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Reading, Place of Culture Year 2 Report

Reading, Place of Culture

Year 2 Report

Edited by Ruth Melville

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Contents

Executive Summary 4

Strands of Work ............................................................................................ 4

Outcomes .................................................................................................... 4

Conclusions .................................................................................................. 6

Recommendations ......................................................................................... 7

Introduction 8

Great Place Scheme: ‘Reading, Place of Culture’ ................................................ 8

Overall evaluation approach and methods....................................................... 10

Strand data gathering approaches ................................................................. 12

Report structure ......................................................................................... 14

Section 1: Analysis of outcomes for Reading, Place of Culture 15

1. Developing strategic partnerships .............................................................. 15

2. Increasing Arts, Culture and Heritage Engagement ....................................... 16

3. Changing Pride and Perceptions of Reading’s offer ........................................ 18

4. Strengthening the Arts, Culture and Heritage Sector .................................... 20

5. Creating evidence, tools and models to show the value of culture ................... 23

Conclusions and key learning ........................................................................ 25

Recommendations ....................................................................................... 26

Section 2: Reading Thames Festival Strand reports 29

Reading Thames Festival 2019 - Audience Feedback Analysis Summary 29

Reading Thames Festival 2019 – Audiences, Artists and Impact 35

Introduction ............................................................................................... 35

Artists’ views on quality ............................................................................... 36

Supporting artist development ...................................................................... 37

Festival logistics and artist experience ............................................................ 39

Reading Thames Festival 2019: Audience demographics and economic impacts ... 40

Reading Thames Festival review .................................................................... 47

Section 3: Cultural Commissioning Reporting 48

Cultural Commissions Case Studies 48

Case study 1: Alana House ........................................................................... 49

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Case study 2: Museum Partnership Reading .................................................... 54

Case study 3: Reading Rep ........................................................................... 59

Next Steps in Cultural Commissions ............................................................... 65

Conclusion ................................................................................................. 68

2019 Cultural Commissioning Programme Pilots 70

Year 2 Cultural Commissioning Sector Development ......................................... 72

Section 4:Whitley Researchers Reporting 74

Reading, Place of Culture and the Whitley Researchers: Communities,

Participation And Shared Learning 74

The Whitley Researchers: Context ................................................................. 74

What are the Whitley Researchers adding to Reading’s Great Place scheme? ....... 74

Wider Impact ............................................................................................. 75

Year 2 outcomes: ........................................................................................ 77

Diversity and Ageing Well: Research exploring older residents’ and BAME

community attitudes to engaging in ACH in Reading 78

Overview ................................................................................................... 78

1. Cultural provision for older residents in Reading .......................................... 78

2. A sense of belonging: Views of BAME communities and organisations.............. 81

Section 5: Reading UK CIC Culture and Business Reporting 83

Business Engagement in the Cultural Sector 83

Introduction ............................................................................................... 83

Executive Summary .................................................................................... 84

The Brief and Methodology ........................................................................... 85

National Context ......................................................................................... 86

Reading Context ......................................................................................... 89

Survey of Cultural Organisations ................................................................... 94

Survey of Established Businesses .................................................................. 98

Conclusions .............................................................................................. 101

‘Top Tips’ ................................................................................................. 103

Appendix 1: Reading, Place of Culture Story of Change .................................. 106

Appendix 2 .............................................................................................. 107

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Executive Summary

Reading, Place of Culture, one of 16 Great Places Schemes funded by Arts

Council England, Historic England and the Heritage Lottery is jointly led and

delivered by Reading Borough Council, Reading UK CIC and Reading

University and runs from 2018-2020.

It aims to make Reading a better place to live, work and visit, with a culture of

collaboration across sectors – where caring for and engaging people is achieved in

partnership between the public, private and voluntary sectors. Through this it will

support Reading to enhance its cultural offer, drive economic growth, and improve the

quality of life for people in Reading.

Strands of Work

1. Reading Thames Festival is an annual festival which celebrates Reading’s unique

identity, showcases new work and creates exhilarating audience experiences,

revealing Reading as a place of ‘parks and rivers’ and ‘culture and diversity’.

2. The Cultural Commissioning Programme empowers local organisations to

develop cross-sector partnerships to engage marginalised or hard-to-reach

communities in arts, culture and/or heritage programmes. Year 2 saw the culmination

of three commissions and the funding of three new ones. Other activity included pilot

activity around ageing and young people and a new Ageing Well Partnership.

3. The Research Programme is co-produced by the University of Reading and the

Whitley Researchers. It aims to develop best practice for borough-wide engagement,

geared towards the needs of Reading’s diverse communities.

4. Culture and Business Engagement aims to further develop the relationships

between the business community and cultural organisations in order to support key

economic development objectives for ‘good growth’ and delivery of the long-term

2050 Vision for the town.

Outcomes

Five key outcome areas have been identified across the four strands:

1. Developing strategic partnerships

At the heart of Reading, Place of Culture is the desire to fundamentally shift how arts,

culture and heritage (ACH) are embedded into the town at a strategic level. Reading,

Place of Culture emphases the importance of ensuring strategic partnerships

recognise the value of culture, and are influenced by ACH organisations, and. more

importantly, by the key beneficiaries of the work.

Reading, Place of Culture has:

Begun to develop new partnerships which embed culture.

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Supported projects which enhance local voice in commissioning.

Further to go to fully embed culture into the key strategic partnerships in

Reading as a whole.

2. Increasing Arts, Culture and Heritage Engagement

Offering more arts, culture and heritage to more people in Reading will provide more

enjoyment and improve wellbeing for local communities, as well as generate longer

term sustainability for the sector.


Produced high quality work which is appreciated by audiences.

Taken steps to understand and overcome the barriers to engagement among

the communities who currently engage least in culture.

A need to carry out further work to broaden the reach of Reading Thames

Festival beyond a local already-engaged audience.

3. Changing Pride and Perceptions of Reading’s offer

Reading, Place of Culture aimed to change perceptions of Reading in three main ways:

Increasing belonging, sense of community and pride in Reading among the

people of Reading – to improve confidence and sense of self.

Improving and increasing external perceptions of Reading – particularly its

cultural offer – to show its attraction as a place to live and work.

Improving knowledge and perception of Reading’s cultural offer among the

local business community – to enhance engagement, partnerships and

funding.


Increased belonging and pride among those engaged in the Festival and in

Cultural Commissions.

Gained greater understanding of business perceptions of the cultural offer.

Started to understand the barriers to changing perceptions among businesses

and visitors.

Considerable work to do in 2020 if it wishes to shift perceptions among

businesses and potential visitors to Reading.

4. Strengthening the Arts, Culture and Heritage Sector

A stronger arts, culture and heritage sector enhances quality of life and brings

economic value to the town. In addition, it can impact on place making and inward

investment, and thus the future of Reading as a whole.


Increased skills, confidence and knowledge amongst arts, cultural and heritage

organisations in commissioning.

Led to the formation, or strengthening, of key cross-sector partnerships which

are already delivering work.

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Developed ACH sector organisations’ networks within the sector and with the

voluntary and community sector.

A continued need to develop skills, confidence and knowledge – particularly

around engaging with business, evaluation and evidence development.

5. Creating evidence, tools and models to show the value of culture

Reading, Place of Culture recognised the need for the sector to be able to explain its

worth in language that was understood by a range of funders and use evidence that

would be seen as robust and meaningful.


Supported further development of the Whitley Researcher practice – offering

high quality community-embedded research into the ACH sectors.

Developed understanding among ACH organisations of the need to evidence

their value beyond their usual networks.

Developed understanding among non-culture organisations, particularly health

staff, of the value of culture in delivering outcomes.

Begun to develop the evidence base for the value of culture to Reading as a

whole.

Further work to do in embedding skills and understanding around evidencing

impact within the sector.

More work required in sharing the learning and ensuring the legacy use of the

work beyond the project partners.

Conclusions

Reading, Place of Culture has greatest potential as a catalyst, sitting alongside a

myriad of other local initiatives, building on previous work, while promoting a longer-

term vision for change. At the end of year 2 of the Great Places Funding, Reading,

Place of Culture is at a crucial point in terms of embedding learning so far and

ensuring legacy. Positive outcomes include:

New, active partnerships formed – for example, Ageing Well Partnership.

Real opportunities offered for an authentic community voice to feed

into decision making in Reading – through the work of the Whitley

Researchers and from new projects, such as the Cultural Champions.

Positive experiences of audiences and participants in Reading Thames

Festival and the work of the Cultural Commissions in terms of enjoyment,

pride in Reading, and increased sense of belonging and wellbeing.

Increased understanding of the barriers to engagement of particularly

hard to reach groups.

Stronger evidence and increased ability to understand the community

through the work of the Cultural Commissions and particularly the Whitley

Researchers.

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Strong partnerships between arts, culture and heritage organisations, and

those from voluntary, community, health and social care sectors. These deliver

projects that bring significant life enhancement to participants, develop shared

understanding of how different sectors work, and show the social impact that

adding creativity can bring.

There is a lot of further work to be done, particularly around:

Embedding culture at a strategic level, an essential step if Reading, Place

of Culture is to achieve legacy from its three years.

Reaching the business community and potential visitors to Reading,

through more a more targeted approach to design and marketing of the

Festival, and specific activities with the business sector.

Sharing and ensuring the legacy of the learning from the project,

through dissemination at all levels, but particularly with a focus on strategic

partners and sectors beyond arts, culture and heritage.

Recommendations

We recommend that Reading, Place of Culture partners work together to:

1. Ensure that culture is embedded in strategic partnerships. This should

sit with senior leaders from the partner organisations and the ACH sector.

2. Develop a clear set of audience targets and outcomes for the Reading

Thames Festival – then use this to inform all marketing strategy and

planning.

3. Trial and evaluate specific approaches to business engagement which

fit with other elements of the Reading, Place of Culture offer.

4. Continue to develop the level of evidence collection and dissemination

of learning from the Cultural Commissions.

5. Carry out succession planning for key elements of the work – the

Cultural Commissions, the Festival and the Whitley Researchers – to

ensure they continue beyond 2021.

6. Share learning across sectors, maximise value and guarantee legacy

by ensuring dissemination is sufficiently supported with resources and

strategic targeting of key audiences. The planned symposium at the end of

2020 is key to this.

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Introduction

Great Place Scheme: ‘Reading, Place of Culture’

Reading’s ‘Great Place Scheme’ – ‘Reading, Place of Culture’ –is jointly led and

delivered by Reading Borough Council, Reading UK CIC and Reading University and

runs from 2018-2020. Its aim is to make Reading a better place to live, work and

visit, with a culture of collaboration across sectors – where caring for and engaging

people is achieved in partnership between the public, private and voluntary sectors. In

doing this, the programme will enable Reading to enhance its cultural offer, drive

economic growth, and improve the quality of life for people in Reading.

The Great Place Scheme is an innovative national programme developed as a

collaboration between Arts Council England, Historic England and the Heritage Lottery.

Reading is one of 16 ‘Great Places’ in the country to be awarded funding following a

competitive bidding process and is the only urban area in the South-East outside

London to have secured ‘Great Place’ status.

2019 was the programme’s second year. Partners worked to deliver four key strands:

1. Reading Thames Festival

The Festival built on its 2017 launch and the work in 2018 by supporting, producing

and presenting creative projects that foster social engagement and new artistic

experiences in Reading. It delivered its annual autumn programme of activity whilst

working year-round to act as a catalyst for arts and culture development in Reading.

The Festival continued to celebrate Reading’s unique identity and present new works

of performing arts, design, literature, moving image, visual arts and popular culture.

It developed engaging, participatory, multi-sensory events for all ages that utilised a

range of venues and outdoor sites. These created exhilarating audience experiences

and showcased Reading as a town of ‘parks and rivers’ and ‘culture and diversity’.

2. The Cultural Commissioning Programme

The Programme empowered local organisations to develop cross-sector partnerships

to engage marginalised or hard-to-reach communities in arts, culture and/or heritage

programmes. It aimed to mainstream the commissioning of cultural activities for

social outcomes in two ways;

Making public service commissioners more aware of the potential for arts,

culture and heritage organisations to deliver effective interventions around

their priority outcomes.

Enabling the arts, culture, heritage and voluntary sectors to better engage

with public sector commissioning.

In terms of commissions, Year 2 saw:

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The culmination of the first three (June 2018-June 2019) – each with £15,000

of funding.

The commissioning of three more, funded for a total of £75,000 – including

£30,000 ‘partner’ funding from local trusts and foundations and Reading’s

Children’s services.

Other Year 2 activities included a Creative Employment pilot, the formation of a

Cultural Commissioning community steering group and the creation of a new Ageing

Well partnership.

3. The Research Programme

This was co-produced by the University of Reading and the Whitley Researchers. It

aimed to develop best practice for borough-wide engagement, geared towards the

needs of Reading’s diverse communities.

The Whitley Researchers are a participatory action research partnership between the

Whitley Community Development Association , local residents and the University of

Reading. The aim is to engage and involve communities in conducting their own

research. The team are piloting innovative ways of exploring local resident’s lived

experiences of culture and heritage, as well as understanding their views on health

and wellbeing. This then informs the cultural commissioning, festival programmes and

evaluation frameworks.

A ‘Young Researchers’ team is also being developed at John Madejski Academy and

other local schools. They will be creating visual methods and interactive community

events to explore young people’s ideas around art, heritage and place.

Community research is also an exercise in partnership and participation. The Whitley

Researchers are working to enhance the sharing of knowledge and best practice

across (and beyond) local communities, project partners and cultural/arts

organisations in Reading.

4. The Culture and Business Engagement Strand

This strand aims to further develop the relationships between the business community

and cultural organisations in order to support key economic development objectives

for ‘good growth’ and delivery of the long-term 2050 Vision for the town.

Reading UK (the town’s economic development agency) is taking a lead role in the

work on business engagement and has embraced cultural development as an integral

component of its economic development role. A significant track record includes

leading on the delivery of the Year of Culture 2016, the Reading-on-Thames Festival,

Cultural Awards, Business Relocation Guide and successfully establishing a 2nd

Business Improvement District (BID) in 2019 focused on the Abbey Quarter

(complementing the existing BID covering the town’s retail core that was also

renewed in 2019). In 2018 Reading UK also led on a successful Christmas promotion

campaign that incorporated a range of cultural activities to increase footfall, enhance

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reputation and, ultimately, ensure the town’s offer was competitive and its businesses

thrived.

The following report will explore the listed projects in further detail, and outline the

activities, achievements and outcomes delivered during Year 2 of Reading’s Great

Place Scheme.

Overall evaluation approach and methods

Evaluation Framework

MB Associates were commissioned to develop a framework for the evaluation of ‘Great

Places: ‘Reading, Place of Culture’’, and to support the team in implementing the

evaluation framework and carrying out data collection and preliminary analysis.

This framework needed to take into account the National Evaluation of Great Places

criteria and guidance, as well as the specific local realities and aims of ‘Reading, Place

of Culture’. The model agreed was that:

MB Associates would develop the framework and support implementation;

‘Reading, Place of Culture’ partners would collect data and do preliminary

analysis;

MB Associates would supplement the latter with direct data gathering in cases

where specific skills or independence is needed;

Finally, MB Associates would write independent evaluation reports in 2019 and

2020 when the data is available.

The entire approach is collaborative and embedded, with all elements of the

framework developed alongside the delivery teams. Training and support is also

provided on an ongoing basis, ensuring that both high quality data is collected and

evaluation skills are developed amongst partners.

Reading, Place of Culture Story of Change

The evaluation framework was developed from a Story of Change for ‘Reading, Place

of Culture’. The Story of Change is a workshop approach to planning and reviewing

the difference a programme wants to make and how. Using a Story of Change to plan

and review is at the heart of measuring what matters. It’s a logical approach which

reverse-plans from the difference we are hoping to make, to what we do and how we

do it; the Why? What? and How?

The Story of Change was developed by an initial workshop in May 2018 involving a

number of different groups:

Delivery teams from four Place of Culture strands

Representatives from local community and cultural organisations

Members of the Place of Culture Steering Group

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Cultural Partnership and Cultural Commissioning Boards

Local politicians

Senior university staff

Community members

Project participants.

This workshop, preliminary discussions with the team and partners, and all Place of

Culture documents, were used to develop the Story of Change document (see

Appendix 1). This forms the basis of the evaluation of ‘Reading, Place of Culture’. It

was updated in October 2019 following a review workshop that included the Reading,

Place of Culture Steering Group members and workers from all strands.

To give a clear framework for the three delivery organisations, seven question areas

were identified matching the ‘whys’ of the Story of Change, and data gathering

elements were developed:

Figure 1: Reading, Place of Culture outcome areas

Secondary analysis to draw out learning across Strands

Following the completion of data gathering and analysis by each strand, MB

Associates have compiled the reports and analysed across them to draw out:

Outcomes across the programme by outcome area.

Overall learning and recommendations.

Section 1 of this report covers this work.

Wider Partnerships

•Culture embedded

•Strong partnerships

•Local voice in commissioning

ACH engagement

•Knowledge

•Perception

•Confidence in accessing

Pride and Perceptions

•Sense of belonging

•Community connections

•Pride in Reading

•Perceptions of Reading

Stronger ACH sector

•Knowledge and skills

•Partnerships and connections

Evidencing value

•tools, evidence, models, skills

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Benefits and challenges

This approach has several benefits:

Ownership and understanding of the outcomes of the work by each strand lead

organisation.

Skills development within strands and commissions as they carry out their

evaluation with external support.

A nuanced approach draws out the learning in the format which best fits the

organisation or approach. For example, the more discursive style of some of

the Whitley Researcher reports (especially in Year 1) versus an action learning

style of Cultural Commissions and quantitative audience data.

