Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Decision Report :

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1) Summary of Decision Area:

1.1. Find Your Talent is a national pathfinder programme jointly sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and The Department for Children, Schools and Families. In the spring of 2008 a call for expressions of interest was made and a joint submission was made by a partnership of the County Council with Portsmouth City Council and Southampton City Council. The outline proposal was accepted and the partnership was invited to submit a Delivery Plan with an indicative budget of £2,050,000 for the three year programme. Hampshire County Council has, to date, taken the lead on coordinating this initiative.

1.2. The Partnership needs an administrative lead in order to function as a delivery agent.

2) Issues Covered in Report:

2.1. The pathfinder prospectus

2.2. Summary of the Expression of Interest submitted by the Partnership

2.3. Management arrangements

3) Recommendations:

3.1 That the Recreation and Heritage Department (Arts Service) provide administrative, financial and HR support to the programme, holding and managing the budget on behalf of the partnership

MAIN REPORT

1) Purpose of the Report:

1.1. To outline the Pathfinder programme and its purpose, the Partnership response and to seek agreement that Hampshire County Council acts as banker and administrative hub for the programme

2) Contextual Information:

2.1. The Prospectus on which the Expression of Interest was constructed set out a clear rationale for the Pilot Programme viz;-

2.2. Culture enriches lives. Participation in cultural activities can have a significant impact on young people's development. This has been shown repeatedly in international studies, and has also been backed up by recent evaluations of major programmes such as Creative Partnerships and Museums' Strategic Commissioning. What these evaluations have shown is that culture can help young people achieve all of the Every Child Matters outcomes.

2.3 As well as being valuable and enjoyable in its own right, participation in cultural activities also gives young people the chance to develop important life skills such as creativity, confidence, self-discipline, effective communication and the ability to work in teams.

2.4 For these reasons the Government committed to developing, over the next five years, a comprehensive cultural offer. This will ensure that all children and young people no matter where they live or what their background have the chance to participate in at least five hours of high quality culture a week in and out of school.

2.5 The offer should encompass;-

· learning in and about culture - helping young people develop as informed and reflective spectators, participants and creators in the cultural world around them; and

· learning through culture - using engagement with culture to boost creativity, attainment and personal development.

2.6 The experiences on offer should be of excellent quality and should not only be varied in form and content but reflect a diverse range of cultures. Young people should be given the chance to work with both leading institutions and other professionals from the cultural and creative sectors.

2.7 The offer should encompass opportunities for young people from the age of 0-19. While for young people of school age experiences within the curriculum will be of huge importance, the offer should go wider than this to include extended schools and positive activities offered by local authorities and other providers.

2.8 The desire to provide this level of cultural opportunity is driven by the desire to see all young people develop their talents to the full; all young people enjoying their childhood and reaching maturity with a sustained and developing set of skills, behaviours and capabilities that will equip them to lead a rich and fulfilling adult life. This vision lies at the heart of the Children's Plan and has the capacity to make a significant contribution to the delivery of all five Every Child Matters outcomes.

2.9 The Partnership led by Hampshire County Council, with Southampton City Council, Portsmouth City Council and Creative Partnerships and endorsed by the PUSH Quality Places Task Group was created to respond to the call for expressions of interest. The following is a summary of the proposal made under the title "PUSH4Culture"

2.10 The motivation is to create a pilot which will develop models that encourage young people to choose to continue their engagement in activity beyond the school gates, which

· Evaluates the importance of culture in creating an employable generation

· Facilitates full youth engagement in internationally important maritime/cultural anniversaries in 2012 in addition to the Cultural Olympiad

· Places young people at the heart of the planning and delivery of the project

· Energises the emerging cultural and community partnerships within the PUSH region.

· Explores the feasibility of creating a sub-regional Youth Production Company,

· Identifies how best to balance the need to provide locally specific delivery with the efficiencies that can be gained from looking at synergies across the sub-region

2.11 Young people will be at the heart of this project assisting in the planning and delivery of activities. In each neighbourhood through a range of youth panels young people will set the project parameters and ensure that project programming directly meets their needs.

2.12 The Programme will focus on providing access to an additional 3 hours per week activity beyond the curriculum, that grows out of and complements core entitlement. Local needs will be catered for but where the management team identifies common need across the region, then wider and larger programmes can be developed increasing value for money and economies of scale. Provision of clear progression routes for the participants will be key to the success. We are proposing to adopt the following approach: Awareness raising and inclusion, promoting the range of offers available. Engagement delivery of a range of bespoke opportunities for young people (and their families) in their area and 3)Thinking about a career providing a range of activity for advanced participation.

2.13 Outcomes from pilot should provide enhanced opportunities for approximately 30,000 young people to participate. Specifically we will measure:

· Increased number of Young People participating outside of the school gates

· Increased enthusiasm for cultural learning and Increased interest in creative vocations

· Success of the youth advisory panels

· Contribution to raising whole school, pupil group and individual level achievements

· Help to reduced youth crime rates in post-school period

· Ensuring that looked after children these groups are equally engaged in the process

2.14 The community-centred approach to developing provision will ensure that learning can be sustained by embedding lessons and the value of culture within the communities concerned.

3) Management arrangements

3.1 A Project Steering Group made up of representatives of the three Authorities will oversee the programme. Youth Advisory Panels will feed into the Steering Group. A Project Director supported by Community Engagement officers will be responsible for the day to day delivery of the project activities. See Appendix 1 for delivery structure. It is proposed that the County Council is the employing body and manages the budget administration. Allowance has been made in the budget to cover costs associated with these functions.

4) Key Issues:

4.1. Ensuring that the Partnership has robust administrative arrangements that enable the grant of £2,000,050 to be released.

5) Outline of Options:

5.1. Option 1:

a) Hampshire County Council act as administrative Hub for the Find Your Talent - PUSH4Culture programme

5.2. Option 2:

a) That the County Council does not act as administrative hub for the Programme

6) Option Analysis / Comparison:

6.1. When the call for Expressions of Interest was published the County Council took a lead in inviting Portsmouth and Southampton City Councils to consider responding to the call. This proposal was met positively. Following the success in becoming one of ten pathfinders (141 Expressions of interest were made) across England it was necessary to take the programme to the next stage. The County Council continued to take the lead. The County Council has acted or acts as lead administrative hubs for the sub-regional arts partnership and the Renaissance Hub and has the expertise to mange these partnership administrations. The alternative to the County Council taking on this role would be for either Portsmouth or Southampton City Council's to act in this role.

7) Conclusions:

7.1. The Pathfinder programme provides a major opportunity to increase participation in and access to the cultural offer across the partnership region and beyond by young people.

7.2. Acting as the administrative hub for the project ensures that robust systems and accountability provided by the County Council provide audit assurance for the funding body.

8) Summary Recommendations:

8.1 That the Recreation and Heritage Department (Arts Service) provide administrative, financial and HR support to the programme, holding and managing the budget on behalf of the partnership.

CORPORATE OR LEGAL INFORMATION:

COMPREHENSIVE RISK & IMPACT ASSESSMENT:

Race and Equality Impact assessment

Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

Appendix 1

Management Structure

Project Delivery Chart