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SOCIAL INNVOATION CASE STUDY: BIRMINGHAM

ARTS CHAMPIONS: AN INNOVATIVE INTEGRATED APPROACH TO ARTS OUTREACH

C I T I E S F O R A C T I V E I N C L U S I O N

Cities for Active Inclusion is a dynamic network of nine European cities – Birmingham, Bologna, Brno, Copenhagen, Krakow, Lille Métropole - Roubaix, Rotterdam, Sofi a and Stockholm – each with a local authority observatory (LAO) within its administration.

Their aim is to share information, promote mutual learning and carry out research on the implementation of active inclusion strategies at the local level. The nine observatories are coordinated by EUROCITIES, the network of major cities in Europe, and supported through a partnership with the European Commission (DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion).

www.eurocities-nlao.euDecember 2011

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Social innovation case study: Birmingham

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Arts Champions scheme...................................................................................2

2. Key elements of innovation....................................................................................4

3. Key successes ....................................................................................................5

3.1 Success in introducing art and culture to residents throughout the city...........................5

3.2 Successfully overcoming the challenges.................................................................8

4. Sustainability and dissemination..............................................................................9

4.1 Sharing the model ..........................................................................................9

4.2 Future funding ............................................................................................. 10

4.3 A vision for sustainability ................................................................................ 10

4.4 Action for sustainability.................................................................................. 11

5. Web links and contact details ............................................................................... 11

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1. THE ARTS CHAMPIONS SCHEME

The Arts Champions scheme is a groundbreaking arts initiative that gets Birmingham arts organisations working with residents in their local area to reduce social isolation and increase social cohesion. These Arts Champions organisations, among others include the following:

Birmingham Royal Ballet1: one of the four leading classical ballet companies in the United Kingdom;

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra - CBSO2: an orchestra that has grown into a 90-piece ensemble with a worldwide reputation rooted firmly in the city of Birmingham;

The REP3: Birmingham Repertory Theatre is one of the United Kingdom’s leading theatre companies;

The Drum4: this national centre for Black British arts and culture develops and promotes contemporary art through training and education initiatives, and raises the profile of British African, British Asian and British Caribbean cultures.

Organised by Birmingham’s Culture Commissioning service, the Arts Champions scheme was established in 2004 and supports the Culture on your Doorstep strand of Birmingham’s cultural strategy. Culture on your Doorstep provides opportunities for Birmingham residents to participate in high quality arts activities in their local neighbourhoods, so that more people can enjoy rich cultural experiences that will help to improve their well-being.

In April 2004, Birmingham’s city council moved to a localised model for its services, in order to achieve the following three main aims:

to improve service quality;

to integrate service delivery at a neighbourhood level and thereby overcome the issue of multiple service-providers each acting separately;

to establish a culture where the council’s workforce is empowered to provide the best possible service to each local community.

Using the principles of local determination, and brokered by Birmingham’s Culture Commissioning Service, each Arts Champion organisation devises programmes of activities that meet the needs of a particular local area within the city. The city’s Culture Commissioning service remains centralised to ensure that its relatively small team of specialist officers can oversee a diverse range of arts and culture across the whole city.

Currently, Birmingham is divided into ten parliamentary constituencies, each with approximately 100,000 residents. Each major Arts Champion organisation works with residents in one Birmingham constituency for a period of time: usually three to five years. Arts Champions are then allocated to partner with another constituency.

1 www.brb.org.uk. 2 www.cbso.co.uk. 3 www.birmingham-rep.co.uk. 4 www.the-drum.org.uk.

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The map below shows Birmingham’s ten parliamentary constituencies, together with the four local electoral wards in each constituency:

In some of the constituencies, smaller Arts Champions organisations are paired with larger ones in order to provide increased capacity, to ensure that substantial numbers of residents can participate. In all, twelve major Arts Champions organisations are involved in the scheme, including the eleven major arts organisations that are funded by Birmingham council. The twelfth major Arts Champion is Birmingham Hippodrome5 a theatre company which is not revenue funded by Birmingham city council but is considered a vital contributor to the cultural infrastructure of the city.

While funded organisations are expected to deliver the Arts Champions scheme as part of their existing Service Level Agreement with Birmingham city council, a small sum of money has also been made available to each constituency. Currently, this funding amounts to €4,700 (£4,000) per year per constituency, subject to an application against published criteria, and with the approval of the constituency’s lead contact for the arts.

5 www.birminghamhippodrome.com.