Fit to available budget.

It also has challenges:

Lack of data compatibility means that it is not easy compare across strands.

Mix in the quality of the data and the data gathering approaches used.

Time needed from the project manager to chase, collate and ensure

compliance from various strands and projects.

Overall given the resource constraints, this approach remains the most appropriate.

Since the data gaps noted in the Year 1 report – which was compiled by the project

manager with support from MB Associates – additional support has been provided –

external evaluation of key areas (Reading Thames Festival) and training in measuring

social value (Cultural Commissions).

In addition to providing better data for reporting, these will leave a legacy of

improved evaluation skills and partnerships within Reading.

Strand data gathering approaches

Each strand is required to carry out their evaluation following the structure in the

evaluation framework and supported by MB Associates as external evaluators. The

approaches have been very different and are briefly outlined below strand by strand,

(fuller descriptions of methods are included in Sections 2-5):

Reading Thames Festival

Audience Survey: A set of shared questions – linked to the national

evaluation set questions – were identified or developed to be used for all

audience-related activity as part of the evaluation framework. These, along

with other questions about experience and spend were included in an audience

survey delivered on site and by follow up email after the event.

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Audience Postcode Analysis: Using postcodes gathered via the audience

survey an analysis of likelihood of arts engagement (Audience Spectrum),

Social grade and Deprivation levels were carried out.

Economic Impact Calculation: Using data from non-Reading based festival

attenders an analysis of the economic impact of the festival to Reading was

carried out.

Artist and Programmer Survey: A post-hoc survey gathered data from

artists and programmers to assess quality of the Festival and outcomes and

experiences for artists.

Cultural Commissioning

Story of Change and ‘in-project’ Data Gathering: All commissioned

organisations were supported to complete a Story of Change for their own

projects1. This helped them identify their aims and planned outcomes, and

select specific measures to use with participants as well as the standard

questions. These were gathered through the work in various ways and written

up as case studies and reports.

Action Learning Set: An action learning process was carried out to further

reflect on the learning – also written up through the case studies and reports.

Sector Development Survey: A questionnaire was developed to be used at

sector development events to explore outcomes for the sector in terms of

skills, understanding and networks gained.

Whitley Researchers

Participant Observation and in-depth Interviews: As an inherently

research based strand, the data gathering was built into the work and mainly

involved qualitative techniques such as in-depth interviews and participant

observation.

Business Engagement

Desk Research: Desk research was carried out to explore learning from other

towns and settings and to compile data from different surveys and perception

studies.

Interviews: Interviews were carried out with key businesses and cultural

organisations in Reading.

1 See in Appendix C

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Report structure

Due to the evaluation approach, this report has a slightly eccentric structure so that

authorship is clear throughout.

Section 1 is the overall analysis of the data, written by MB Associates and based

on an analysis of the available data and reports from each strand, this explores the

outcomes of Reading, Place of Culture by outcome areas and discusses the extent to

which it is meeting its aims as a Great Places Programme.

This section also includes the conclusions and recommendations from MB

Associates as external evaluation advisors.

Section 2 covers reports from the Reading Thames Festival strand, led by

Reading UK CIC.

Section 3 covers reports and updates from the Cultural Commissions Strand,

led by Reading Borough Council.

Section 4 covers reports and updates from the Whitley Researcher Strand, led

by University of Reading.

Section 5 contains a report from the Business engagement Strand, led by

Reading UK CIC.

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Section 1: Analysis of outcomes for

Reading, Place of Culture

Ruth Melville, MB Associates

This section draws together the learning, and concludes on the differences made. We

do this by outcome area:

1. Wider Partnerships

2. ACH engagement

3. Pride and Perceptions

4. Stronger ACH sector

5. Evidencing value

For all four strands together:

• Reading Thames Festival

• Cultural Commissioning

• The Research Programme

• Culture and Business Engagement

It draws from the reports presented in Sections 2–5, and acts as the key analysis of

the impacts of Reading, Place of Culture programme to date.

It includes recommendations for Year 3 of the programme.

1. Developing strategic partnerships

At the heart of Reading, Place of Culture is the desire to fundamentally shift

how arts, culture and heritage are embedded into the town at a strategic

level. Reading, Place of Culture emphases the importance of ensuring

strategic partnerships recognise the value of culture, and are influenced by

ACH organisations, and more importantly by the key beneficiaries of the

work.

We find that Reading, Place of Culture has:

Begun to develop new partnerships which embed culture.

Supported projects which enhance local voice in commissioning,

Further to go to fully embed culture into the key strategic partnerships

in Reading as a whole.

Strong partnerships

Two years into the programme, RPoC has further work to do to influence existing

strategic partnerships within Reading as a whole and embedding culture more firmly

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in them. The precursor work lays an excellent foundation for this. This includes the

background research (through pilot commissions and the business engagement work)

and evidencing the value ACH can bring to commissioning (through the Cultural

Commissions).

However, there have been a number of partnerships set up between ACH

organisations and other sectors – as discussed below – either influenced by or directly

resulting from RPoC.

As part of the RPoC project, the creation of Ageing Well Partnership offers a hugely

valuable strategic cross sector ‘joining up’ for Reading’s older people. It will enable

strategic oversight of opportunities and gaps in cultural engagement for older

residents in Reading. This is achieved through a diverse membership, including

hospital and community based health professionals, social care, voluntary and cultural

sector organisations. By networking and sharing opportunities, the Partnership

ensures that activities are widely circulated and made accessible for older residents.

Local voice in commissioning

The work of the Whitley Researchers has developed new models around including a

community voice within planning and delivering work in health, regeneration and

social sectors over the last several years. The partnership with RPoC gives a chance

for this work to extend into the ACH sector – specifically to support the voices of a

range of Reading’s communities to inform development of strategy and

commissioning. This needs to feed in at a senior strategic level – into partnerships,

commissioning meetings etc. The work does need to be acted on – the research also

showed the fact that many communities feel their voices are specifically excluded

from key partnerships.

Work is also needed at an organisation level with ACH sector organisations to

recognise:

The real barriers to engagement.

How to build partnerships to use creativity to overcome whatever are the key

issues for a given community.

The project is allowing space to build new alliances with organisations who are

prepared to work in this way.

The Ageing Well pilot, as well as Whitely Researchers’ contacts in the Older BAMER

communities, will directly inform commissioning. Through strong partnership working,

such as the Ageing Well Partnership, there is the likelihood that this voice will be

listened to and influence commissioning in the future.

2. Increasing Arts, Culture and Heritage Engagement

Offering more arts, culture and heritage to more people in Reading will

provide more enjoyment and improve wellbeing for local communities, as

well as generate longer term sustainability for the sector.

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Reading, Place of Culture is aiming to do this through raising ambition and

showcasing high quality work in the Reading Thames Festival, as well as

exploring and understanding barriers to engagement in the arts, culture and

heritage and trialling approaches to overcome them.


Produced high quality work which is appreciated by audiences.

Taken steps to understand and overcome the barriers to engagement

among the communities who currently engage least in culture.

A need to carry out further work to broaden the reach of Reading

Thames Festival beyond a local already-engaged audience.

Reaching new audiences with high quality art

The Reading Thames Festival led to wide enjoyment – 60% strongly agreed they had

a good time, with another 27% agreeing. The enjoyment was felt across demographic

groups.

88% of attenders were new to the festival in 2019, with 66% of these having been

unaware of it – showing that it is still reaching new audiences in its third year.

Taking a 360 degree view on excellence, the Festival quality was assessed by artists,

audiences and programmers. Overall all parties the quality of the offer was felt to be

high:

All artists scoring quality high on all of the Arts Council England Quality Metrics

areas.

Audiences too felt the offer was high quality with 77% strongly agreeing or

agreeing that quality was high.

Programmers felt the festival added additional reach and scale to the town’s

offer.

However the breadth of reach of the festival wasn’t as wide as it could have been. The

audiences mainly came from local communities who are likely to engage in the arts.

People from lower socio-economic groups, BAME, ‘less likely to be arts attenders’ and

the non-university educated were less likely to engage. It also failed to attract people

from outside Reading into the town, which was one of the aims of the festival.

There are a number of other ways in which new audiences to ACH are being reached.

The Cultural Commissions are to a large extent working with people who are less

likely to be involved in the arts and culture. In Alana House for example, the project

centred around taking and using photos to give a sense of voice and self-esteem.

Participants took photos and shared with friends – and reported they felt more

confident around photography and were more likely to use it in the future.

The work of the Whitley Researchers with Older BAMER communities will include

informing people of what is on offer. Most crucially, the Cultural Champions, as part of

the Ageing Well pilot, offer an on-the-ground, word of mouth route into potential new

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engagers. Local communities are most likely to listen to people they know and trust,

so this offers a real opportunity for the Reading ACH sector if they work closely with

these projects.

Understanding barriers to ACH engagement

Two cultural commissioning ‘pilots’ are exploring the barriers to older people’s

engagement in the ACH sector in Reading. They build on evidence which shows the

value of this sort of engagement in overcoming social isolation – one of the key issues

for older people. The pilots were commissioned based on a knowledge of the local

sector – arising from the Ageing Well Partnership – and a clear understanding of likely

key barriers.

These are still in progress, but both are being carried out through an action research

approach – not simply mapping barriers, but working on overcoming them. The Rising

Sun and Realtime Video project will develop a group of Cultural Champions for

Reading, older people who can consult on new initiatives and link others into services

and opportunities as they arise. The Whitley Researchers are exploring the barriers

faced by older people in the BAMER communities in accessing ACH and the potential

for a strategic approach to overcome this.

This developed a picture of what cultural engagement looks like for the different

communities of Reading. It has identified the prevalence of barriers – for example

93% of the BAMER Older People consulted in the Ageing Well pilot identified at least

one barrier for themselves. But it has also highlighted unexpected barriers – for many

people, a key barrier is wanting someone else to go with. This can be built on by ACH

organisations to offer appropriate programmes – perhaps buddying or champion style

approaches – or even built into further action research.

A Young People’s Mental Health Pilot is beginning to explore how the ACH sector can

meet the needs of young people with mental health issues, from the young person

perspective. This too will provide invaluable information and will hopefully lead to

further partnerships and projects.

3. Changing Pride and Perceptions of Reading’s offer

Reading, Place of Culture aimed to change perceptions of Reading in three

main ways:

Increasing belonging, sense of community and pride in Reading

among the people of Reading – to improve confidence and sense of

self.

Improving and increasing external perceptions of Reading –

particularly its cultural offer – to show its attraction as a place to live

and work.

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Improving knowledge and perception of Reading’s cultural offer

among the local business community – to enhance engagement,

partnerships and funding.


Increased belonging and pride among those engaged in the Festival

and in Cultural Commissions.

Gained greater understanding of business perceptions of the cultural

offer.

Started to understand the barriers to changing perceptions among

businesses and visitors.

Considerable work to do in 2020 if it wishes to shift perceptions

among businesses and potential visitors to Reading.

Enhancing belonging and connectivity among Reading’s communities

Among attenders, the Reading Thames Festival led to a sense of togetherness and

pride. 78% strongly agreed or agreed that it increased their pride in Reading, and

82% strongly agreed or agreed that it brought communities together.

The commissions had very positive wellbeing outcomes for participants, often linked

closely to a sense of connectivity with others. For example:

The older people who were participants in the MERL Commission had a

reduction in loneliness and social isolation.

As a result of being involved in the Alana House commission, participants

showed a reduction in anxiety around meeting new people and an increase in

self-esteem (measured using the Rozenberg Scale – see below).

Participants in the Reading Rep commission demonstrated enhanced

connectivity, with staff noting that individuals made more eye contact as a

result of the work.

There are these demonstrable direct benefits for participants who took part. But in

addition, there is a likely wider value in enhancing belonging and community

connections. This is the result of the further collaborations and partnerships between

ACH organisations and health and social care settings which are likely to arise as a

result of the work undertaken.

Changing perceptions of Reading

Change in perception among businesses based in Reading and businesses based

elsewhere and potential visitors were mainly likely to arise from two main strands –

the Reading Thames Festival and the Business Engagement Strand.

However, real change in this area is also part of the partnership work with the key

partners and underpins the whole of RPoC.

20

Outcomes to date have been mainly an increased understanding of the status quo and

potential options, through research undertaken in the Business Engagement Strand.

Work on the evaluation of Reading Thames Festival showed that while it was well

received by attenders, and enhanced pride in Reading for local residents, there is no

evidence that it had a wider reach. It is possible that the Festival made a difference to

perceptions of those that attended however the impact will be small as only 7% came

from outside of Berkshire. Economic impact research showed that it is unlikely it

brought much additional spend into the town, which might have been a driver for

changing perceptions of the value of culture to businesses.

These insights from the evaluations have led a planned review of the festival

approach, in consultation with RPoC partners and the local festival sector. This will

allow a clearer focus as to which audiences the festival could target to change

perceptions of Reading and Reading’s cultural offer.

Work on the business engagement strand has mainly been focused on research,

rather than action for change. It has identified other potential models of business

investment in ACH, and the barriers to be overcome.

There is a strong recognition among local businesses of the value of a strong cultural

offer in recruitment and retention of high quality staff. People place culture relatively

high in terms of what Reading has to offer new businesses, with many people seeing a

positive trajectory in terms of their perceptions of the sector over the last few years.

The businesses involved in the study felt they could and should do more to support

culture in Reading. This is a hopeful sign, but we should note these were likely to be

‘warmer’ businesses because of the self-selecting nature of the method used.

From the cultural organisations’ side, there was a recognition that there is some

support for the ACH sector from Reading businesses – almost entirely in ‘in-kind’

support such as venues, promotion, staff time and expertise. This seems largely to

happen on a small organisation-to-organisation basis, through individual links, and

might be dependent on key individual or hard to broaden beyond the central

relationship. There is a definite recognition that more input from businesses would be

welcome. This should probably be more strategic and ideally should involve direct

funding or sponsorship.

4. Strengthening the Arts, Culture and Heritage Sector

A stronger arts, culture and heritage sector enhances quality of life and

brings economic value to the town. In addition, it can impact on place

making and inward investment, and thus the future of Reading as a whole.


Increased skills, confidence and knowledge amongst arts, cultural and

heritage organisations around commissioning.

21

Led to the formation, or strengthening, of key cross-sector

partnerships which are already delivering work.

Developed ACH sector organisations’ networks within the sector and

with the voluntary and community sector.

A continued need to develop skills, confidence and knowledge –

particularly around engaging with business, evaluation and evidence

development.

Reading, Place of Culture aims to strengthen the sector by developing skills in terms

of funding diversification, awareness of business opportunities etc, by supporting

network and partnership development. This strengthening will be further enhanced by

the evidence base and skills around evaluation which are being developed – see

below.

This work lies at the core of the Cultural Commissions Strand but is also an important

part of the Research Strand, the Business Engagement Strand and the Reading

Thames Festival.

Knowledge and skills

Specific training given to ACH organisations has increased their confidence in

accessing commissioning and understanding how to apply for funding. As a result,

they feel more confident in building networks within the ACH sector, and in the

Voluntary and Community sectors. The work with health, regeneration and social

sectors still remains at a strategic level (see above) and has yet to affect most

Reading ACH organisations – although there have been major steps for those who

have received commissions.

As a result of the Reading Thames Festival, artists and local arts organisations who

worked with the Festival gained a range of skills – around producing artistic work and

working in different media – which enhanced their artistic practice. They also gained

in networking and other logistical skills.

Further work is planned with the local business sector for 2020. This aims to help

raise the ACH sector’s confidence and knowledge of how to engage with private sector

partners for funding, delivery and skills sharing partnerships.

Partnerships and connections

The Cultural Commissions have begun to increase recognition of the need for and

value of partnerships between the creative and health and social sectors. This is

affecting both sides. For example, the ACH sector organisations themselves are

recognising the potential these partnerships offer, and the need for strong evidence to

build them.

Health and social care partners are beginning to see the value of creative

interventions and of partnerships with the ACH sector in delivering their goals. The

fact that the Round 2 and 3 commissions get match funding from the health and

social care sectors is a key indicator of the recognition of value.

22

For example, the commission with MERL showed the potential of dance to have health

outcomes, including balance and stability and creative problem solving. Perhaps more

importantly on a local level, it showed how local health and care partners could

incorporate it in their work and offered a partnership to deliver it.

The collaboration between museums, university researchers and health care settings

resulted in joint and collaborative learning and the building of trusted relationships. It

identified a need for further work that will act as a driver for continued engagement.

The Alana House–PACT commission (working with PhotoVoice) achieved a number of

strategic outcomes:

Understanding the issues facing offenders - its core aim.

Exploring what a creative model of rehabilitation could look like – both its aim

and a strategic aim for the sector partners.

Developing learning about building partnerships.

The project showed clearly what ACH and creative approaches can bring to the

rehabilitation sector in two ways:

Producing clear, mutual benefits for both sides.

Using measurement tools valued within the specific sectors involved.

MERL have developed partnerships for working with older people across Reading,

linked into non-arts partners (such as Reading Older People’s week and Dementia

Action Alliance). Through this and other routes, the museums are positioning

themselves as ‘activity hubs’ rather than just museums.

All of these pave the way for future collaboration and funding bids to non-arts

partners.

As well as enhancing understanding of the barriers to engagement, the work of the

Whitley Researchers in itself is developing new partnerships between the community

and ACH sectors. The opportunity to have input to new projects and ideas from people

on the ground from an early stage is invaluable. The Whitley Researchers are being

increasingly asked to input to commissioning and project development.

