A New Cultural Strategy for Hampshire?

Discussion Document

Background
Enjoying Hampshire – helping people make the most of living in and visiting Hampshire was adopted by the County Council as a core strategic document in 2003. Since then it has underpinned the development of the Council’s cultural, sporting and recreational services and guided the approach to its growing cultural partnerships with other local authorities, government agencies and cultural institutions.

The strategy defined a set of unifying principles for the development of the Council’s cultural services:

• Stewardship – conserving and caring for the cultural heritage
• Equality of access to cultural services
• Increasing and broadening participation in cultural activities
• Promoting inclusiveness in service provision
• Supporting learning at all levels
• Securing economic benefits from cultural activity
• Valuing local distinctiveness and sense of place.

The strategy went on to create a vision for Hampshire in which the County Council and its partners would:

• Support the preservation, conservation, development and promotion of Hampshire’s cultural heritage
• Enable forward looking, innovative and creative cultures to flourish in the county
• Encourage affordable easy access to high quality cultural activities and facilities for all
• Facilitate the recognition and understanding of the history of Hampshire and its people, in the context of United Kingdom, European and world history
• Ensure that learning opportunities offered by cultural facilities and activities of Hampshire are fully utilised
• Promote and encourage the sharing of the cultures of minority groups within the county, and
• Ensure that cultural activity plays an increasing role in the economy of the county in a sustainable way.

No specific timetable was set for the review of the strategy’s effectiveness and continuing relevance, but during 2006 limited consultation took place with a view to updating and revising it. However, it is now clear that significant developments during the last year at both the national and the local level need to be considered and assimilated.

Firstly, the County Council has reviewed and revised its own corporate strategy. Under the banner “Looking after Hampshire, looking out for you” clear priorities and specific targets have been set and a corporate business plan has been developed to support delivery.

In the autumn of 2006 the government published Strong and Prosperous Communities, its White Paper on the future of local government. This set out far reaching and ambitious proposals for the reform of the relationship between central and local government. More details emerged as the enabling legislation passed through its Parliamentary stages during this year. The central concept is the revitalising of Local Strategic Partnerships, led by local authorities, with responsibilities for producing new Sustainable Community Strategies delivered through Local Area Agreements negotiated with government. Existing performance management regimes (Comprehensive Performance Assessments etc.) would be replaced by a scaled down regulatory framework that would concentrate on the capacity of Local Strategic Partnerships to deliver improvements against the agreed local priorities.

At the same time, the County Council has been examining with other local authorities in the county how the existing two tier system of local administration (three tier in parished areas) could be improved. These discussions have been given added impetus by the publication of the Local Government White Paper. The “constitutional conversation” has explored the possibility of instituting a “Hampshire Senate” supported by a number of formally constituted county-wide strategic partnerships on key themes, including culture, leisure and sport.

The revision of Enjoying Hampshire was originally seen as a largely technical exercise. With these major developments over the last year, we have come to the conclusion that the County Council needs to carry out a more fundamental reassessment of its cultural policies in consultation with its partners.

The County Council is publishing this document as a first contribution to the debate about the future strategic direction for cultural services in the county. At this stage, we have not reached any definite conclusions and the document does not make any detailed proposals. We want to stimulate discussion of key concepts and come to a better understanding of the factors influencing the cultural life of the county. We then want to develop through further consultation a new cultural strategy that is relevant to current and future needs.

The discussion document is laid out in two main parts. The first is concerned with the understanding of key concepts. It moves from looking at various definitions of culture, through a survey of new concepts of cultural value to a suggestion that cultural entitlement might a key principle of a new strategy. The second part reviews the specific factors affecting the future cultural life of Hampshire. A brief sketch of the special quality of Hampshire’s cultural geography is followed by an outline of a range of demographic, social and economic factors that will affect the cultural life of the county over the coming years.

This document is concerned mainly with the role of public bodies and cultural institutions in the cultural life of the county, but we would also really like to hear the thoughts of anybody who has an interest in these issues. To help focus responses, a number of questions are posed at the end of each main section and we would particularly value your comments on these. The results of this consultation will be published at the end of the year.