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This funding has been made available in order to:

support the development of Arts Champions activities for local residents;

encourage local residents to take part as creators, audiences, participants and leaders, with a focus on those over 16 years of age;

attract residents who are new to the arts to participate in local activities;

increase the frequency of participation amongst residents who already participate in the arts;

support increased access to city centre art and culture;

help to bring in other local funding.

The Arts Champions deliver a mixture of participatory projects, audience development, advocacy for the arts, advice to local arts groups, facilitation of local arts workshops and discussions, and support to other non-arts cultural initiatives in the constituency.

Given the variations in capacity and the diverse range of art forms provided by the Arts Champions, and given the varying nature of the different parliamentary constituencies, it is not surprising that the scheme has developed in different ways in different parts of the city.

2. KEY ELEMENTS OF INNOVATION

Using the arts to connect with those who feel marginalised is not new, and there are many good practice examples of this across Europe. What makes the Birmingham Arts Champions scheme innovative is the combination of four key aspects, as follows:

innovative strategy: the Arts Champions scheme uses an innovative strategic approach which has brought the city’s the key arts organisations together in one coordinated initiative, to reach out and engage with residents in all parts of the city;

innovative collaboration: the Arts Champions scheme has created an innovative collaboration between specialist arts practitioners and the council officers who work with local residents in each local neighbourhood. These council officers have a detailed understanding of the barriers to arts inclusion that are specific to members of their local communities, which makes it possible to design and deliver tailor-made programmes of outreach and engagement to meet local needs: to literally bring Culture on your Doorstep. E.g. in the Hall Green constituency, The Drum arts centre is offering an Asian arts programme that is relevant to a large proportion of the Hall Green community (more information on this is included below in section 3.1.6);

connecting the disconnected: by offering opportunities to experience art forms in the city centre, as well as the chance to work with nationally and sometimes internationally renowned artists, the Arts Champions scheme helps citizens who have felt disconnected from the perceived wealth and success of the city centre to overcome their feelings of exclusion.E.g. the Ikon Gallery worked in the Erdington constituency on a number of different visual arts projects aimed at empowering local people, both through participation and by meeting international artists who were exhibiting in Ikon’s main city centre gallery;

innovative commitment to sustainability: the commitment of the Arts Champions and of Birmingham City Council to the long-term sustainability of the project is also innovative; it takes time to build trust among residents and encourage them to engage with arts projects,

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with artists, and with other residents. Although Arts Champions has now been running for some seven years, only now is its impact on cultural participation and social cohesion becoming evident.

3. KEY SUCCESSES

3.1 Success in introducing art and culture to residents throughout the city Between 2005 and 2010, more than 33,046 individuals were involved in the Arts Champions scheme: as participants, audience members and artists. The Arts Champions have used their art forms to break down some of the many barriers that prevent residents of various ages and backgrounds from more active participation in civil society.

The following examples highlight the success of the Arts Champions in introducing art and culture to residents, and thereby helping increase social cohesion and well-being.

3.1.1 The REP (Birmingham Repertory Theatre)

The REP has embraced the Arts Champions scheme through its work with the Northfield constituency. This area has been blighted for years by the decline and eventual collapse of the Rover motor manufacturing plant. There are many families in the constituency where no-one has ever had a job, and in addition, many young people, especially boys, leave school without qualifications and with little prospect of getting into training or employment.

A major physical regeneration programme has now begun in the Northfield area, and at the same time, The REP has contributed to tackling the disaffection and exclusion that has been felt by the members of this community. A youth theatre has been set up in the constituency, and groups of people living in Northfield have helped to research and develop the theatre’s community drama productions. Although this is a relatively small initiative compared to the scale of the overall challenge in the constituency, the REP team have helped to rekindle a sense of identity and self-worth among people in the community. The REP has also provided a link between this area, which is on the very edge of Birmingham, and the centre of the city, which is where the REP theatre is located. The theatre has given Northfield residents discounted tickets for shows, and has even arranged dedicated evenings at the theatre, known as Northfield Nights, specifically for Northfield residents.

‘To me, it’s about developing more localised and bespoke activity targeted at involving all constituents from wards with varied demographics within the constituency. We have been able to do that by formalising partnerships with local free lance artists and organisations.’

Interview with the Community Engagement Manager, The REP (2011)

3.1.2 Ex Cathedra6 choir

Ex Cathedra is one of the UK’s leading choral ensembles and a leader in vocal education. This Arts Champion organisation has used singing to encourage a greater sense of belonging in the local community in the Sutton Coldfield constituency. This is an affluent suburb but there is a clear gulf between many of the older members of the community and young people, particularly boys. The constituency officers therefore asked the choir’s organisers to look at two initiatives: to develop a

6 www.excathedra.co.uk.