There is emerging learning around how to build partnerships to embed impact

including:

The need to work with health care sector staff to devise and deliver

evaluation frameworks and measures which work with people in the settings,

but also are convincing to sector professionals.

The importance of setting up the partnership well. This includes

recognition of the different drivers and restrictions of the settings, and building

real partnerships with all parties involved in designing the project from the

start.

23

5. Creating evidence, tools and models to show the value of

culture

Reading, Place of Culture recognised the need for the sector to be able to

explain its worth in language that was understood by a range of funders and

use evidence that would be seen as robust and meaningful.

Research lies at the heart of Reading, Place of Culture’s structure, with

University of Reading, and particularly their highly skilled Whitley

Researcher partnership, as core partners. In addition, the Cultural

Commissions, aim to gain evidence, as well as build shared understanding, of

the value the sector can bring.


Supported further development of the Whitley Researcher practice –

offering high quality community-embedded research into the ACH

sectors.

Developed understanding among ACH organisations of the need to

evidence their value beyond their usual networks.

Developed understanding among non-culture organisations,

particularly health staff, of the value of culture in delivering outcomes.

Begun to develop the evidence base for the value of culture to Reading

as a whole.

Further work to do in embedding skills and understanding around

evidencing impact within the sector.

More work to do in sharing the learning and ensuring the legacy use of

the work beyond the project partners.

In the Whitley Researcher team Reading has a fantastic resource – people who are

highly skilled researchers, who also know and understand the local communities who

others find hard to engage. Reading, Place of Culture has gained immensely from

having this team as a partner, and the team have had the opportunity to expand their

work from a mainly social focus to include arts, culture and heritage. They have also

developed the Young Researcher team. This has expanded their practice but more

importantly brought a new set of perspectives to Reading’s strategic partnerships and

to its ACH sector in particular.

The Commissions have increased ACH organisations’ understanding of the importance

of tools, models and evidence to show the value of culture. They also highlight the

limits of knowledge and the challenges organisations face in gathering data that is

robust and meaningful for non-arts partners.

There were some useful pieces of work done which either created evidence, or began

or strengthened a partnership which will enhance this work in the future.

24

Reading Rep, through their commission, not only deepened their partnerships, but

began to develop more ways to evidence the value of their work in enhancing

wellbeing and mental health. The close involvement of Occupational Therapists in the

partnership was important as it allowed health outcomes to be tracked by embedded

health staff and evidence was in a language health care providers understand.

However, it also enhanced the health staff’s sense of the value of arts and culture in

producing wellbeing outcomes for their patients.

This commission helped articulate some of the challenges faced by addressing the

value of evidence when working in dementia settings. As a degenerative condition, it

is hard to assess what ‘progress’ looks like for someone with dementia. This further

shows the value of working with, and using evidence from, staff experienced in this

sector who can note things like an improvement in eye contact and other small, but

telling, changes.

The MERL commission trialled adding arts activities into their work with older people.

This meant they could show the value of a creative activity. In this case dance, which

could be compared to reminiscence work, an activity which is already known to be

effective in reducing loneliness and social isolation.

Through this commission, they developed a new partnership with academics at the

University of Reading which led to a more in-depth study. This will provide further

evidence of the value of arts and culture to the older people’s health and care sector.

The MERL commission also demonstrated the mechanics and requirements of research

and evaluation in the healthcare sector. For example, the experience of ethics panels

and the need to spend longer scoping and planning.

Another value of the work lies in the mixed method approach – using Warwick

Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS) as well as qualitative feedback which

has been analysed against the Five Ways to Wellbeing framework.

The fact that the work has already developed academic outputs – including a

conference poster – makes it more persuasive for possible funders and partners when

evidencing the (positive) value of culture.

In terms of the challenges, all organisations faced difficulties in gathering their data,

which is not at all unusual working with such vulnerable participants. For some, it

highlighted serious gaps in knowledge around how to approach evaluation and

evidencing value.

As a result, RPoC is putting in place two particular approaches to Rounds 2 and 3

commissions:

A more specific brief for the commissions which focuses on key impact

areas, requires a clearer evaluation plan, and most importantly requires more

central partnership working. This ensure the non-arts partner is at the heart of

planning, delivering and evaluating.

Additional training for all commissioned organisations in how to

measure Social Impact. Commissioned from MB Associates, this uses the

25

new Culture Cubed model which has been specifically developed for the ACH

sector to evidence social value. All commissioned organisations will receive

two full days of training along with ongoing mentoring through their

evaluations.

These changes will undoubtedly improve the quality of the evidence collected, and the

likelihood that the work – and outcomes – will be continued amongst ACH and non-

ACH partners.

The next steps are to share this learning more widely within Reading (and potentially

beyond) as good practice examples. It is important that this is done in a way that

speaks to non-culture agendas. With the groundwork done in health, rehabilitation,

social care and the private sectors, these are the most obvious audiences.

Conclusions and key learning

At the end of year 2 of the Great Places Funding, Reading, Place of Culture is at a

crucial point in terms of embedding learning so far, and ensuring legacy. There have

been a number of exciting outcomes such as:

New, active partnerships formed – for example, Ageing Well Partnership.

Real opportunities offered for an authentic community voice to feed

into decision making in Reading –through the existing high quality work of

the Whitley Researchers and newer work arising from the project including the

Cultural Champions.

Positive experiences of audiences and participants in Reading Thames

Festival and the work of the Cultural Commissions in terms of enjoyment,

pride in Reading, and increased sense of belonging and wellbeing.

Increased understanding of the barriers to engagement of particularly

hard to reach groups.

Stronger evidence and increased ability to understand the community

through the work of the Cultural Commissions and particularly the Whitley

Researchers.

Strong partnerships between ACH organisations, and those from voluntary,

community, health and social care sectors. These deliver projects that bring

significant life enhancement to participants, develop shared understanding of

how different sectors work, and show the social impact that adding creativity

can bring.

There is a lot of further work to be done, particularly around:

Embedding culture at a strategic level

Reaching the business community and potential visitors to Reading

Sharing and ensuring the legacy of the learning from the project.

http://culturecubed.org/

26

Initial work from MB Associates identified that ‘Reading, Place of Culture’ is hard to

delineate, sitting as it does alongside a myriad of other local initiatives, and building

on previous work, while promoting a longer term vision. We thus think it is most

useful to frame ‘Reading, Place of Culture’ as a catalyst for wider change, recognising

the wider agendas and pressures, and setting the aims as being to put the processes

in place for change, rather than to achieve all the changes desired.

This is reflected in the priorities in the Story of Change, and in this analysis, with

policy makers and commissioners at the top in terms of who we think the changes

need to happen to. The local and national business sectors are important players in

the future of Reading and Place of Culture should be a catalyst to changing

perceptions through the growth and quality reach of the Reading on Thames Festival.

Throughout, all partners recognise that the best quality commissioning is that done

with local community needs at the heart and the importance of evidencing the value

of culture for social and economic outcomes. As such Reading, Place of Culture

explicitly aims to create evidence, and develop the skills and confidence in the sector

and partners to make the case for cultural investment.

Recommendations

As well as continuing the excellent work outlined above, we recommend that Reading,

Place of Culture partners work together to:

1. Ensure that culture is embedded in strategic partnerships.

Further work is needed to ensure that culture is represented, and more

importantly recognised, at the highest level in partnerships across Reading. This

should sit with senior leaders from the three partner organisations for Reading,

Place of Culture and senior ACH sector leaders rather than the project delivery

team.

2. Develop a clear set of audience targets and outcomes for the Reading

Thames Festival – use this to inform all marketing strategy and planning.

Specific, targeted work is needed if there is to be any shift in perceptions among

potential visitors. RPoC is taking the approach of showcasing Reading’s cultural

offer, as well as bringing national and international talent to Reading, through the

Reading Thames Festival, thus encouraging a change in perception of Reading as

a place to ‘do culture’ and thus an increase in cultural visitors. This is a feasible

strategy, but hasn’t worked to date in terms of who came to the Festival. If this

model is to be truly tested, work in Year 3 needs to specifically include agreement

of target visitor groups (drivetime, areas, typology), tailored work around

perception change, and marketing informed by these targets.

3. Trial and evaluate specific approaches to business engagement which fit

with other elements of the Reading, Place of Culture offer.

27

In terms of businesses, RPoC has opportunities through both the Reading Thames

Festival and the Business Engagement strand to test different approaches to shift

perception and patterns of engagement. This could be through targeted ticketing

or sponsorship deals for the Festival, and/or through using an action research

approach to trial some of the many ideas and learning arising from the business

research to date. There is a very tight timeframe to do this sort of work, so it is

recommended that small and targeted work is undertaken that can take a more

in-depth approach and can be measured for impact (rather than taking a more

broad and scattergun approach).

4. Continue to develop the level of evidence collection and dissemination of

learning from the Cultural Commissions.

The work begun through the Cultural Commissions and pilots should be continued,

with better evidence collection which should result from the new training and

structures set up. It is crucial, however that this is disseminated through the

sector more widely, as currently it sits with relatively few organisations. This

evidence is the impact and outcomes of the work, but also the learning from the

partnership building, and the value of working in new ways.

5. Carry out succession planning for key elements of the work – the Cultural

Commissions, the Festival and the Whitley Researchers – to ensure they

continue in 2021 and beyond.

There is a need to urgently review succession planning for several of the elements

of the project which could continue:

The Cultural Commissions are beginning to show evidence of value, but it isn’t

clear if they can be completely passed across to continue with non-arts

funding in 2021.

The Festival is currently under review to effect several of the

recommendations made in the reports below (Section 2). The future of the

Festival in 2021 needs to be decided with some urgency.

The Whitley Researchers are a huge asset to Reading, particularly in offering a

local voice to understanding need, value and barriers. The project has

extended their work so the relevance of it to the ACH sector, and to Reading

as a whole is clear. This is a strategic resource that needs to be supported so

that it can be available to the whole sector and more widely into 2021 and

beyond.

6. Share learning across sectors, maximise value and guarantee legacy by

ensuring dissemination is sufficiently supported with resources and

strategic targeting of key audiences.

There is a need to share the learning locally cross-sector, so as to further embed

the work and maximise its value. The opportunity offered by sharing beyond

Reading includes the potential for this in itself to change perceptions of Reading –

28

not just as a place to experience culture, but as a place which leads thinking,

research and practice in culture. The planned symposium at the end of 2020 is

key to this. It needs to be supported at a strategic level with resources to:

Ensure national dissemination of learning.

Reach key audiences, such as funders and peer groups, locally and nationally.

To maximise its value and impact.

29 Reading, Place of Culture: Year 2 Report

Section 2: Reading Thames Festival

Strand reports

This section contains two reports commissioned by Reading Thames Festival to

assess the impact of their work.

They included a shared data gathering method – the festival audience survey –

but separate analysis and additional data gathering from MB Associates on artist

experiences. As such they are reported separately

Reading Thames Festival 2019 -

Audience Feedback Analysis

Summary2

Report prepared by Lorna Zischka, University

of Reading, Oct 2019

Based on 127 questionnaires providing audience feedback, the following

conclusions could be drawn:

Acid Brass (concert) was extremely well received but not well enough

publicised

87% strongly agreed they had a good time and all were positive– the

highest rating for all events.

The high quality of the band, the unexpected music style and the way the

event was presented was widely appreciated.

93% felt the price was right. However, the event was run at 65%

capacity (326 of 500 seats sold). Publicity was the problem.

The Town Hall was appreciated as a venue, but respondents wanted

more places for dancing and they wanted a better stocked bar.

The combination of a boat trip with a cultural event was very well

received, but not overcrowding the boat and providing a more varied

and dynamic programme could make things even better

2 Full report is available on request from MB Associates or Reading, Place of Culture team


40% strongly agreed they had a good time and all were positive.

Respondents were extremely appreciative about the combination of a

boat trip on the Thames with an artistic event, although some would

have liked a bit more variety and dynamism in terms of the

performances.

82% felt the price was right and the rest were divided between being

willing to pay more and feeling it was overpriced.

This event was sold out (80 places) – although some people still

complained about how poorly it had been advertised and they would

have wanted more information on what to expect (food, drink,

programme, location etc.).

With every space filled, people did feel a bit cramped, and not all had a

direct view of the artistic events.

Cirque Bijou was not the circus spectacular that had been expected. Wet

weather at this outdoor event and misleading information brought many

to feel disappointed and overcharged.

Just 23% strongly agreed they had a good time and 54% did not report

positively.

It was an outdoor event affected by heavy rainfall. People were expecting

a circus spectacular and were disappointed by the quality of the acts,

given the cost of entry and publicity.

Several felt the event had been mis-sold and 35% said it was overpriced.

Unlike every other event, no one mentioned lack of publicity, reflecting

their lower regard.

Despite being sold out last year, this year Cirque Bijou ran at 90%

capacity (898 of 1000 seats sold).

In spite of the weather, people still thought that the abbey ruins were a

great venue for this type of event. However, planning for wet weather is

important. At least covering the stage so that the performances could

take place safely, or cancelling if the quality of the performance is

compromised. Umbrellas made it difficult for people to see.

The Arts Trail was well received and was the most visible and accessible

of the Reading Thames Festival events. However, attendance was

patchy and would have benefited from better publicity and management

(less clashes in timing)

67% strongly agreed they had a good time and all but 2 individuals were

positive. This was in spite of heavy rain over outdoor venues on the key

night. Appreciation was expressed for all the sub-events which were

reported on. People liked the variety and the opportunity to experience

something new and unexpected.

The fact that the events were free was greatly appreciated.

Attendance was patchy. A few events were packed and others barely

attended or even cancelled. Lack of publicity was a real issue (mentioned

for this event more than for any other – people felt that something good

was being missed).


Better on-site signposting and an ordered trail of events in which less

events clashed could also have helped attendance.

The cancellation (or relocation?) of some events without notice or

redirection was disliked.

The visibility of the arts for all (being free and on public walkways) meant

that it was the most effective of all events in bringing Reading Thames

festival to the attention of people who were previously unaware of its

existence.

There was a lot of appreciation of street, park and other outdoor events

in the town centre, but contingency plans may be necessary in the case

of wet weather. As it was a rainy Thursday night, passers-by quickly

thinned out after rush hour.

Some events needed more space for people to see and to dance along.

Overall, people enjoyed the events and the town centre locations.

Information flow should be improved by providing: (1) better publicity;

(2) accurate and detailed information on the web; (3) on-site signage

The facilities at the venues can be improved by ensuring: (1) space to

move around; (2) good visibility and audio connection; (3) provision of

a variety of food and drink to purchase; (4) contingency planning for

bad weather.

In general, respondents had a good time at the festival. 87% agreed they had a

good time, and 89% said the atmosphere/audience vibes were good. This

includes, in both cases, around 60% who ‘strongly agreed’ with these

statements.

Respondents were even more positive about the location (95% agreeing it was

accessible and a pleasant place including 64% who strongly agreed).

Respondents were relatively less positive about the organisation of the events

and about the facilities that the venues offered. 77% agreed that the

organisation was good but this includes only 49% who gave it top marks (the

venues also got 49% top marks for facilities).


Fig 1: Contrasting how people rated various aspects of the Reading Thames Festival event they

attended

There were concerns with:

Lack of publicity for the festival

Lack of accurate and detailed information about the event, about

its location, and about the facilities on hand (people wanted to

know in advance what to expect and prepare for). The website

should have been better and several people mentioned technical

difficulties with making bookings.

Lack of signposting at the venues

Having a greater variety of food and drink available at some

venues

Problems with viewing or hearing some of the performances

Insufficient space to move around or to join in (dance)

Insufficient provision for bad weather (shelter from the rain)

Working on each of these points could improve the festival in the future.

More publicity is needed (e.g. saturating the town with posters). At

present, knowledge of Reading Thames Festival is heavily dependent on

friendship networking

When asked how they had first heard of the festival, around 70% of respondents

had heard from a friend or family member (either in person, or via social

media). Most of the others had been specifically searching online for cultural or

artistic events in Reading. Only a few had come across information through

public advertisements without having deliberately searched it out.

The importance of word-of-mouth partly highlights the weakness of all other

forms of publicity, and partly emphasises the importance of growing festival

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

The facilities were good

The organisation of the event was good

The location was good

The atmosphere was good

I had a good time

Strongly Agree Agree Neither/Nor Disagree Strongly Disagree


awareness as people tell one another about it. 88% respondents had not been

last year and 66% had not even been aware of it last year, but all of these are

now in a position to tell others. In spite of new attendees this year, it is not clear

that festival attendance is expanding year on year.

Comments on publicity were almost exclusively negative. More publicity is

needed, and the publicity needs to reach a wider range of people. The most

common suggestion for improvement was to saturate the town with posters.

The event held equal appeal for a range of demographic groups, and yet

those who were not white, university-educated and already culturally

engaged were under-represented. The problem is not therefore with the

nature of the events, but rather with getting the information across to

more marginalised groups and in such a way that they feel this is for

them.

76% agreed or strongly agreed that the events appeal to a wide variety of

people and 24% were not so sure. The way respondents rated the appeal of the

event had a lot to do with how much they had enjoyed an event themselves

although overall, they were lightly less positive about the general appeal of the

Reading Thames Festival events than they were about their own personal

enjoyment of them; they were aware that artistic and cultural events do not

have universal appeal.

Perhaps more importantly, all of the events appealed to men and women

equally. Likewise, the appeal was equal to different ethnic groups, to people of

different ages, and to people coming from richer and poorer areas of Reading.

People who did not usually go to artistic events thought the events were just as

appealing as those who did. No significant difference was found in the way that

people from these different demographic groups rated their liking for an event or

their views on its general appeal.

