Arts Council England’s Sir Peter Bazalgette and Phil Gibby Visit Plymouth

We were very pleased to welcome Sir Peter Bazalgette (Chair of Arts Council England) and Phil Gibby (Area Director, South-West, of ACE) to Plymouth yesterday.  Although it was a whistle-stop afternoon tour for the both of them, we endeavoured to introduce them to a cross-section of Plymouth’s cultural scene.

Firstly, a meeting with Plymouth City Council.  Sir Peter Bazalgette (“call me Baz”) and Phil were impressed by the local government’s commitment to cultural development in Plymouth – a very positive outlook when so many councils over the UK are cutting their arts and culture budgets completely.  Plymouth Culture is currently working with the council to integrate cultural development into the city’s Plymouth Plan, ensuring it remains a major aspect of Plymouth’s future development.  Baz was taken in by the passion of Council Leader Tudor Evans to incorporate culture as a key driver for the city’s growth – and he got a signed copy of the Plymouth Book of Wonder from Tudor too.

Baz was impressed by Plymouth City Council’s commitment to cultural development in Plymouth

After this was a tour around the city’s Museum and Art Gallery to discuss the up-coming History Centre – a major development which will revolutionise Plymouth’s heritage and artistic offer (due to open in 2020), and a tour of Plymouth University and Peninsula Arts.  Plymouth University have recently opened a stunning new performance venue, “The House”, on North Hill.

Baz and Phil were then taken to a ‘high-tea’ event at Rumpuscosy where they got the chance to meet some of the city’s new and exciting artistic enterprises, including the River Tamar Project, Effervescent, Plymouth Fringe Festival, New Model Theatre, Changing Face, Artory, KARST and PAC Home, Literature Works and Ocean Studios.  It was a good opportunity for these groups to have a frank conversation with ACE, questioning Baz and Phil over their funding commitments, where ACE could provide extra support and what the best methods are for inspiring cultural development in cities.

It was great to meet Baz and Phil – they are incredibly supportive and interesting people, with arts and cultural development at the heart of everything they do.  They were very impressed by the scale and innovation of Plymouth’s cultural scene.  New projects such as Artory are at the cutting-edge of cultural development, the ‘Plymouth Fringe’ performance festival will be an exciting addition to our calendars, and KARST produces incredibly high quality new exhibitions.  The really exciting aspect is that none of the projects around the table existed three or four years ago – Plymouth is really booming in terms of it’s cultural scene.

Arts Council England’s Area Director for the South-West, Phil Gibby, was very impressed by the grass-roots cultural scene in Plymouth

However, there is still work to do, and Baz and Phil pointed out areas where we could be performing better as a city.  We currently create a lower-than-average number of Grants For The Arts applications to ACE, which means we are attracting less grass-roots funding than other cities.  80% of ACE investment in Plymouth goes to major organisations and ventures, and we need to do more to support and develop smaller arts projects.  Artory’s groundbreaking analytics will help all venues to learns how audiences feel about their events, and will give venues the power to create frameworks to deliver consistently successful productions – a huge boost in helping to secure future funding.

After much too short a time, Baz and Phil were whizzed off to the Theatre Royal for the last leg of their visit.  Birmingham Royal ballet were in town and Baz enjoyed the show greatly!

Baz enjoyed seeing Birmingham Royal Ballet perform at the Theatre Royal

Plymouth and Cultural Diversity

The Chair of the Arts Council, Sir Peter Bazalgette, recently gave a momumental and thought-provoking speech about the state of diversity in the arts sector – a speech that summed up the Arts Council’s ‘Creative Case for Diversity’.

Sir Peter divulged that the arts sector is lagging behind others in terms of the professional progression of talent from diverse and sometimes marginalised backgrounds – the arts sector simply isn’t representative of the cultural makeup of England, and we’re suffering as a result. Sir Peter (or Baz as he is affectionately known) also stressed that different areas have vastly different demographics – and this should be reflected in the make up and offerings of local cultural institutions.

Plymouth has a unique population. The 2011 census listed Plymouth as having a 92.9% White-British population, making it one of the ‘whitest’ areas of the UK. However, the ethnic diversity of the city is growing, with the highest percentages of Chinese and Arab origin residents this side of Bristol. Plymouth is also a very poor city – 21.9% of under 16s are in poverty, a shocking statistic. 1 in 3 people in Plymouth – over 70,000 people – are living in deprivation. The big question arises – do cultural organisations in the city do enough to include and represent our diversity? Or is it too “pale, male and stale”?

Instead of working almost exclusively with small organisations that specifically promote BME opportunities or social inclusion, Sir Peter will institute a campaign that asks every cultural institution to do a lot more; “from now on the responsibility for promoting diversity within the leadership, workforce, programming and audiences, must belong to all our funded arts organisations.”

So will there be a shift in priorities for Arts Council funded institutions in Plymouth? What do you think needs to happen to make sure Plymouth represents it’s population?

Find out more about Sir Peter Bazalgette’s speech here or view the transcript online here.  There are some really interesting debates chaired as part of the discussion, and videos of them can be found here