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community choir from scratch; and to find ways to encourage boys to engage more constructively with their peers and with the older generation. Ex Cathedra achieved both challenges: they developed a new community choir, and they devised a ‘Dads and Lads’ initiative, to bring boys together with their fathers, brothers, uncles and friends through singing. The aim of both initiatives was not just to get people singing but to build positive relationships between participants and to encourage mutual respect and mutually supportive behaviours.

3.1.3 mac Birmingham7

mac Birmingham is a multiple art form organisation and arts centre which has recently completed a five-year appointment as Arts Champion for the Hodge Hill constituency. In the Hodge Hill area, initial research showed that most householders were unlikely to engage with the arts. The mac Birmingham project encouraged people living in the area to recognise the benefits of the arts, and this has led to a rise in arts activity in the community and also an increase in the number of people from Hodge Hill visiting mac birmingham’s arts centre.

In its role as Arts Champion, mac Birmingham provided advice to the local Hodge Hill constituency officers. Whilst shaping a constituency arts strategy and supporting the development of links and projects with artists and arts organisations, the constituency officers also established teams of people to create partnerships between professional arts organisations and constituency organisations. These partnerships promoted the use of the arts to address social issues, particularly relating to three key priorities in the Hodge Hill area: young people, the environment, and health.

From 2011, mac Birmingham is now embarking on a new Arts Champion position in the Yardley constituency, where it has plans to encourage more local communities to experience and enjoy the arts.

3.1.4 Sampad

Sampad is Birmingham’s South Asian arts organisation. For the period 2009 to 2011, Sampad and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) worked together as Arts Champions for the Hall Green constituency. Projects included the following activities:

Out and About: free music and dance performances by Sampad and CBSO artists at local primary schools in the Sparkhill and Hall Green areas;

Performance in the Park: free music performances by Sampad and CBSO musicians in Moseley Park and Sparkhill Park and free dance and music at the Hall Green Mela (an Asian cultural festival);

Winter Lights: an intergenerational project which celebrated winter festivals across all the different faiths. For six weeks, artists from Sampad and the CBSO worked with Birmingham’s Hindu Women’s Network and with pupils aged 9 to10 years (Year 5) at St Ambrose Barlow Catholic Primary School. The two Arts Champions organisations led workshops in music, singing, lantern making and rangoli8 (a traditional folk art from India), to produce a joint final performance at St Ambrose Barlow Roman Catholic Church;

East Meets West: an educational project that brought together two school communities to work collaboratively. A professional team of CBSO musicians and a Sampad Bollywood dance artist worked with pupils aged 14 to 15 years (Year 10) who were

7 www.macarts.co.uk. 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangoli.

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studying music and performing arts (the BTEC national diploma) at the two schools: the pupils and the Arts Champions produced an original work that was showcased at a community event for families.

E.A.T Edgbaston Arts Table

For the period 2011 to 2014, Sampad and the Birmingham Hippodrome are working in partnership with the Edgbaston constituency, supported by the Edgbaston Arts Group. These organisations are collaborating on a new E.A.T Edgbaston Arts Table project, working with each the four Edgbaston constituency wards.

E.A.T Edgbaston Arts Table is an interactive cross art form project that reflects the multiple relationships between art and life. The project is using arts and crafts to explore food through its associated underlying rituals, traditions and eating habits.

Its focus is very much on the community within the Edgbaston constituency and the artistic relationship these citizens have with food and eating: a topic that is an integral part of human life.

The E.A.T Edgbaston Arts Table project will celebrate the various types of family units within the Edgbaston constituency, thereby celebrating diversity and bringing people together through the theme of food. One of the aims is to encourage positive parenting and to enrich the lives of Edgbaston residents through the introduction and delivery of artistic activities and events inspired by food.

The initiative will include a longitudinal study of residents of the Edgbaston constituency during the first year, leading to further activities based on the research findings and outcomes. The project aims to build a relationship with residents in the constituency based on trust. The work requires close interaction with the participants to enable the project to obtain a baseline of the constituency’s relationship with food and the impact that it has on their lives.

Food art events and activities will take place throughout the year incorporating multi art practices to promote healthy eating, including Rangoli, the traditional South Asia craft activity which citizens will be able to learn. Traditional rangoli produces art using coloured rice and coconut. However, Edgbaston residents will be asked to explore their own environments for natural materials such seeds, beans, whole grains, vegetables and fruits, in order to produce visually inspiring collages, and to help participants to develop a personal relationship with their immediate vicinity.