Despite the finding that the events did not lack wide appeal, actual attendees

this year were predominantly white (94%), university-educated (76%), and

already engaged with the arts and culture scene (83% had attended some other

event in the last 12 months). The majority of respondents were middle aged and

student presence was barely registered (just 3 individuals out of 127). Since the

problem is not with the appeal of the events, it would seem that it is information

about the festival and a sense of personal connection with it that needs to

extend to a wider demographic.

In terms of actual attendance, the boat trip and even more so the circus

attracted more people outside of the engaged demographic than the Art Trail

and the Brass concert. For example, for 35% of the Cirque Bijou attendees, this

was the first art/cultural engagement the respondent recalled having made in

the last 12 months, whilst only 11% of people attending the other events had

not already been engaged with the arts.

The boat trip attracted slightly more people from outside of Reading than the

other events and overall, just over a third of respondents had visited the festival

from outside of Reading (although nearly all of these were from nearby).

Enjoying a cultural event with others creates a great atmosphere,

contributing to a sense of ‘togetherness’ and pride in the town


Respondents who came from Reading were asked if they felt the festival had

brought Reading communities together and increased their pride in Reading.

How people responded depended very much on how much they had enjoyed the

event, which shows that positive cultural experiences have a clear impact on

one’s feelings about Reading (indeed, ratings of crowd atmosphere went hand in

hand with having a good time). Overall, 82% agreed that the events brought

Reading communities together (1% disagreed) and 78% agreed that the event

increased their pride in Reading (7% disagreed).

Respondents are enthusiastic to see more live performances on the

streets of Reading and in its green spaces.

There was a great deal of interest in more live, outdoor performances on the

streets of central Reading and in its green spaces. There was an especial interest

in live music (jazz, blues, folk, classical) and performances (dance, plays,

agility). Reading-themed events that celebrate, draw on and engage the local

community are seen to enhance the wider mix. Reading also has plenty of more

formal indoor venues.


Reading Thames Festival 2019 –

Audiences, Artists and Impact

Report by Catherine Doran and Ruth Melville,

MB Associates, for Reading Thames Festival

Introduction

MB Associates were commissioned by Reading Thames Festival to produce a

brief impact study on the following areas for the 2019 festival:

Quality of Offer

Artist experience

Economic Impact

Audience Profile and Reach

And then carried out a brief review of the festival as part of this work. This

report summarises findings.

Methods

The work was carried out in conjunction with the University of Reading study on

audience experience, which support from MB Associates in designing the survey

to audiences, and the inclusion of economic impact questions within it.

An additional survey was sent to all artists working with the festival – both

locally and nationally based – and also completed by Festival staff.

There were 24 completed responses to the survey, from people self-describing

as 11 performers, 9 event producers or directors, 4 musicians, 3 artists and 1

film maker. 9 were national level artists and 15 were developing artists.

Audience postcode data was analysed by The Audience Agency to show reach

across Audience Spectrum groups, by Helen Corkery Associates to show reach

across locations and across social groups and deprivation levels.

Ruth Melville carried out an economic impact study based on additional visitor

spend using a model developed by LARC in Liverpool.

The review was carried out using a workshop approach including all Reading

Thames Festival staff, Chief Exec of Reading UK CIC, researchers from the

University of Reading who had been involved in the audience analysis and

members of the Reading, Place of Culture team.

Reading Thames Festival is undoubtedly A Good Thing

and we would welcome the opportunity to be involved in

the future.

Survey comment


Artists’ views on quality

Both groups of artists were asked their views on the quality of the work they

produced.

This was done through use of the Arts Council England Quality Metrics, with each

‘metric’ being rated on quality from 0-100 (with 100 being ‘to the greatest

extent I can imagine myself achieving’)

Figure 2, below shows that all artists felt the quality of the work was high

overall, within nothing scoring under 68%.

Figure 2: Artists' self-assessment of the quality of their work - by ACE Quality Metrics3

3 The Arts Council explains what these mean a little further – these were included in the questionnaire to artists: Concept - Was there an interesting idea behind this? Presentation - Was it well produced and presented? Distinctiveness - Was it different from things you’ve experienced before? Challenge - Was it thought-provoking? Captivation - Did it absorb and hold attention? Enthusiasm - Did it make you want to come to something like this again? Local impact - Was it important that it happened here? Relevance - Did it have something to say about the world in which we live? Rigour - Was it well thought through and put together?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Concept

Presentation

Distinctiveness

Challenge

Captivation

Enthusiasm

Local Impact

Relevance

Rigour

Originality

Risk

Excellence

Quality Metrics - Artist self-assessment

Development artists National artists


Artists (both groups together) were very positive in their feedback about the

quality of the work involved in the festival. When providing reflections or

explanations about the quality they said it was enthusiastic and professional.

The understood that it was related to budget in addition.

The programme reflected the budget.

National artist.

A few national artists said they would have liked to hear/see/contribute work

exploring the location e.g. Emphasising the relationship with the river, and there

were some comments on lack of advertising and ‘reach’ before the festival itself

– this theme was strongly felt throughout. One artist gathered up comments

from ‘my dancers’, family, friends and colleagues and reported that they loved

the event itself but felt promotion was lacking and rather inconsistently applied.

One artist commenting on how the different arena for their art was welcomed.

This was a completely different platform which garnered

a lot of interest and enthusiasm amongst the performers

and the viewers.

Developing artist

The artists were pleased that more developing artists from the area were

commissioned and encouraged more of this. However, it was also felt that this

was not entirely successful and some opportunities were missed to link to

national/international artists living in the local area.

Supporting artist development

Developing artists were asked to explain about how the Festival supported

professional and practice development - either in terms of support before,

or during the events in terms of several factors. All responses received were

either positive or neutral (‘no effect’) and there were no negative responses,

showing that the developing artists felt that the support was good quality.

Originality - Was it ground-breaking? Risk - Did the artists/producers really challenge themselves? Excellence - Was it one of the best examples of its type that you have seen?


Artistic practice

In terms of artistic practice, half the artists (10/13 actual responses) felt

positive or very positive and that they had been given freedom and support and

that they were learning to handle new surroundings and situations.

People who answered ‘very positive’ commented about being able to access new

techniques (and so being able to develop practice), a theme that recurred in

the responses concerning the best things about the festival later in the

questionnaire.

It gave us a platform to experiment with a technique

that we haven’t used before to great success.

Survey comment

New insights gained into ways the groups themselves can work were mentioned

by 2 people.

Practice development was mentioned as an outcome for established artists but

less often and three people said it had ‘no effect’ on their artistic practice:

There was a low but persistent group of no effect responses in all of these

questions; these were not from the same people every time. Three artists said it

once, two artists said it twice, one person each said it three and four times.

Only two categories had exactly the same people twice. That shows that people

felt that different factors had little effect on their practice – a more individual

response than one person saying it for everything.

In discussing networks and connections, over half the artists gave positive or

very positive responses (nearly all the responses), and those who commented

mentioned they had made good contacts with venues, organisers, audiences,

video projection facilitators. The Art After Dark preparations meetings helped,

and the opportunities for making friends and interaction with artists and other

groups were mentioned.

All responses said there were results for them in terms of networking

opportunities and four of the six responses specifically said there would be

possible future work together.

Networking with the other artists before/during/after the

event was a fantastic opportunity as well as being good-

ol' fun.

Survey comment

Artistic development support

This was said to be positive or very positive by half the artists (10/13

responses). Two comments mentioned the team specifically (RTF team support

and organisational support given from the ‘festival authorities’) and other

comments were more about being given opportunity and that the support was

practical but not artistic.


Developing artists responding about reaching new audiences were again

positive or very positive overall (just under half the artists, 9/12 responses). The

person who answered this very positively – and who also answered very

positively on most of these factors – commented that

We met new audiences in Reading who said they came

especially for the shows - some from different areas of

the country.

Survey comment

Three people said there was no effect – they said different things to illustrate

this.

It wasn’t a new audience for them, although it was for the festival

Not enough feedback so don’t know – this is a recurring theme for this

person

Weather and lack of advertising for them (while other acts were on

facebook) – this was the main person who felt the advertising was

lacking generally

In terms of employment and business opportunities, 9/13 responses felt it

was either positive or very positive. The two ‘very positives’ said they had made

contacts, and one had found two new work opportunities. Four said there was no

effect and did not make comments to expand on this.

Festival logistics and artist experience

Pre-festival information and communication

Two of five replies just said ‘good’ but three mentioned things to work on. One

of these said ‘earlier advertising’ was needed (a recurrent theme), one said that

while there were no complaints but they would’ve liked

A better understanding of how this event fitted into the

greater concepts and themes of the festival.,

Survey comment

Arrival and logistics support

This was said to be good overall, and comments then mentioned that parking

was difficult/expensive and that a place to store things overnight would be

helpful.

Three people mentioned wanting improvements to stewarding, signposting and

directions at the event itself. One said their steward seemed disinterested and

linked it to careful volunteer selection. Others referred to lack of direction and

signposting on the day, not helped by the terrible weather.

A little more direction on the day. When I arrived at

Broad Street to set up there were no stewards around so


I set up alone assuming that I was in the right place,

which it turns out was all ok.

Survey comment

The performance space/area could be better signposted

and arranged.

Survey comment

One person came across as very happy overall but definitely annoyed by

steward/event organisation:

The weather

Another person commented in depth about the way in which weather affected

the show, and a perception that some performances were adversely affected and

that performers were possibly made unsafe and potentially hurt as a result. This

appears to indicate that planning for the more extreme elements of September

weather may need to be more rigorous in future years.

Publicity and marketing

Publicity and marketing was a strong theme in responses. It was thought to be

good by 3 out of 5 (especially as tickets sold out) but one person again said

advertising needed to be done earlier.

There was felt to be some lack of connection to audiences, missed opportunity

and inconsistent coverage of different groups.

I still think a lot of people are not fully aware the festival

is taking place - more marketing.

Survey comment

Audiences and participants

All responses said audiences were good, happy, attentive. One mentioned

‘some complaints’ and another said the audience was ‘quite mixed, which is

good.’

Venues and locations

These were seen as positive (and ‘atmospheric’) overall, and there was a request

for more information on available performance space.

Reading Thames Festival 2019: Audience demographics

and economic impacts

Reading Thames Festival Economic Impact Reporting

Economic impact was calculated using a model developed for Liverpool Arts

Regneration Consortium (LARC) which uses Green Book compliant methods to

calculate Gross Value Added (GVA) arising from Direct organisation Spend and

Additional Visitor Spend generated by the Reading Thames Festival.

The estimated economic impact of the Festival on Reading, using only figures

related to additional visitor spend (not looking at social value creation) is

£51,000, or £52,000 in Berkshire as a whole.


This represents an additional 35p for every pound invested.

This is not a very high return figure, largely because the visitors to RTF are in

the main local, so the majority of the additional value is actually coming from

the effects of employing local artists, designers and other freelance staff.

Under current models, it is conventional not to ascribe economic impact value to

spend by Reading residents in their own town (on the basis they’d have spent it

somewhere else in Reading if they hadn’t gone to the Festival). However we did

ask people if they thought they’d spent more in Reading as a result of the

Festival, and about half did. Implying there’s some impact of retention of money

within the Reading economy as a result of the Festival.

Survey respondents attended on average 1.3 events – by far the majority

attended one and only 6% attended three or more.

45%48%

Local People: Did you spend more money in Reading as a result of attending the Festival?

No Yes

Reading borough77%

Rest of Berkshire16%

Rest of the UK5%

Outside UK2%

Where audiences come from


The total number of attendances was estimated at 8100. But we needed to

recalculate on two fronts:

In terms of ‘pull’ into the town, it is unlikely that passer-by events would

attract a lot of people in who didn’t go to something else.

We needed to reduce the count to get the number of unique attenders

(and thus spenders)

So use only a fraction of the footfall on the Oracle event, and reduce the other

event numbers by factor of 1.3 to account for repeat attendances by individuals

The final figure for number of ‘people’ attending is: 3,500.

(NB this gives a non-Reading attender figure of 825, adding on visiting artists,

crew, tech – 244, total 1069).

Who came – levels of previous arts engagement

Audiences tended to come from higher engaging groups in terms of likelihood to

engage in culture. Audience Spectrum ranks from most likely to engage –

Metroculturals to least – Heydays, with the bottom 4 categories being

traditionally low engagers.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1 2 3 4+

Number of events attended by respondents


For comparison, the RTF audience was remarkably similar to that of average ACE

NPO profile, - with slightly MORE of the higher engagers at RTF than at typical

NPOs.

As a comparator, analysis of Audience Spectrum data of NPOs showed around

50% of tickets are bought by high engagers, 39% by medium and 12% by low.4

4 Jennifer Eigo & John Wilson (2019) Measuring the effectiveness of public subsidy by the analysis of disparate data sources: do subsidies increase arts participation by low engagers?, Cultural Trends, 28:2-3, 239-248, DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2019.1617945

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Audience Spectrum Categories - all respondents

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

High engagers Medium engagers Low engagers

Attenders' likelihood to engage in the arts

RTF audience survey average NPOs


From asking directly, we also got the same profile: only 16% of audiences, 13%

of local audiences, hadn’t engaged in other arts and cultural activities in the last

12 months.

Attenders were less likely to come from lower socio-economic

backgrounds

And attenders in the main tended to be less deprived than the average for

England. In every area of deprivation apart from Living environment,

considerably less than 30% of attenders were in the bottom 30% of the

population.

13%

24%

63%

27%

20%

53%

16%

23%

61%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

No Once or twice On three or more occasions

Other than this event, have you engaged in the arts in the last 12 months?

Residents Elsewhere All

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

DE C1C2 AB

Socio-economic group of attenders

All RTF attenders Reading based RTF attenders UK


Attenders were overwhelmingly local

mean median

Distance home – site 8.7mile 2.8 miles

Drivetime home-site 16.75 mins 10.5 mins

Meaning that around half the attenders lived within 3 miles of the centre of

Reading.

However there were some people from much further away, as well as the 2% of

respondents who were international, there were people who came from within

the UK but up to 190 miles away.


Meaning that around half the attenders lived within 3 miles of the centre of

Reading.

However there were some people from much further away, as well as the 2% of

respondents who were international, there were people who came from within

the UK but up to 190 miles away.


Reading Thames Festival review

A workshop was held to review the outcomes from Reading Thames Festival

2019 and look at issues arising.

• Attendees: RTF team (Anna, Sarah, Steph), Nigel (RDUK), Lara and

Christelle (RBC/RPoC), Sally and Lorna (UoR – RTF evaluation), Ruth

(RPoC evaluator) – facilitator.

Four pieces of work were presented (one as a standalone, the other three

combined):

• Festival audience responses analysis

• Economic impact analysis

• Analysis of attenders

• Excellence analysis and artist feedback

Conclusions in Brief

• Attenders and artists involved had a good time and see the festival as

good. There were lots of positives.

• However, overall, there are several ways in which RTF isn’t meeting

aims, neither the local reach, nor the economic impact were as high as

hoped, there were problems with logistics, planning and marketing and it

is unclear whether the model has sustainability in the medium term –

post 2020.

A Story of Change exercise was done to open up the model of the festival and

specifically to help identify:

• key audiences/stakeholders (who RTF should have impact on)

• intended outcomes (why do we do it – what is the impact RTF should

have on them)

• key activities and approaches which are needed (how we should work –

what needs to be in ‘the festival’).

As this was a short exercise, the basics were focussed on so a full model hasn’t

been created but it does identify a few key points for consideration:

1. There are a LOT of target audiences, some of which have competing

needs. This sort of range of audiences is more associated with major

festivals like Years of Culture/UKCC/ECoCs – rather than focused one off

events over a week/weekend with a much smaller budget. This sort of

model would put a huge pressure on the programming team, and is likely

to lead to a blurring of the brand and intent, and thus impact across the

board.

2. There is a good alignment within outcomes – the ‘why’ is fairly clear: to

showcase and thus to get <whichever audience> to recognise the range

of cultural offer in Reading, and to thus lead to cultural sector

strengthening, retention, visitor spend and the wider social and economic

effects of these.

3. The list of components the workshop came up with – the building block

‘approaches’ of the festival – these are listed on the left hand column of

the Story of Change and can act as a check list when future design of the

festival is considered.

Next Steps

Meeting between Reading Borough Council and Reading UK CIC to decide

next steps and priorities.

Workshop with all Reading Festivals to explore routes forward.

Clear aims, action plan and evaluation plan for 2020 work.


Section 3: Cultural Commissioning

Reporting

This section brings together reflections and reports on the cultural

commissioning strand of Reading, Place of Culture Great Places programme at

the end of its second year.

Due to the timing of the commissions with respect to the years of the

programme, there are completed case studies on the Round 1 commissions

which ran July 2018-July 2019, but only outline information on the Round 2 and

the Round 3.

We then move on to discuss the Cultural Commissions pilots from 2019, some of

which are still underway and include brief reports on sector skills development

work.

Cultural Commissions Case Studies

Reading’s Great Place Scheme, “Reading, Place of Culture”, includes a Cultural

Commissioning Programme which is focused on supporting local organisations to

develop cross-sector partnerships in order to engage the community’s most

marginalised and hard-to-reach groups, and to provide genuine social, health

and well-being impacts.

Three exciting programmes were funded in year 1, taking place between July

2018-2019. Each programme followed its own timeline, based on bespoke

participant, partner and evaluation needs. They all began with an Action

Research and Story of Change session. In addition, all three projects developed

a joint Action Research question to explore during the course of their funding.

This was:

“How can partnerships with arts, culture and heritage enhance existing

services for disadvantaged participants?”

