneficial internally. amh are also looking to move to a Service Level Agreement arrangement with the Arts Service and the Recreation and Heritage Department.

6. Conclusion

6.1 The repositioning of amh as an agency with pan-regional responsibilities offers opportunity, profile and additional revenue funding. It marries with the regional work amh have begun to deliver on behalf of South East Museums Libraries and Archives Council, and offers new outlets for amh training and development activity. Recreation and Heritage will benefit from access to the additional generic campaign work, intelligence and research, and the enhanced skills base this initiative will generate.

Recommendation

That Members note the proposals set out in 3.3 to expand amh to become a regional organisation and submit the report to the Executive Member for Recreation and Heritage for his consideration.