3.1.6 The Drum

The Drum arts centre is dedicated to promoting African, Asian and Caribbean art, and is working within the Hall Green constituency from 2011 to 2014. The Drum is developing a programme of Asian arts to provide arts opportunities which are relevant to a large proportion of citizens in Hall Green especially in the Sparkbrook and Springfield wards.

The Drum has also highlighted their interest in offering strategic advisory work, arts planning and development, and arts activities that develop work for showcasing through exhibitions and performances. Council officers working in the Hall Green constituency have identified a key priority for its local Arts Champions activities: to develop multi-cultural and intergenerational arts delivery, especially music and dance. This directly links to two of the city council’s strategies for the promotion of fitness and wellbeing: the Be Active strategy and the Sports/Physical Activity strategy.

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3.1.7 Ikon Gallery

Ikon Gallery9 is an internationally acclaimed contemporary art gallery in central Birmingham which has been working as an Arts Champion with the Erdington consituency. Ikon Gallery is an educational charity which promotes public engagement in art. As part of the Arts Champions scheme, the gallery appointed a photographer to research and respond to Sir Benjamin Stone’s collection of black and white photographs of life in the late 19th century and early 20th century, which is held in the Birmingham city archives. The Ikon gallery and the photographer worked with some of the residents of Erdington’s John Taylor Hospice, and introduced them to the collection of photographs. The hospice residents were also given the opportunity to produce their own photographic images with a view to possibly exhibiting these photos at the hospice, together with photographs from the Sir Benjamin Stone collection. Outcomes from this project were shared with a local arts forum through a master-class.

3.2 Successfully overcoming the challenges As with all projects, as well as successes there are also challenges to overcome. One of the key and ongoing challenges is how best to measure the positive impact of the Arts Champions scheme. Although the numbers of participants has been recorded, it is recognised that a more detailed monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of the scheme is needed, not only measuring the number of residents participating in the arts but also measuring the impact on wider community life.

For some of the Arts Champions, ensuring audience participation has also been a challenge. For example, East Birmingham’s Hodge Hill constituency is characterised by high levels of economic deprivation and low levels of educational attainment. It is also characterised by the contrasting nature of the two main communities living in the four constituency wards. So when The REP theatre company was working with Hodge Hill, it had to overcome the huge challenge of ensuring engagement and interaction with citizens from both the main communities there.

It has also been recognised that the expectations for each Arts Champion need to be realistic and also need to be in line with their individual capabilities. In addition, some Arts Champions feel that the scheme objectives are too vague, even though it is argued that this allows arts organisations to be more flexible and innovative in how they deliver Arts Champions programmes. So finding a solution to this dilemma, so that the objectives can be clear yet provide flexibility, is regarded as a challenge for the next phase.

Another key challenge is to create effective strategic collaboration between all the organisations involved. This challenge was explained in an interview for a 2009 community arts evaluation, as follows:

‘One of the highlighted difficulties amongst partners is that the partnership and contact between constituency offices and champions also varies, with different levels of collaboration around local priorities and objectives. This has an impact upon the scheme through the nature of the partnerships and delivery varying substantially from short term arts project delivery, to longer term arts project planning through to a more consultative, strategic arts mentoring/advisory role.’

Burkmar, J., 2009. Community Arts Team (CAT) Evaluation Report, Section 4.1.9

A 2009 e-survey asked constituency officers and Arts Champions organisations to rate the importance of six of the key benefits of the Arts Champions scheme in helping them to overcome the challenges of involving citizens in the arts. Two aspects that are considered extremely important by the majority of council officers and Arts Champions are, firstly, that the scheme is

9 www.ikon-gallery.co.uk.

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Question 4: Please rate the importance of the following benefits to your organisation/constituency.

0

2

4

6

8

10

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TheGeographicalfocus of Artsorganisationsoutside of theCity Centre.

The fundingavailable through

the scheme.

Building newaudiences for

city centre work.

Participatoryengagementwith the city'sresidents on

their doorstep.

Consultativeengagementwith the city's

residents.

Developingadvocates

throughpartnershipworking with

Birmingham CityCouncil/ArtsChampions.

Extremely important Very important Fairly important Not important

focused away from the city centre, and secondly, that it offers arts funding. The four other aspects that were seen as either extremely important or very important by most respondents are: the way that the scheme builds new audiences for the city centre arts and culture, the way it gets residents to participate in the arts on their doorstep, the way that the scheme consults local residents and the way it helps to develop advocates. The results are shown in more detail in the following bar chart.

Data taken from Birmingham City Council Arts Champions Scheme e-survey circulated to Arts Champions, Constituencies and Members, August 2009.