The Cultural Development officer managing the Cultural Commissioning

Programme facilitated quarterly action research meetings, which culminated in

the below case studies. In keeping with the principles of Action Research, the

aim was to change practice by learning through experimentation, and to value

participation, self-determination, empowerment through knowledge and change.

The regular meetings took place in order to continually reflect on observations,

implement change, and track what works and what doesn’t. Action Research

reframes failure as an integral part of change and aims to improve professional

practice through continual learning and progressive problem solving.

This document contains three programme snap shots to showcase the work and

what has been learnt.

Background

The programme so far has fostered new connections between public, private and

voluntary sector organisations, supported existing organisations to increase their

capacity, delivered new services and fostered new relationships with funders,

partners and other organisations. It has also gathered highly valuable research


from local people about their thoughts and feelings, engagement and

participation in arts, culture and heritage in their town.

The Reading Cultural Commissioning programme aims to mainstream the

commissioning of cultural activities for social outcomes in two ways:

by making public service commissioners more aware of the potential for

arts, culture and heritage organisations to deliver effective interventions

around their priority outcomes

by enabling the arts, culture, heritage and voluntary sectors to better

engage with public sector commissioning

Case study 1: Alana House

Alana House provides an inclusive

and non-judgemental space for

women. They are supported, and

enabled, to address particular

behaviours and assess life

circumstances that may have put

them in a vulnerable position or at

risk of offending. Women are

offered information and support in

line with the nine pathways to

reducing re-offending to help

empower them to make positive

life changes, develop new skills

and create new opportunities.

The project aimed to:

Build self- confidence, self-

worth and reduce isolation

in beneficiary women.

Enable participants to process and share their experiences and improve

their future safeguarding.

Provide insight into the women’s experiences to professionals working for

PACT – Alana House and wider sector support services.

Its objectives were:

To enable female offenders and women at risk of offending to represent

their experiences and perspectives on the issues through photography

and digital storytelling. Then to build self-confidence, self-worth, and

insight hence developing future safeguarding through a structured

programme of activities.

To develop confidence and reduce isolation through having a structured

space and activities for women to discuss with their peers their thoughts,

ideas and experiences about particular relevant themes.

For the women to learn photographic and digital story-telling skills.


To enable practitioners to have direct insight into the experiences and

issues affecting participants. Thus allowing them to provide better

services and support to other people similarly affected.

Conventional research and approaches to offender rehabilitation can fail to

prevent the alienation of offenders and those at risk of offending. Traditional

methods of practice with vulnerable women are mainly based on interviews and

group work. These can be costly techniques which often replicate the

authoritarian dynamics which failed to engage these groups either in education

or employment. Evidence suggests more creative and artistic approaches can

achieve better social outcomes including; mental health and wellbeing,

educational attainment and skills development, and social cohesion.

PACT’s bid proposed to build on and extend a creative model which they have

piloted before. PhotoVoice is proven to work with those with mental health

problems and those who are socially isolated. It improves communication skills,

creative skills and self-esteem; all essential tools for rehabilitation and

reintegration in society. It also highlights participants’ shared experience, which

enables them to empathise and identify with one another and their victims. PACT

and Alana House see the cultural sector as a pivotal complementary service

which can help women move through their supportive services.

The project was run in 6 weekly sessions. A total of 14 participants attended the

workshops, and were supported to use participatory photography to explore a

sense of community and their role within this. Workshops covered visual literacy,

photography techniques, creative expression and captioning. Participants were

supported to communicate their experiences and perspectives through

photography, subsequently building self-confidence and self-worth, and

providing insight into the women’s experiences for PACT and wider sector

support services.

The participants, some of whom were new to Alana House, were initially shy

within the group and so workshops employed a variety of ice-breaker games and

presentation activities. These sought to increase confidence and provide ways

for the facilitator and other members to get to know each other. Regular reviews

and informal ‘mini’ exhibitions of the work were incorporated into the

subsequent sessions. This allowed participants to continue practicing describing

their work and intentions, allowing others to provide feedback in a process that

built skills alongside self-esteem in a supportive environment.

Over the course of the workshops, a strong group dynamic was formed. Despite

some of the participants not knowing each other before the project and the

diversity across the group (in terms of age, background and experiences),

participants worked well together and supported each other in their ideas and

photography work. This diversity and range of experiences also contributed to

open and insightful discussions about Reading and the concepts of ‘home’ and

what ‘community’ meant to different members.

The final workshop provided the opportunity for participants to show their work

and celebrate their achievement in a small closed sharing at Alana House. Each

participant exhibited 3 x A3 prints of their work and accompanying captions. All

four of the women who had completed the workshops were able to attend; they

demonstrated pride at having their work shown and being appreciated by staff

and other service users who attended. Participants were awarded with


certificates and were given both the A3 prints and some personal photos to take

away with them, as a mark of completing the project.

There was a final exhibition of the works created at the Museum of English Rural

Life. An opening ceremony saw trusted friends of Alana House come together to

celebrate the programme. The core participants attended, and a few presented

enthusiastically about how the project had benefited them.

Partnership

This partnership is particularly interesting as it has been led by the voluntary

sector organization. In order to make the programme as sustainable as possible,

they are upskilling Alana House staff in creative delivery so there is a consistent

offer available when there is not funding to support external artists.

The value of the cultural sector and expertise they bring is not to be

underestimated, however and Alana House feel that making their client base

more visible to the cultural sector will be beneficial for future partnerships. The

staff team does not have additional time for networking, but are open to

collaboration.

“Alana House has a strong relationship with the

participant group and it is because of this trust and the

safe space that the house provides to these women that

PhotoVoice has been able to successfully engage with

the participants over the course.”

Photovoice Artist

The partners found that running the second project was easier, as the

partnership was already established. With a partnership agreement already in

place and expectations set, delivery ran smoothly and efficiently. Developing this

agreement at the start took additional meetings and time, but was essential to

the successful running of the programme. Working with their cultural partners to

create clear and mutual benefits for each side was possible because they worked

collaboratively to achieve agreed clear set priorities and enabled both the

cultural and voluntary sector partners to contribute.

Key Challenges

As is common with programmes engaging hard to reach participants, attendance

was a challenge. Time was invested prior to the group starting to ensure

participants were fully aware of its purpose and expectations, but due to their

complex needs (such as homelessness or being single parents), participants

were often not able to overcome other barriers to regular attendance. Previous

participants were engaged as ‘peer mentors / encouragers’ for new participants

in an effort to provide additional support. The mini exhibition of the first group’s

work was also used to show other Alana House service users their photos and

therefore engage more participants for the second group.

For the second group, Alana house attempted to over recruit to compensate for

likely drop off. The second project still had a smaller than anticipated group,

with four women attending all the sessions and fully completing the project.

From staff observation, this attendance is in line with general programme

completion for this target group and inability to commit to the full duration of


the course was not a reflection of the project, but due to other unrelated

circumstances. The women that only attended sporadically still produced

photography and were able to take this home. Anecdotally, Alana House staff

note that programmes which challenge the women’s behaviours and coping

strategies are often harder to maintain attendance with. Running the

programme on the same day and time over the entire year was helpful in terms

of encouraging stability and reliability.

There were also challenges for the Alana House team’s capacity due to

unforeseen pressures. The project started under the assumption that the same

staff that had delivered the pilot would work together again, but this wasn’t

possible. It was necessary to manage expectations around this and dedicate

time to set the relationship up again. In the future, consideration will also be

given to who manages the project delivery in-house. If a few hours a week are

budgeted for, but a participant comes in with a crisis they need help with, the

participant will always be prioritized. If there were a dedicated staff member just

for the project this would have been less of a challenge.

Key Successes

Both phases of this project developed a strong group dynamic. Participants did

not know each other before the course, yet they were able to form positive

relationships and support each other in their work.

For example:

One participant was particularly motivated to work hard and complete

homework, so had been helping other participants less able in caption

writing. Providing peer support has helped build her confidence.

Another participant who was previously agoraphobic built up the

confidence to go outside and take photos and as a result is now active in

other groups at Alana House. Significantly, her support workers are now

also working with her to consider community groups she can attend

beyond Alana House.

Photovoice staff noted that the support provided by Alana House staff was key to

the overall success of the course. The wrap around support Alana House offer

and the fact that they were the lead provider meant that a high level of support

was embedded in the programme. Additionally, as PhotoVoice is non-issue

specific and works with different participant groups on each project, partnership

working is key to the effective, safe and ethical delivery of their projects. The

safe and familiar space provided by Alana House, where other staff known to

participants were on hand to support, allowed participants to engage with the

workshops comfortably with the knowledge that they could step out and talk

with a member of staff if needed. On a practical level, for many the workshops

were also timed well with other engagements they had at Alana House, meaning

that the course was not an additional commitment or ‘burden’ on their time.

When considering how partnerships with arts, culture and heritage can enhance

existing services for disadvantaged participants, Alana House believe that this is

all about giving women different ways to express themselves. Bringing in

different experts, such as Photovoice, enhances their ‘wellbeing’ offer to women.

Their hope is that the exhibition will make a case for continuing this sort of work

in the future.


Evaluation

Alana House used both quantitative and qualitative measures to track

participants. For example, they have an ‘Empowerment radar’ tool, which tracks

the 9 key areas proven to lead to re-offending. Not all areas are relevant to a

cultural programme, but they specifically tracked ‘attitudes, thinking and

behaviours’ for this. They also used an outcomes star and introduced qualitative

questions and the Rosenburg self-esteem scale for additional evaluation. The

Rosenberg self-esteem scale is a measure widely used in social-science research.

All participants saw improvements in their scores.

All surveys and forms were filled out with a support worker, so that participants

were encouraged to be consistent and honest. Using multiple tools enabled

Alana House to consider which tools capture the most outcomes and are

therefore worthwhile for cultural projects.

Outcomes

On completion of the project, all participants agreed or strongly agreed that they

felt more confident using photography and captions to communicate their

experiences of ‘community’ and that they felt more confident in sharing their

feelings and opinions inside and outside of the workshops.

“I really enjoyed [the project] – I made new friends and

it made me feel confident about taking pictures.”

At the start of the project, the majority of the participants had expressed

feelings of anxiety towards meeting new people and joining new groups.

Following the projects’ completion all participants agreed that they felt more

confident in this area.

All participants stated that the project had enabled them to meet new people

and agreed that they felt more confident meeting new people and working in

groups, having taken part in the project.

“Working in a group we all became confident and I am

grateful to have discovered a new beginning.”

All participants stated that they would use the skills they had gained through the

project in the future and all expressed the desire to continue engaging with

future participatory photography workshops and develop their skills further.

Summary

Key Challenges Key Successes Outcomes

Participant attendance –

especially where

behaviours are challenged

Developing a strong group

dynamic and peer support

Participants were:

— More confident with the new

skills learnt

Project team capacity Wrap around support

embedded in the programme

— More confident meeting new

people and working in groups


Partnership working key to

effective, safe and ethical

delivery

— Likely to use the skills gained in

the future and independently

continue with positive activities

Case study 2: Museum Partnership Reading

The Museum of English Rural Life (The MERL)

and Reading Museum formed a consortium in

2018, known as Museums Partnership Reading

(MPR). MPR’s Cultural Commission set out to trial

and evaluate different forms of cultural projects

to improve the health and wellbeing of older

people from Reading communities. They sought

to assess their impact, including how they

contributed to a reduction in loneliness and social

isolation for older people in Reading.

The project delivered 44 activities using

reminiscence, gardening, dance and knitting,

involving 173 participants aged between 52-94.

By running well established work (such as

reminiscence) and comparing it to new activity

(such as dance), the project was able to review

and assess their outcomes for participants.

The MERL’s recent redevelopment project, Our

Country Lives, or OCL, involved the Museum

considering who their audiences are and their

future priorities. They used a collaborative

process to explore their collections and what they

mean for people; a focus on engaging with older

adults explicitly came from this. Formative

evaluation before the redevelopment appeared to

show that the Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH)

represented around 10% of visitors. These

potential visitors became an audience target for

OCL.

Similarly, the Museum of Reading were keen to

use their varied collection and loan boxes to

reach more people. The funding from the project enabled greater promotion of

this service to local community groups. The Museum had been offering training

to care homes and individuals for how to use objects for reminiscence and the

commission was a natural extension of this work.

The first half of the Cultural Commission centred on developing evaluation

frameworks and establishing academic and health sector partnerships. The

programme attracted the support of two academics within the University of

Reading (UoR) School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, Professor

Margot Gosney & Dr Aileen Ho who supported the evaluation process. As part of

their developmental processes, MPR worked with an empowerment group for the


Alzheimer’s Society. They became integral members of the Dementia Action

Alliance and ran training sessions for Royal Berkshire Hospital (RBH) staff. A

project officer was appointed in January 2019 and delivery followed on from

here.

The reminiscence activities at The MERL promote cognitive stimulation, social

interaction and engagement through discussions about past experiences on

themed topics. They involve using old photographs, films and artefacts, all of

which were used in successful pilots and regular provision during the project,

both on and offsite. Sessions were designed and facilitated by The MERL staff

(with some volunteer support), either at the museum or in community or

hospital settings. Sessions typically lasted 60-90 minutes. Reminiscence was

already a well-established activity, but the area of work was extended and

evaluated through this project. Fourteen sessions took place at RBH, there were

6 sessions with Younger People with Dementia (YPWD), and one-off events were

run with the Alzheimer’s Society, The Grange Memory Café and Alzheimer’s

Dementia Support. The project also enabled Reading Museum to showcase their

memory box service, promoting it to a broader audience during the Dementia in

Action day as well as gaining valuable feedback on the service from two local

care homes.

The gardening programme was already part of MERL’s core offer and aimed to

promote well-being among older people using the garden for therapeutic

activity. The funding allowed this programme to be extended to include table top

gardening in a hospital setting. This took place with patients from elderly care

wards at RBH. Ten sessions were delivered for 48 participants.

The dance strand was a new activity made possible by the project funding and

aimed to strengthen muscles, improve joint mobility, balance, posture and gait,

and keep the heart healthy and happy. Sessions were social and inclusive, as

well as helping participants maintain mental and cognitive wellbeing through

learning and repeating routines and movements. The creative element of dance

aimed to help maintain problem solving and decision-making skills and provide

participants with a way to express emotions and feelings. The workshops were

inspired by the collections and exhibitions of The Museum of English Rural Life

and combined dance and live music. A live musician and singing in sessions

proved very popular. Eight to thirteen participants joined the sessions each

week, with an average age of 74.

Partnerships

MPR worked with local networks and organisations with similar ambitions in

order to successfully identify participants. Working in hospital settings enabled

them to gain new insights into working with healthcare partners. The partnership

between The MERL and RBH was especially positive. The MERL delivered training

on facilitating reminiscence groups with RBH’s Care Crew, introducing the

practice of object-stimulated reminiscence to upskill staff, which could be applied

to other areas of their work. The MERL also facilitated activities on the Care

Crew’s team building day.

MPR were able to identify and describe the difference their partnerships made to

those involved – to learn jointly and collaboratively and to grow trusting

relationships. The next step is to identify drivers and incentives so that partners

consistently engage with them. As with other funded cultural commissions,

https://merl.reading.ac.uk/visit-us/garden/


utilising partnership agreements would be beneficial. They also plan to engage a

more diverse set of partners in the future. To do this, they will demonstrate how

their work is successful in positively benefiting a wide range of participants.

Key Challenges

Navigating the ethics of evaluation and monitoring for vulnerable adults was

difficult, particularly within clinical settings. This was overcome by focusing the

most rigorous evaluation on community settings (such as programmes at The

MERL) but also, where possible, interviewing care staff and family members for

qualitative data. This does mean, however that full data was not collected on

the RBH patients. This represents a wider challenge the cultural sector faces

when working with healthcare partners; how do we persuade medical

professionals and ethics boards to share their data? Based on MPR learning, the

key is in strong long-term partnerships where trust has been developed and in

evaluation methodologies being shared and agreed in advance.

MPR also found that the scoping and planning stage (along with the

establishment of the evaluation framework) took more time than anticipated, but

the extra time enabled them to embed partner relationships deeply into their

programme and helped create a robust evaluation process. The length of the

programme limited the amount of data which could be collected but it has set

MPR up with measurement and evaluation systems which they can use in the

future and given them a better understanding of which tools work for which

programmes and settings.

There were the additional standard challenges, such as staff turnover and

changes in personnel. This was overcome by having a dedicated Cultural

Commissioning Project Coordinator who took ownership of the project.

Key Successes

A kick off meeting with partners and stakeholders demonstrated a real interest

in developing and delivering more social outcomes work. It enabled more

professionals to feed into the project.

Professor Margot Gosney, with significant NHS experience, became a critical

friend and engaged a group of older people in consultations for their input. They

met to look at and provide feedback on the reminiscence boxes put together by

Reading Museum. The Professor wrote an abstract based on the discussion and

this resulted in an invitation to provide a poster display at the spring conference

of the British Geriatrics Society in Cardiff. Attending the event provided new

exposure for the museums’ programmes. It also enabled useful discussions with

doctors and pharmaceutical companies.

The museums felt that one of the greatest benefits of this programme was the

new network they became part of. They now take part in Reading’s Older

People’s week, are active members of the Dementia Action Alliance, and

regularly attend events which can bring new partners together.

Evaluation

This programme did provide evidence to support the overall Cultural

Commissioning action research question and proposition that the arts, culture

and heritage can successfully engage people to enhance health and wellbeing.

For The MERL in particular, it further evidenced their approach to community


engagement in particular that their activities do not have to take place in the

museum, but can engage people in other premises, such as at the hospital.

