Decision - Cultural Strategy

To agree a Cultural Strategy for the city council, which sets out the strategic direction for the council's cultural services over the next 5-10 year period. The strategy will be recommended to the Council for final approval and adoption.

This item has been deferred from the 12 March Cabinet meeting to the 23 April meeting to ensure that the consultation timetable and order of consultation can be met satisfactorily.

Note: This item had been deferred at the request of the Director from the 23 April Meeting the 11^th June Cabinet.

(1)       That Cabinet agrees the Cultural Strategy set out in the appendix to this report.

(2)       That Cabinet agrees that the strategy be reviewed in 12 months time and as part of that review further detailed consultation with partners and a full Equalities Impact Assessment be undertaken.

1.     The actions resulting from the Cultural Strategy are not controversial and universally seek to improve the social and economic circumstances in the city. 

2.     Culture is a unique strength of Brighton and Hove, this strategy seeks to exploit that in many directions in order to achieve improvement at a time when it is most needed.

1.     The production of a Cultural Strategy is not a statutory requirement and as an authority Brighton and Hove has not had a Cultural Strategy at this level of detail before.  The impact of the previous very short and headline document was not widely felt, partners were not aware of it and nor were Members or senior officers in the council.  Additionally, it did not draw together different cultural service areas, but kept them very separate.

2.     Brighton and Hove as an authority has, in effect,  been operating an ‘alternative option’ over the last few years; embedding cultural strategy in other policy documents and working directly from more detailed sub-sectoral documents.  Whilst these are both necessary and useful, they do not universally provide an overarching and outward facing document that can be used both as a position statement and framework for partners and stakeholders to join with.