4. SUSTAINABILITY AND DISSEMINATION

4.1 Sharing the model The latest three-year Arts Champions partnerships started in April 2011. The scheme allows for a one year legacy planning in existing constituencies and adequate handover time in the next constituency, to help maximise outputs and ensure sustainability.

The Arts Champions model has been shared with other cities in the UK and Europe, as there is potential for a similar approach to be taken by other local authorities. An alternative is for groups of local authorities to work together: they may not have their own local arts companies but may have the potential to draw on the resources of regional companies.

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4.2 Future funding Birmingham’s Arts Champions scheme is currently funded by the local constituencies and by the Arts Champions organisations. If further cuts are made to the city’s budgets, funding may change. However, there is a commitment from all involved to maintain the programme long-term, in order to increase participation and social cohesion.

Although the the Arts Champions scheme is having a positive overall impact, its scale and sustainability have been limited to some extent so far. A key area for evaluation in 2011 has been cost-effectiveness. Analysis of research interviews with those involved in organising Arts Champions projects suggests that three of the Arts Champions partnerships are very cost-effective and running very well, while the remaining partnerships are becoming more cost-effective, as they become more efficient in collaborating to deliver arts programmes, and in maximising the numbers of citizens involved.

An evaluation of the scheme’s current strengths and weaknesses, together with the opportunities and threats it is likely to face in the future, was recently undertaken through a SWOT10 analysis. Funding is the main external threat that was identified. With the pressure on city and constituency budgets in the current economic climate, there are now fewer revenue funded arts organisations in Birmingham.

4.3 A vision for sustainability In a recent consultative process, people involved in the Arts Champions scheme were asked what success would look like in five years time, to ensure sustainability for the Birmingham Arts Champions scheme. The following points summarise their vision for the Birmingham Arts Champions scheme in five year’s time, grouped under six headings:

profile: the scheme will be recognised both locally and nationally as a model of good practice for engaging local residents in arts and culture;

participation: the scheme will have empowered residents to recognise the benefits of getting involved in the arts so that they are more pro-active in regularly seeking out opportunities to be involved in, engage with and enjoy arts activities;

sharing/networking: the scheme will have built sustainable networks within each constituency that raise awareness of the multiple pathways to the arts and to arts related opportunities across the city, so that people and organisations in every constituency continue to be involved in the arts;

evaluation/documentation: the scheme will have enabled each constituency to recognise the value of the arts and to consider the arts to be a local core business;

growth/sustainability: the scheme will have created a tangible legacy of multimedia evidence, including exhibitions and archives, documenting the success of Birmingham’s Arts Champions scheme.

activities offered: the scheme will be sustainable with strong local leadership, ownership, capacity and resources in place for the Arts Champions scheme to continue further into the future.

10 A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or business; a SLOT analysis is an alternative approach that evaluates the Strengths, Limitations, Opportunities, and Threats of a project or business.

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4.4 Action for sustainability To achieve the above five year vision and ensure further sustainability, Birmingham’s Arts Champions scheme needs to:

identify additional financial resources to be used strategically to target support across the city’s constituencies;

embed the arts locally through three-year plans that highlight orts organisations who can act as Arts Champions advisors and deliverers;

audit the achievements of the Arts Champions scheme through monitoring, collating and evaluating qualitative and quantitative evidence of the positive value of the arts, to provide a model of good practice;

develop a role for the Arts Champions so that they act as capacity builders for the arts locally, through local bespoke arts partnerships that allow smaller arts organisations to work together;

encourage the organic growth of sustainable emerging new arts organisations that can develop a rich arts offering within each constituency to reflect the needs of the local community.

By focusing on the priorities above, it is expected that the Birmingham Arts Champions scheme will be able to continue long term, thereby helping to further increase participation in the arts for citizens across the city, and further helping to improve social cohesion and well-being.

5. WEB LINKS AND CONTACT DETAILS

For information on the Arts Champions scheme, please see the following websites:

www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite/arts.champions or click here.

The Birmingham Arts Champions organisations include:

www.brb.org.uk (Birmingham Royal Ballet)

www.cbso.co.uk (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra)

www.birmingham-rep.co.uk (Birmingham Repertory Theatre)

www.the-drum.org.uk

www.birminghamhippodrome.com

www.excathedra.co.uk

www.ikon-gallery.co.uk

www.macarts.co.uk (Mac Birmingham)

Constituencies:

Hall Green constituency Arts Champions programme

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Contact details:

Symon Easton

Deputy Head, Birmingham Culture Commissioning Service

Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery,

Birmingham City Council

Telephone: 0121 303 1301

Email: [email protected].

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