Additionally, MPR have positioned themselves as more than just museums, but

as activity hubs. This reinvigorates how participants see the space and

encourages them to return to different activities.

The Cultural Commissioning programme builds on the museum partnership’s

existing work and new programmes with a range of methods for evaluation. The

evaluation framework around wellbeing outcomes and measuring impact

developed by Dr Aileen Ho, based on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing

Scale (WEMWEBS), was appropriate for older, independent people, including

those who took part in the dance Programme. In circumstances where older

people were more vulnerable, evidence had to be collected through carers and

support workers using other methods.

The Cultural Commissioning project provided the opportunity to formally gather

evidence on the impact of the existing reminiscence and gardening programmes,

whilst assessing the value of the new dance programme and table top gardening

initiative. The complexities of the audience meant that a single framework could

not be identified which was suitable in all situations. However, The MERL staff

now have a greater understanding of which tools best fit for each type of

delivery.

Developing the academic partnerships and subsequent questionnaires took some

time, which is why it was built into this action research programme. In order to

capture learning in the interim, observations,

interviews with support staff and interviews with

family members were conducted with YPWD. This

was in order to understand what participants are like

before and after sessions. Feedback would suggest

that the wellbeing developed through the sessions

has a halo effect, with participants more alert and

engaged throughout the day.

Outcomes

The qualitative data from interviews was coded

against the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ framework

(Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning &

Give). A total of 114 statements were extracted and

categorised from 18 sources (10 care workers; 8

participants) who took part in the Reminiscence,

Garden or Dance activities. Analysing each category

enabled MPR to identify the percentage of

statements relating to activities within each

Wellbeing outcome:

Connect: 72% Reminiscence 17% Garden 9% Dance

Be active: Dance 60%, Garden 40%

Take Notice: Garden 67%, Reminiscence 33%

Keep Learning: Dance 48%, Reminiscence 39% Garden 13%

Give: 100% Garden


Qualitative feedback from partners and participants was one of the greatest

successes of this commission. At RBH, for instance, Care Crew staff noted that

patients who had been “wandering” on the wards were able to sit for a period of

time in the group. They engaged patients who did not have regular visitors, who

did not engage in other activities and who talked very little on the wards.

“It’s been inspiring and motivating to work with the

museum. It’s helped me think differently and now

reminiscence is not just a session, but I find ways to

bring it into all the other activities in the ward.”

Care Crew, Elderly Care Ward, RBH

“Care Crew were shortlisted for the Chairman’s Award at

the RBFT Staff Excellence Awards this year, which was a

great achievement. The Reminiscence sessions are a big

part of what the Care Crew do and attending the training

session last year really gave the team confidence and

skills to structure their own Reminiscence sessions,

which was really valuable. No doubt this contributed to

the service and subsequently their shortlisting.”

Care Crew Manager, RBH

“My group left looking happy and relaxed, radiating a

sense of well-being. Dementia can rob you of your

identity. This reminiscence session enabled each person

to express themselves and feel valued, reinforcing their

own identity, in a world where they may feel they are

insignificant. This session opened the eyes of my team.

We witness the quieter more reserved clients actively

participating. The experience has highlighted the

importance of ensuring the more able to not overshadow

the less able. We learn so much at each session… the

more we learn about each client, the more we can

actively engage them”

Alzheimer’s Society staff

“‘It’s always a good day after a session, the rest of the

day and into the evening X stays in a good mood with no

anxiety.”

YPWD family member

Summary



The ethics of evaluation

and monitoring in

clinical settings

Setting up the right

new evaluation systems

Creating new networks and

partnerships

Trialling new programmes of

work

Stronger understanding of

what evaluation methods suit

which activities

Health and VCS sector staff

appreciate value of museum

activities in caring for older

people

Different activities give different

wellbeing scores

Positive impacts on those with

dementia were observed by staff

and family

Partner acknowledgement for the

relevance and potential of museum

& heritage collections to benefit and

support wellbeing.

Case study 3: Reading Rep

Reading Rep, a theatre company based at

Reading College, has been running a series of

performing arts workshops to boost self-

esteem, provide confidence building and life

skills. Their ENGAGE! programme originally

set out to work with six different participant

groups;

Older people in care homes

Adults with mental health illnesses

Young people who are unable to

participate in mainstream education

People with severe and complex

learning disabilities

Homeless people

Women on parole or release from prison.

The number of partners was reduced, however, for the social outcome focus and

evaluation to centre on wellbeing and mental health. Core programme partners

were Prospect Park Hospital (PPH), Red Balloon Learners Centre, Purley Park

Trust and Abbeyfield Care Home.

Reading Rep have been building these partnerships for years. Their work in

hospitals has been growing over the last two and a half years, but this

programme provided the opportunity to deepen those partnerships and consider

how they could better evaluate and evidence the value of their work.

They started out with term-time weekly sessions at Red Balloon Learner’s

Centre, delivering drama activities for 12 young people unable to participate in

mainstream education. They worked closely with staff to embed the drama

sessions into the wider curriculum – for example, in an anti-bullying project.


High level staffing changes halfway through the programme (including the Head

and Deputy Head) meant that these sessions were unfortunately not continued.

Eleven sessions were run in total.

They also ran drama activities at Purley Park and Abbeyfield residential care

homes. They engaged 13 people in 6 sessions at Abbeyfield and 36 people

disabilities in 35 sessions at Purley Park.

Delivery at Prospect Park Hospital was weekly throughout the cultural

commission and engaged over 246 people over the course of 40 sessions. It took

place in the dementia and acute mental health illnesses wards with a variety of

art forms offered, as this was felt to be more accessible for participants with

high needs. Berkshire Health Care has Quality Improvement Objectives,

including ensuring a ‘Good Patient Experience’, and they felt that these sessions

fitted under this objective.

Partnership

Reading Rep’s delivery with Red Balloon Learner’s Centre initially demonstrated

strong partnership working and cross-sectoral commitment. Red Balloon

Trustees observed sessions and gave positive feedback and the Deputy Head

was involved with session planning and delivery.

The sudden change of staff and therefore seismic shift in the partnership was

unforeseen. The new senior management signed off a new school timetable

without consulting partners and therefore Reading Rep’s successful delivery was

no longer timetabled.

Reading Rep hope to remain in contact with Red Balloon and develop new

relationships with the incoming senior management team. However, situations

like this are destabilising for cultural organisations as well as the young people,

particularly vulnerable young people where relationship building, and trust takes

time. This does beg the wider question of how cultural organisations can

enhance services when partnerships are constantly at risk.

Action Research discussions centred on partnership agreements and how

organisations can mitigate risk within the ever-changing school landscape.

Perhaps there is a role for Reading’s Cultural Education Partnership in providing

draft partnership agreements for cultural organisations.

Reading Rep’s partnerships within the hospitals were embedded and strong, but

there were challenges around high staff turnover and understaffing. The first

part of the programme focused on rebuilding relationships and making sure new

staff members fully understood and bought into the cultural delivery.

Initially, there were difficulties engaging with Rowan Ward, which is specifically

for those with dementia. There was a change of the core Occupational Therapy

(OT) team, the rooms used for sessions were changed and the abilities of the

participants are severely limited, which makes planning and delivery additionally

challenging. However, this learning was taken on board throughout the course of

the commission and led to more consistency within the OT team, joint planning

for sessions and co-facilitation when needed.

Key Challenges

It can be particularly challenging to plan and run activity groups which are

suitable for individuals with varying levels of cognitive ability. Rowan Ward found


that patients who were more functionally able could more easily benefit from

attending creative workshops. They were more able to engage with discussions

in a group setting and understand and follow different instructions.

In order to also engage the patients who were significantly impaired and found it

more difficult to engage, the partnership put certain steps in place. The

facilitator would contact the OT staff with ideas for potential activities and would

receive feedback based on the current mix of patients on the ward and their

needs. The hospital staff would also reflect informally with the facilitator after

each session.

One suggestion that came from this was to run two different weekly types of

groups targeted at specific levels of cognitive ability. For example, a simple,

sensory based activity for patients who are significantly cognitively impaired and

a second group for higher functioning patients which could be more complex.

Weekly workshops also helped to strengthen the therapeutic relationship

between the facilitator and patients.

As noted above, the other key challenges were major changes in partnerships

(Red Balloon) and high staff turnover or understaffing (hospitals).

Key Successes

Even though the partnership with Red Balloon did not continue for the duration

of the commission, the work accomplished was successful for the young people

involved. The partners worked together to create bespoke engagement options

so that even the most vulnerable young people were able to participate. For

instance, one member who didn’t want to join the rest of the group had one to

one sessions with the art teacher during the drama session, they listen to what

Reading Rep are working on and create work alongside this. The Reading Rep

facilitator then had 1:1 sessions with the participant separately at the end of the

session. This led to Further Education support for this participant to visit Reading

College, where they are considering continuing their post 16 education. This

participant has significant support needs, so it is very positive that the partners

were able to work together to engage and support them.

“Students appear more confident and contribute more,

they look forward to the sessions, one student now

participates in Reading Rep’s mainstream youth theatre

and former students came back to visit and wanted to

visit during drama session as they miss it.”

Red Balloon Deputy Head teacher

Developments in the programme at PPH were successful in creating an equitable

partnership which drew on the strength of both partners. Having the OTs so

closely involved means they were able to track the participants’ successes, such

as a staying for the entire session or picking up a pencil and putting it to paper.

These are achievements that Reading Rep would not necessarily recognise, so

the partnership really benefited from the OT expertise. PPH has also now

recognised the volatile situations that can be witnessed by Reading Rep staff and

is arranging the facilitator to have break away training.


Evaluation

Reading Rep trialled the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scales at Red

Balloon in practical drama workshops, where participants tracked themselves,

their mental health and their progress. The aim was to deliver this at the start of

term, half term and end of term. Although they were not able to complete the

evaluation, they plan to use the model in the future with different groups.

At the initial workshop, it was interesting to note how low the young people

scored themselves in terms of mental wellbeing. Further trials would have to be

run to see if the young people felt able to accurately represent how they felt in a

group setting. Reading Rep are considering running the workshops in smaller

focus groups in the future.

The turnover of patients is high at Prospect Park Hospital, which makes data

collection and evaluation challenging. Additionally, evaluation work with people

with severe dementia needs to be closely delivered in partnership with care staff

and with appropriate clinical care setting ethics approvals. Reading Rep were

particularly interested in the programme’s impact on staff and how they see

their patients, but this was also challenging because of a rise in agency staff and

staff shortages.

“With the client group we are working with, they will

never get better. Progress is something which is very

hard to track, as people have good days and bad days.

Sometimes the progress is making eye contact once

during the 45 min session. Sometimes it is someone

picking up a pen. It is a lot more complex to track.

Number of people engaging is the best that we can offer.

Patients are not able to provide consent for anything

else”

Senior Therapist, Prospect Park

The action research conversations determined that the PPH OT and Reading Rep

facilitator could reflect together more formally to assess what went well and

what could be improved. This would help to guide the planning of future sessions

and provide more data for evaluation.

Paul’s Story

Paul5 was a patient on Orchid Ward. He was in his early 70s and had a diagnosis

of reactive depression. Paul presented as very low in mood and was very quiet.

Paul found the ward environment extremely restrictive and frustrating. He was

also a smoker, and was unable to smoke on the ward due to the smoking ban.

Paul attended a lot of activities to pass time but did not engage. His poor vision

prevented participation in many groups.

5 name has been changed


Paul attended a drama group on the ward. The theme of the session was

memories where a famous world event was pulled out of envelope by each

patient in turn to prompt group discussion. One event was World War 2 which

prompted Paul to share his experiences and memories, which were very personal

and emotive.

After the session, Paul approached staff to report that in the 6 weeks of his

admission, that was the first time he had opened up or shared anything, even to

the doctors on the ward. He also said it was the first time that he could forget

that he was a patient on a psychiatric ward.

Outcomes

Participants at PPH have seemed to enjoy the sessions. OT staff subjectively

observed improvements in patients’ moods from participation and pointed to the

maintenance of communication, interaction and process skills.

Some participants even recognised the facilitator and said they were looking

forward to the group. Some began to talk more during the session and start to

make eye contact towards the end of the group.

“Christie is an engaged and enthusiastic group facilitator

who is a welcome addition to the OT team on Rowan

ward. As OTs we encourage and promote engagement in

meaningful activity, for the enhancement of health and

wellbeing. Creative workshop helps us to deliver this aim

and combat health inequalities that individuals with

dementia often experience, such as occupational

deprivation and social isolation. The workshop

encourages patients to interact and communicate with

each other which helps to maintain these skills.”

Occupational Therapist, Prospect Park

“The arts give people an avenue to express opinions and

emotions in a different way than they would during 1 to

1’s. They take people somewhere else, and people may

open up more because of the way these sessions are

delivered.”

Senior Therapist, Prospect Park

“Participants in creative workshop have the opportunity

to engage with an external group facilitator who is

enthusiastic and keen to engage patients in lively

discussions whilst delivering creative activities. The

group stimulates discussions between patients who may

not normally engage in conversations with each other. It

promotes a shared sense of purpose in working together

to complete a shared activity.”


Occupational Therapist, Prospect Park


Summary


Running groups suitable for

individuals with varying levels of

cognitive ability

Major changes in partnerships

Staff turnover or understaffing

at partner organisations

Patient turnover and ethics

approvals in clinical settings can

challenge data collection.

Positive outcomes for some of

the young people

A sense of an equitable

partnership that has benefits

for programme planning,

delivery and participants

Hospital staff understand and

advocate benefits of cultural

activity for their patients

Deepening a smaller, more

focused number of

partnerships

Subjectively observed

improvements in patients’

moods

Next Steps in Cultural Commissions

Learning from Round 1 approach

The Cultural Commissioning Programme was newly developed by the Cultural

Development Officer (CDO) in year 1 (2018-19) of Reading, Place of Culture.

The purpose of the fund is to enable arts, culture and heritage organisations to

make a step-change in how they work with the voluntary and community

sectors, commissioners and public services to collaboratively contribute to

meeting local social objectives. It was therefore essential that learning from year

1 was implemented to refine and develop the programme going into years 2

(July 2019- July 20) and 3 (Dec 2019-Dec 2020). Year 1 centred on broad social

outcome areas in order to ascertain what work was taking place in Reading and

what areas were in need of further development. In conversation with

commissioners and key stakeholders, the CDO refined the fund into three

focused areas for year 2. This was done to more strategically respond to needs

within Reading and sharpen applicants’ focus on key delivery areas. With so

many organisations underfunded and working to capacity, it was important for

the fund to be as specific as possible, so that only relevant programmes would

spend their valuable time applying. This led to fewer, but higher quality

applications.

As with year 1, funding was available to organisations to deliver participatory6

arts, culture and/or heritage community programmes by, with and for

disadvantaged Reading residents in order to contribute to improving people’s life

chances and their quality of life7. The CDO wrote a specification which provided

6 ‘Participatory programmes’ refers to individual or group activities intended to improve and

maintain health and wellbeing. 7 The World Health Organisation defines quality of life as ‘the product of interplay between social, health, economic and environmental conditions which affect human and social development. It is a broad ranging concept, incorporating a person’s physical health,


applicants with a description of the services required and asked them to address

the needs of local people, particularly those who are vulnerable or hard-to-

reach8 and less likely to access cultural opportunities.

The programme aims to support arts, culture and heritage organisations in

acting as a key component in delivering better outcomes for the town and its

residents. In line with the Reading 2050 vision, they have an important role to

play in supporting and enabling thriving communities, delivering a real sense of

place and identity, helping cultural and cross generational diversity thrive, and

enabling communities to recognise and engage with our heritage and natural

assets9.

It was important that these were fully participatory programmes; created by,

with and for participants. Quality outcomes cannot be attributed solely to the

creative professionals and the activity undertaken, but stem from a broader

process in which a range of decision makers influence the key conditions

necessary to achieve quality10. This includes organisations working in cross

sector partnerships and those who shape the programme both from outside and

inside the space where it takes place; from participants and community steering

groups, to facilitators, project managers and health professionals, for example.

There is a need for shared aspirations and objectives, collaboration, flexibility,

co-production, inclusivity, clear channels of communication and decision making,

and ‘buy in’ at all levels.

Professionals working in partnership bring complementary expertise together to

better support, engage, and inspire communities. The focus on partnerships was

therefore amplified; making it clear that true partnership was expected in

applications, rather than cultural organisations leading on projects with VCS or

health sector partners simply referring participants. The specification asked for

joint planning, delivery and evaluation to encourage this.

The Cultural Commissioning programme has a strong focus on evaluation and

measurability and this continues into years 2 and 3. Providers will continue to be

involved in an Action Research evaluation, committing to one meeting per

quarter. Year 1 of the programme faced challenges around data gathering and

the robust measurement of social outcomes. Years 2 and 3 will therefore benefit

from workshops and mentoring with MB Associates and their trial toolkit to

measure social impact.

psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, personal beliefs and relationship to salient features in the environment’

World Health Organization: A Glossary of Terms for Community Healthcare and Services for Older Persons,

2004 8 By ‘hard-to-reach’ we mean people who have historically been under-represented in the take up of services like the

one you are proposing to deliver. This can include:

• people in population groups which are more likely to be socially excluded;

• people at risk of being overlooked in traditional approaches to promoting services; and

• people who may be mistrustful of services because of previous bad experiences. 9 Reading 2050 Vision, http://www.livingreading.co.uk/reading-2050 10 https://www.phf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ArtWorks-Insights-in-facilitating-quality.pdf


Round 2 commissions

The second year of the Cultural Commissioning Programme opened for

applications In January 2019. The CDO worked with commissioners and experts

across sectors to identify three key areas for funding: Older people, Young

people with SEND, and Mental Health and Well-being. Two of these areas were

match funded, demonstrating increasing awareness of and interest in cultural

programmes for social outcomes, prevention and intervention.

The following contracts were awarded:

Elderly Care: £15,000 Rosetta Life: Delivering dance, spoken word and performance with older people living with the effects of stroke and developing a Stroke Ambassadors programme. Also involves running a participatory action research programme considering how to widen the approach for living well with a neurological disability, such as dementia and Parkinson’s. They are taking performances to care homes, hospitals, GP surgeries and other locations as appropriate. The service will develop a strategy for wider work and ambassadors across Reading. Cultural Short Breaks: £30,000 (match funded by Brighter Futures for Children) Reading Rep: Working in partnership with Jelly, Reading College and five further organisations to engage children and young people with moderate and severe Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. They are working with arts and non-arts partners to deliver workshops and activities which develop confidence and independence, develop skills and decrease social isolation. Mental Health and Wellbeing: £30,000 (match funded by Berkshire Community Foundation) Sport in Mind: Working with Junction Dance and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to use dance in the treatment, management and prevention of mental illness. Using dance as a unique form of therapy, strengthening emotions, cognitive skills, physical abilities and social connections, and a proven effective remedy for depression and anxiety. The provision of free, fun and sociable dance classes, is being carefully chosen to ensure high levels of engagement, and applicability to each target group.

Round 3 commissions

The third and final year of the RPoC Cultural Commissioning Programme opened

for applications in September 2019. Decision making panels with experts from

different sectors took place in November 2019. This included representatives


from local special schools, the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, Reading

Families Forum, Reading Voluntary Action, the University of Reading, Berkshire

Community Foundation, Brighter Futures for Children, RBC’s Health and

Wellbeing team and RBCs Community and Enablement team.

The fund called for proposals from partnerships between arts, culture and/or

heritage organisations and service delivery organisations with significant

experience in the relevant field:

Older People at risk of loneliness and social isolation: £20,000 (co-funded by Berkshire Community Foundation): Projects must use arts, culture or heritage activities to combat loneliness and social isolation for older people who face the greatest barriers to engagement in the community and in the arts. Creative Employment: £30,000 (co-funded by Brighter Futures for Children): for creative projects working with young people who are not in education, employment or training, with a focus on particular provision for young people with autistic spectrum disorders and/or special educational needs and disabilities. Projects must provide meaningful work experience within a creative industry. Women at risk: £20,000 (co-funded by Berkshire Community Foundation): for projects that deliver high quality cultural and creative activities for disadvantaged women, in particular those who are at risk of modern slavery, exploitation, domestic violence and abuse, sexual assault and social isolation.

Conclusion

These three programmes were the first funded by the Cultural Commissioning

Programme. They demonstrated the variety and quality of cultural programmes

engaging with disadvantaged or at risk people in Reading. They also elucidated

difficulties between cross sector partnerships, challenges around collecting

robust data and how difficult it is to truly engage the harder to reach members

of our society.

Whether through qualitative or quantitative methods, each of the commissions

demonstrated that partnerships with arts, culture and heritage can indeed

enhance existing services for disadvantaged participants. They do this in a

variety of ways; from engaging participants in fun activities without stigma

attached to them, to developing skills such as confidence, to enhancing mental

health and wellbeing.

The action research meetings and discussions will continue with newly funded

commissions in 2019-2020 and external consultants have been contracted to

deliver ‘How to Measure Your Social Impact’ workshops and mentoring, which

will support the sector in both understanding and communicating their impact.

The Cultural Commissioning Programme still has its work cut out for it in terms

of proving how the cultural sector enhances existing services, however. There is

the age old innate difficulty in capturing the true value of participating in arts,

culture and heritage that cannot be solved by this programme, but we can

explore finding a balance between the black and white trajectory of change

many commissioners still expect to see, and the soft touch intrinsic argument

some cultural organisations still rely on. We will continue to seek the evaluation


methodologies that best suit the work delivered, the participants engaged, and

the commissioners we seek to influence.


2019 Cultural Commissioning

Programme Pilots

2019 saw a further three cultural commissioning pilot programmes appointed.

Ageing Well Pilot 1

The Ageing Well Partnership forms part of

the delivery of ‘Reading, Place of Culture’,

with a focus on older residents, although

the intention is that it will be sustainable

beyond the initial funding period. Its

prime purpose is to enable strategic

oversight of opportunities and gaps in

cultural engagement for older residents in

Reading. Membership is diverse, with

cultural organisations, hospital staff, CCG

representatives, care homes and the

voluntary and community sector all participating. By networking and sharing

opportunities, the Partnership ensures that activities are widely circulated and

made accessible for older residents.

Using the partners’ inside knowledge of different areas and demographics, the

Partnership identified gaps and priorities for initial cultural commissioning pilots.

Whilst the pilots have been the initial focus of the Partnership, its long-term goal

is to identify further opportunities for collaborative work in Reading, in order to

consistently improve the wellbeing of older residents.

The key priorities of the Partnership are to:

Network and build connections with partners from different sectors.

Regularly share knowledge of events and activities, and work in

collaboration to overcome attendance/participation barriers.

Ensure cultural activities/events are filtered to frontline staff so that

every interaction with an older person is used as an opportunity to

encourage cultural engagement and thereby improved mental and/or

physical wellbeing.

Identify gaps in opportunities and decide on areas of focus for the Ageing

Well Pilots, which incorporate the values of the ‘Great Place Scheme’

funders.

Ensure the Ageing Well Pilots are sustainable.

Identify opportunities and funding streams that might provide additional

cultural commissioning opportunities now and into the future.

To achieve these aims, the Partnership meets quarterly and ensures the

membership is inclusive of the various organisations working to improve the

physical and mental wellbeing of Reading’s older population.


The Ageing Well pilot specification was designed with a focus on identifying

strategic gaps and opportunities for older residents. Multiple studies have shown

that isolation and difficult life events (such as bereavement) become harder to

cope with later in life, and offering information and support services is not

always enough. Loneliness increases the likelihood of premature mortality by

26%, which Berkshire Community Foundation’s The Vital Signs 2018 Survey

believes there is concern for in Berkshire communities. The Understanding

Society Survey conducted by Age UK found that good levels of wellbeing and

“meaningful engagement with the world around you in later life,” were

significantly linked to participation in creative and cultural activities. With this in

mind, the specification sought applications which would consult widely with the

providers and users of services for elderly care, in order to investigate and

understand the barriers preventing older people from engaging in arts, cultural

and heritage events, and to trial opportunities for how they might be overcome.

£9,000 was awarded to The Rising Sun Arts Centre and Real Time Video, who

are conducting participatory research and delivering a pilot programme of work

with older people using a ‘cultural champions’ model. These champions meet

weekly in order to set the programme up themselves and determine its aims.

They will then go on to work with wider groups of older people to investigate the

barriers they feel they face in engaging, developing their own skill set as they do

so. The cultural champions will then act as a resource to Reading’s services, able

to conduct research and interviews and deliver workshops themselves. They

have also determined that they would like to connect cross-cultural grassroots

and community groups to share their own cultural activities, but also to

experience and trial new activities.

Ageing Well Pilot 2:

An additional £4,000 was awarded to the Whitley Researchers to conduct sector

wide research into barriers to engagement for older people, the current delivery

of cultural activity for older people and barriers to organisations in delivering this

work. 25 interviews with ACH organisations and service providers, 2 focus

groups and 45 interviews with older residents were held. There was also a focus

on speaking to BAMER organisations and grassroots groups.

A report sharing progress and initial findings from this research has been

included in the research section of the report below.

Research and evaluations from both pilots will be available in the final year of

the programme (2020) in order to inform the Ageing Well Partnership’s action

plan going forward.


Young People and Mental Health Pilot:

This pilot focussed on understanding

needs and improving the mental health

of children and young people. In 2013,

1,902 (9.1%) children aged 5-16 living

in Reading were estimated to have a

mental health disorder. The

specification was therefore developed

around reviewing existing artistic,

cultural or heritage opportunities

available to children and young people

in Reading, consulting with children and

young people to establish what their

needs and interests are, and

developing and trialling a short programme of artistic, cultural or heritage

focussed activities that are of a high quality and have a measurable impact on

mental health and social isolation and loneliness.

Reading International, in partnership with the sound and visual arts collective

Ultra Red, were appointed to work with children and young people to explore the

concept of ‘care’, and how young people might care more for themselves and

one another, and the community for them.

The aim was originally to work in South Reading, an area of high socio-economic

disadvantage, but after a change in leadership at the initial school, the sessions

were cancelled and a new partnership had to be developed. This significantly

pushed the timeline back by 6 months, but delivery is scheduled with a new

school for 2020.

Year 2 Cultural Commissioning Sector Development

Funding Panel Event

A funding panel event and a creative networking workshop

were both organised 2019 to support the sector in

accessing a more diverse portfolio of funding streams.

The funding panel event featured representatives from the

local cultural and business sectors, as well as funding and

engagement experts from Arts Council England and

National Lottery Heritage Fund. All attendees felt that their

confidence around commissioning and what is needed to

gain funding grew as a result of attending. Similarly, all

attendees felt that their networks within the ACH and VCS

sectors developed due to attending. Networks within

health, regeneration and social sectors were less developed

by the event, however, which reflects similar difficulties in

engaging with these sectors in year 1 of RPoC. Whilst commissioners and staff

from other sectors are engaging with the Cultural Commissioning Programme

through steering groups and match funding, the sector itself is still struggling to

connect to them. This signifies that strategic work still needs to take place


around this in year three. The Cultural Development officer is working towards a

final Cultural Commissioning Symposium which would seek to celebrate best

practice, evidence the social value of ACH, offer networking opportunities and

bring different sectors together.

Feedback from the funding panel event:

“We have been put in contact with people who are

largely inaccessible to us, networked with relevant

people and organisations, some of which have been

made visible to us where they previously were not”.

“We were given a platform to discuss our ideas with

other people in the sector and ask direct questions to

funding panel members. Invaluable!”

“We have come away with a deeper understanding of the

sources of funding available to use and some specific

ideas”

Creative Networking Event

ROAM run creative networking events in Reading and worked with the Cultural

Commissioning Programme to deliver an event which focused on arts and

wellbeing. In addition to hearing about programmes funded by the Cultural

Commissioning programme, attendees heard from Reading Voluntary Action

about how social prescribing works in Reading and from Berkshire Community

Foundation on funding from trusts for arts projects with social and health

outcomes. More professional development and networking events will be run

with ROAM in 2020.


Section 4:Whitley Researchers

Reporting

Reading, Place of Culture and the

Whitley Researchers: Communities,

Participation And Shared Learning

Sally Lloyd-Evans (Whitley Researchers

University Lead) and John Ord (Whitley

Researchers Community Manager)

The Whitley Researchers: Context

The Whitley Researchers (WRs) are a participatory action research collective that

originated in a Whitley based Big Local project that granted a sum of £1m to the

local community in 2013. Residents were required to produce a report outlining

local needs as well as assets as a basis for claiming their grant allowance. A

group of residents set about producing the report preferring to rely on their own

skills and local knowledge but with support from their appointed Big Local Rep

and University of Reading staff, including student interns and the Participation

Lab, and the ‘Whitley Researchers’ came into being.

The WRs emphasise a collective participatory research style, face-to-face with

local residents, sharing a common project and common concerns. The

dimensions of each project are co-produced and planned at the outset with those

immediately impacted by a local issue or problem and they too are set to benefit

from the difference the project makes. We build knowledge generation by

careful research using the skills, implicit or tacit local awareness and often

unspoken knowledge of those immersed in the everyday realities of

disadvantage or deprivation. This is a grounded, participatory approach that

employs local residents and young people as researchers - with support and

training from the University - from genesis of the research project to its action

implementation.

What are the Whitley Researchers adding to Reading’s

Great Place scheme?

One of the programme’s aims is to deliver arts, culture and heritage-based

community programmes and cultural commissioning by, with and for

disadvantaged Reading residents to improve people’s life chances and their

quality of life. The ‘by, with and for’ comes from the same stable as the WRs.

The latter’s various research projects have had considerable social impact in

supporting personal and community development and the lessons learnt and

experience gained has proved to be a valuable cache – not least for enhancing


shared learning and partnerships building between Reading, Place of Culture

(RPoC) partners, service providers and cultural commissioners. Examples of the

impact of our work include:

Providing expertise and methodological approaches in how best to

engage meaningfully with the most disadvantaged communities,

including BAME organisations. Partners and ACH organisations have

asked Whitley Researchers to reach those residents who traditionally

shun participation in a wide range of cultural or arts activities including:

Linking the Ageing Well Partnership and Cultural Commissioning

pilot (Rising Sun and RealTime) with BAME participants

Developing new grassroots partnerships in South Reading with

schools, health providers (including CCGs and Public Heath),

community organisations, RBC, the University and Statutory

Service Providers (including RBC and Thames Valley Police). We

are currently working with Reside Dance, Reading Rep, Rising

Sun, Real time, Reading International, Flamboyance, Nature

Nurture, on different funding streams and projects.

Through partnership with WRs, the RPoC scheme has heard the authentic

voice of diverse groups of local people and why they do not wholesale

engage in arts/culture events or activities. Our reports provide ample

evidence of what people really think about ‘higher’ cultural programmes

and the need to democratise local cultural provision, particularly in

relation to tackling social issues.

The highly grounded presence of the WRs in Reading’s disadvantaged

and BAME communities has presented RPoC with a channel to make

contact with residents who may be regarded as ‘deficient’ officially but

who continue to demonstrate their capabilities and aspirations and

thereby offer new or creative ways and means for building new

art/community alliances in Year 3.

The WRs additionally, are a highly connected agency – they know their

localities and the range of other organisations, whether statutory or

voluntary, active in the neighbourhood. This offers RPoC yet another

channel to engage with a wide range of local partnerships – what is

offered is a doorway to new and highly local networks. We are currently

consulting on the best ways to create a more innovative and community-

based cultural partnership/network in Reading as a legacy to the RPoC

scheme.

The path to engaging so called ‘disadvantaged communities’ is often

strewn with the failure of top-down, usually middle class initiatives,

which though well-intentioned, cannot move the local community, not

least because they do not know where to push or prompt. The WRs

‘know’ and their intermediation can help RPoC make a more confident

contribution to a stable and creative community.

Wider Impact

Our research record tells a clear story of direct evidence for gauging the impact

on thinking about arts in working class communities that we present in our


reports – this knowledge helps inform the other RPoC strands including the

Reading on Thames Festival and the Cultural Commissioning programmes. Our

methods, process and principles are now being endorsed and demonstrated by

Reading-wide statutory and voluntary sector service providers and they are

shaping new projects being designed by local arts/cultural organisations. A good

example of this is our new work with Reading Voluntary Action to train a Reading

wide ‘Youth Action’ group of 16-22 years olds using creative research methods

to bring the youth voice to service delivery in the town.

Mention is made (above) of the community engagement and partnership building

skills and capabilities demonstrated by the WRs – for instance, Whitley for Real

(a wide partnership of statutory and non-statutory organisations) examples how

the WRs have energised many organisations to engage in their surrounding

community and be a little less insular. A clear demonstration of this is the local

parent-led ‘Fun Day’ this July at the John Madejski School in Whitley, which

focused on local cultural activities and performances, and was attended by

around 2000 local Whitley residents and evaluated by the Young Researchers

(see photos below).

Our research reveals time and again how local residents and in particular young

people feel an acute sense of mute invisibility, not to be engaged and not to be

heard, which impacts on civic pride. The establishment of the Young Researchers

at the John Madejski Academy and the wide- ranging aspiration/well being

research with teachers and parents and key local community agencies has been

highly effective in challenging this and amplifying the voices and concerns of

local people. The Young Researchers are now active in spreading the young

researcher ethos in other local schools through art-based activities, while at the

same time assisting local arts organisations and events such as the Reading on

Thames Festival.


Year 2 outcomes:

1. A growing body of shared learning and findings illustrating what local

communities really think about art, culture, heritage and civic pride with

a Year 2 focus on Ageing Well and diversity. This includes knowledge on

community engagement with ACH , barriers to partnership working between ACH

groups and service providers, and an assessment of the diverse social needs of

Reading’s older residents and BAME communities

(https://research.reading.ac.uk/community-based-research/). Our research is being used

to shape future ACH commissions, grant applications and service provision.

Sally presented on the Young Researchers projects to the Chair of the Education

Select Committee at Westminster on 14th October and she is currently working

with RBC’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Committee to build a new

community-based research web resource to champion and share local knowledge

between organisations and provide community research resources/toolkits

(launched in 2020). The WRs will develop their own methodological

guides/toolkit in Year 3 of the RPoC programme.

2. An increasing call on WRs support or engagement in commissioned

research contracts, service delivery partnerships and cultural

commissioning strategy across Reading that helps to embed ACH provision in

meeting social objectives, particularly in disadvantaged areas (including RBC’s

Joint Strategic Needs Assessment Committee and Ageing Well Partnership,

Reading 2050 partnership, Reading’s Trauma Informed Community Partnership,

Thames Valley Police, Reading Rep’s new theatre, Reading’s BAMER

communities/City of Sanctuary, Reading Voluntary Action’s Youth Action

Project).

3. A strong inclusive network of links with RPoC personnel and

organisational groups and committees across Reading that we hope to

consolidate in Year 3. We discussed what this new ‘network’ or partnership

might look like at the Reading 2050 workshop on November 11th at UoR.

4. The expansion of the Young Researchers programme, led by arts

teachers, to 3 news schools in Reading. Each school are designing their

own mini research project to explore well being through creative methods.

Noticeable here are links with secondary and primary schools and their interest

in developing more creative curriculum approaches to tackling social exclusion

and mental health issues, as well as engaging with the Young Researchers

programme.

5. WR’s expertise has supported the data collection and analysis of the

evaluation of the 2019 Reading on Thames festival.

https://research.reading.ac.uk/community-based-research/


Diversity and Ageing Well: Research

exploring older residents’ and BAME

community attitudes to engaging in

ACH in Reading

Sally Lloyd-Evans, Lorna Zishka and Alice

Mpofu-Coles

Overview

The Whitley Researchers, three Undergraduate Interns (Faith O’Rouke, Katie

Raph and Lizzie Sandeman) and a doctoral researcher (Alice )are undertaking an

extensive research project over Years 2 and 3 of the Great Place scheme to

explore the opportunities and barriers facing local service providers and ACH

organisations in engaging with older residents (defined by RBC as 55+). The

research is aligned to the Ageing Well Cultural Commissioning Partnership and

the findings, which will be produced in 2020, will inform future strategy to

develop a diverse, inclusive and socially engaged cultural provision for older

residents in Reading. A key focus of the research was to investigate current

levels of engagement and connection between ACH organisations/service

providers with Reading’s diverse communities to help partners nurture feelings

of belonging and civic pride in the town.

The research methodology comprises of 35 qualitative interviews with local

service providers and ACH organisations (including x BAME organisations); 42

structured interviews with older residents and a mapping of existing ACH

provision for older residents in Reading. This preliminary report focuses on the

first stage of our research with (1) older residents and (2) BAME community

organisations.

1. Cultural provision for older residents in Reading

Research Methodology: The Whitley Researchers and student interns interviewed

42 individuals over the age of 55 from August to September 2019, with the

majority of interviews conducted in established community groups. Participants

were asked about their current activities, barriers that prevent them from going

to new activities, sources of information and how they think organisations

offering a cultural programme could make their services more accessible to the

older generation. We captured responses from people who had lived from 5

years to 82 years in Reading. Most were long established however, with only two

people having lived in Reading for less than 25 years and 74% of interviewees


were female11, and 26% male. Respondents were asked to self-describe their

ethnicity and 71% identified as ‘white’ in their description and the remaining

29% either did not specify their ethnicity, or positively identified themselves as

Asian or Black, or did not answer the question. Geographically, 33% of

interviewees lived in the South of Reading, 19% lived in the North, 19% in the

East (technically in Wokingham) and 10% in the West. 17% were central and

one person was from just outside of Reading.12

Key Findings:

ACH interests amongst older residents are as diverse as people themselves,

although physical activity was outstanding for many (people like to be as active

as they can). Some kind of active engagement (corresponding to personal

interest) combined with positive social connection were elements confirmed to

be extremely important to welfare. Examples included, lunch clubs, board

games, art and craft activities, needlework, a wood and metal workshop, book

clubs, bible studies, gardening, choir practice and bands. Most groups enable

people to come together around a particular interest; the social aspect is

foundational to groups, set around an engaging activity. Charitable organisations

(and particularly churches) are important in facilitating these activities and

bringing communities together. No pattern was found from the responses given

to suggest that there was a major gap in the provision of one or another activity.

It was not the choice of activity that was at fault, but rather the success in

integrating certain social groups.

Those least catered for were men (compared to women), BAME

communities (compared to the majority ethnic groups) and all people

unfamiliar with community group attendance in the past.

There does not appear to be any reoccurring pattern in the data to suggest a

major gap in the provision of one or another activity (i.e. music compared to art)

– but when we go on to look at who is involved, it would seem that one sector of

the population is engaged more successfully than another. Why this is may

become evident as we consider the barriers to engagement:

93% of respondents aged 55 and over faced some kind of barrier to

engagement in art, culture and heritage-related activities, and most

faced multiple barriers. Some of barriers were reduced as people retired

from work, had more time, became more involved and therefore aware

11 Women were more likely to be involved in clubs, meetings and community

groups than men, even though they faced neither more nor less barriers to

engagement that males.

12 Residents from the South of Reading (and to a lesser extent, from central

Reading) were less likely to be involved in a club, meeting or community group

than everyone else, but it was also the case that people from these areas were

more likely to have been interviewed in their homes due to their links with our community research team. Those from other areas were interviewed in clubs,

which automatically selects people who are already part of a group. No

conclusion may therefore be drawn from this data until we have undertaken

further analysis.


of what was going on and became eligible for discounts. However, all

kinds of barriers started to rise again for those aged 75 and over:

‘Wanting someone to go with’ was the most frequently cited

barrier and applies across all age bands and all people groups –

this social factor is even more frequently cited than cost. Personal

connection is key to engagement

Cost was also an important factor for nearly half of those

interviewed.

Transport difficulties were felt to be a significant barrier for two

thirds of respondents without a car, with some being unable to

negotiate public transport and being dependent on lifts/ on

someone to go with. However almost two thirds of respondents

did have a car and a good number of these frequently used public

transport as well.

About half of the respondents were not keen on going out in the

evening, especially after dark and especially not on their own.

Not knowing what is on is an important barrier to participation.

People outside of groups and BAME community members were

especially likely to face this barrier.

▪ There is a lot of dependence on word-of-mouth.

▪ Those who cannot access the internet were also found to

be less likely to make it to groups, reinforcing isolation.

Men (compared to women) and BAME participants (compared to non

BAME participants) are less involved in ACH activities and events. The

nature of the event is not so much the problem, as the feeling of not

fitting in with the prevailing social group. The significant barriers to crack

are (1) ensuring that the group’s culture is welcoming, inclusive and

compatible with that of the people invited and (2) getting across

information about events (since these demographic groups feel

particularly uninformed). Essential considerations are:

Developing events in conversation with the people set to benefit

from them;

Ensuring that people feel comfortable with the social group they

are going to join;

The personal touch and the assurance of friends at the venue -

most people would not want to go to a new event on their own;

Being aware of and providing for the practical barriers that people

might face (transport, seeing, hearing, cost, safety fears and time

of day etc.);

Framing the event with sensitivity (few people identify with the

stereotype of ‘elderly’).


2. A sense of belonging: Views of BAME communities and

organisations

As part of the research, Alice Mpofu-Coles (Whitley Researchers doctoral

student, UoR) undertook in-depth qualitative interviews with representatives

from 9 BAME organisations/community groups to understand the challenges they

faced in offering ACH for older residents. The data is currently being analysed

but there are several emerging findings:

There is a strong feeling of exclusion and marginalisation amongst BAME

community organisations and participants in Reading and there is little

evidence of the inclusion of their voices in formal ACH partnerships and

projects. Few groups are invited to participate in larger strategic

partnerships and events e.g. there was no representation at the Reading

2050 workshop on November 4th, despite ‘culture and diversity’ being

discussed at the event.

Key barriers to provision include money, transport, language, lack of

experienced (and paid) staff to make grant applications and poor

education in Reading around BAME cultural inclusion and equality

There was a “sense of helplessness, hopelessness and also anger towards

the council” as a result of service cutbacks, closures of local clubs and

community centre activities, and what many see as the marginalisation

of ‘Black culture’ into Black History Month rather than a “normalisation of

Black music, arts, heritage and culture like other Boroughs in the country

do through the year”:

“There are so many barriers to why there are no projects

for the elderly. The applications forms are so

cumbersome to fill, and it is never successful, and then

they award ridiculous money. The elderly themselves

cannot be bothered as they feel it’s just a tick box. They

have given up. The Black History month – the projects

or events are crammed in one month, and BAME people

are supposed to do it in that month and then eleven

months nothing much. The projects that take place are

in collaboration with other grassroots groups to facilitate

their cultural heritage”

Interview with leading BAME organisation in Reading.

BAME communities and faith groups are providing a rich and diverse

range of informal, grassroots ACH events funded by their own

communities but much of this provision is ‘under the radar’ and limited

by funds

Using this research, the WRs intend to explore new opportunities for developing

a more diverse and inclusive cultural offer in Reading that will impact positively

on civic pride. Much of this work will be around relationship, shared learning and

trust building in Year 3. We have already begun connecting different

organisations e.g. helping the Rising Sun Arts Centre and RealTime seek cultural


champions from BAME communities to help them develop their Ageing Well

cultural commissioning pilot.


Section 5: Reading UK CIC Culture

and Business Reporting

Business Engagement in the Cultural

Sector

Grant Thornton, Reading, Place of Culture

Researcher

Introduction

Reading’s ‘Great Place Scheme’ – ‘Reading, Place of Culture’ - is seeking to

widen and deepen the role of culture in contributing to the success of the town,

including economic and social outcomes and ‘place-making’ more widely. The

Great Place Scheme is an innovative national programme developed as a

collaboration between Arts Council England, Historic England and the Heritage

Lottery. Reading is one of 16 ‘Great Places’ in the country to be awarded

funding following a competitive bidding process and is the only urban area in the

South-East outside London to have secured ‘Great Place’ status.

A key strand of this work in Reading, building from the Year of Culture in 2016,

is to further develop the relationships between the business community and

cultural organisations in order to support key economic development objectives

for ‘good growth’ and delivery of the long-term 2050 Vision for the town.

Reading UK (the town’s economic development agency) is taking a lead role in

the work on business engagement and has embraced cultural development as an

integral component of its economic development role. A significant track record

includes leading on the delivery of the Year of Culture 2016, the Reading-on-

Thames Festival, Cultural Awards, Business Relocation Guide and successfully

establishing a 2nd Business Improvement District (BID) in 2019 focused on the

Abbey Quarter (complementing the existing BID covering the town’s retail core

that was also renewed in 2019). In 2018 Reading UK also led on a successful

Christmas promotion campaign that incorporated a range of cultural activities to

increase footfall, enhance reputation and, ultimately, ensure the town’s offer

was competitive and its businesses thrived.

Reading UK has commissioned this piece of research to further build on survey

feedback to date and explore in a more qualitative and evaluative way the links

between Reading businesses and cultural organisations. The work is intended to

better understand Reading’s profile as a cultural hub and emergent potential as

a centre of excellence, why businesses get involved and how this engagement

might be nurtured and promoted into the future. It is the intention that this

initial phase of research can be built on and further developed over time.


Executive Summary

Key Findings and Recommendations:

The findings from this qualitative local research reflect national studies

commissioned by Arts Council England:

Business investment in culture is significant but relatively modest

compared to other sources of private and earned income. Securing

business investment is thus not necessarily an essential element of a

fundraising strategy but it can be for some cultural organisations.

A strong cultural offer can play a significant role in ‘place-shaping’,

particularly with regard to supporting a thriving town centre.

Previous business surveys carried out by R.UK demonstrate that there is a

significant cohort of businesses that see development and promotion of a strong

cultural offer as an important contributor to economic success. There are also a

number of businesses that think the relationship with cultural organisations

could be deepened.

There is strong evidence from the two Christmas town centre user surveys (5

years apart) that the town centre is successfully improving its offer, with users

accessing a much broader range of activities, and that cultural activities play a

significant supporting role.

At a strategic level, all those involved in shaping this ‘place offer’ (including the

public realm) need to be able to influence and work together to achieve mutually

advantageous outcomes.

In terms of place-shaping the future of the Prison and Hosier Street sites is seen

as potentially pivotal, a view expressed by a number of both business and

cultural organisations.

With regard to promoting culture and business engagement, Reading UK is

widely recognised as having a leadership and advocacy role and this is strongly

supported by the vast majority of businesses when expressing a view.

There remains significant potential to further develop cross-sector partnership

working and collaboration focused on ‘place’, culture and identity to support a

thriving town.

For both the cultural offer itself and for business engagement with cultural

organisations there is a sense that Reading is on a journey with a positive

trajectory (evidenced by both R.UK surveys and the qualitative research).

However, more could be done building on solid foundations and significant

progress to date.

A range of potential mechanisms for further enhancing business engagement

with cultural organisations emerged through the research. Helping to

overcoming time constraints, improving mutual understanding, raising

awareness, opportunities for meaningful dialogue and developing good practice


are all areas of possible focus – with specific opportunities identified in the

‘Conclusions’ section of the report.

Finally, do check out the ‘Top Tips’ from the participating businesses and cultural

organisations that follow the report’s conclusions.

The Brief and Methodology

Reading UK and the Great Place Steering Group produced a research brief and

an outline work programme for this initial phase of research, along with

identifying some potential further work that could flow from it.

The initial phase specified in the original brief involved the following elements:

Analyse the findings of the ‘Survey Monkey’ of businesses undertaken by

Reading UK in summer 2019 to gain reaction generally about the

importance of arts and culture to the business location and business

involvement. To compare and contrast this with previous surveys

undertaken.

Seek the views of new businesses in Reading about their perceptions of

the town and the cultural scene (an initial sample of businesses locating

in Reading in 2018). To include whether there was an appetite for

engaging more with culture in the town, in what way and what options

might be appealing.

Analyse and draw conclusions from the visitor survey during the

Christmas ‘festival’ in 2018.

Analyse any learning points for cultural organisations and businesses

from 1-3 above.

Survey key arts organisations on their perception and experience of

engaging with businesses and the nature of these relationships.

Survey a sample of businesses on how they have been involved with

cultural organisations and activities, their motivations for this

involvement and their view on the outcomes versus expectations.

Analyse the responses from 5 and 6 above and synthesise key themes

and learning points.

To supplement the brief some contextual national information has also been

included derived from relevant national research recently commissioned by Arts

Council England (ACE).

The research thus covers both a review of existing data and original qualitative

work with business and cultural organisations and provides scope for replication

and extension into the future, both to expand on the cohorts involved and to

assess progress over time in further developing engagement and involvement.

For the qualitative research the original aim was to conduct structured face to

face interviews with three cohorts of organisations:

Cultural organisations;

Businesses who had engaged with culture / cultural organisations;

Businesses new to Reading.


The aim was to interview up to ten organisations in each cohort.

A bespoke questionnaire framework for the face to face interviews was devised

for each of these three cohorts and copies are provided at Appendix 2.I. These

were agreed and signed off by the client and the Great Place Steering Group

prior to the fieldwork commencing.

For the business engagement the research has been very dependent on Reading

UK brokering access through their network of contacts. The aim overall has

been to engage with a range of businesses in terms of both sector (e.g. retail,

property, professional services) and scale.

Whilst the cohort of businesses new to Reading is largely self-defining, it has

proved difficult in the timescales to identify key contacts and broker

engagement. This element of the brief will therefore be deferred and completed

in the New Year. This report therefore focuses on the other elements of the brief

as outlined above.

For engaging cultural organisations the research has relied on longstanding

networks and relationships developed over time by the researcher. Again, the

intention has been to access a range of cultural organisations, active in a variety

of different genres and of different sizes.

All of the organisations that have participated in the qualitative research are

listed in Appendix 2 and I would like to note my gratitude for their time,

thoughtfulness and contributions.

All participants were informed that their views would not be attributed in the

final report but rather that the research would seek to distil key themes and

learning points. It is worth noting that both commonly held and divergent views

that emerge from the work are of potential value to insight and learning.

National Context

Of particular and direct relevance to this local work focused on Reading are two

recent national research projects commissioned by ACE:

Private Investment in Culture Survey, June 2019, mtm consultants;

The Value of Arts and Culture in Place-shaping, August 2019, wavehill

consultants.

Both reports can be readily accessed and downloaded from ACE’s website:

http://artscouncil.org.uk/ Headline summaries that provide a context for

this research report, and that are valuable to bring to the attention of a Reading

audience, are provided below:

Private Investment in Culture Survey

This survey investigates the respective roles individual giving, business

investment and trusts & foundations play in funding arts and culture in England.

Analysis is based on the financial year 2017/18 with private investment from all

http://artscouncil.org.uk/


sources totaling £545m – about 15% of total income to the sector, earned

income accounting for over half the total and public funding a third (down from

50% at the start of the decade).

Key findings:

Private investment is very important to arts and culture funding in

England, becoming more significant as public funding has gradually

declined. Private investment, alongside earned income, has become a

significant source of income – particularly pronounced amongst smaller

organisations. 91% of all arts and culture organisations received some

form of private investment.

Individual giving is the largest form of private investment, accounting for

43% of the total, compared to 38% for Trusts & Foundations and 18%

for business investment. All regions have experienced growth in private

investment of between 4-11% since a previous survey for the 2014/15

financial year (with an average increase nationally of 8%).

Private investment is disproportionately skewed towards the 50

organisations that receive the largest amount – accounting for 60% of all

private investment (and dominated by London based organisations).

These top 50 are more reliant on individual giving than other forms of

private investment, whilst others are more reliant on grants from Trusts

& Foundations.

London based arts and culture organisations attract 66% of total private

investment - £344m (leaving 34% for the rest of England).

At the time of the survey, the sector expected further growth in private

investment, though primarily from individual giving and Trusts &

Foundations rather than business investment.

In the South East region (outside London) total private income of £54m

is about 10% of the national total. Business investment accounts for 17%

of this (a percentage point higher than London but lower than the rest of

the country: South West 19%, Midlands 23% and the North 26%).

This national context is valuable in providing an overview of business investment

and the role it plays across the sector as a whole. It also provides an indication

of scale in an area of investment dominated overall by London – on the numbers

above London attracts £55m of business investment into cultural organisations

compared to £9.2m for the rest of the South East. However, higher proportional

contributions from businesses in other regions does perhaps indicate that there

is scope to further increase engagement and investment.

Another corollary, at a strategic level for arts and cultural organisations, is that

securing business investment is not necessarily an essential element of a

fundraising strategy. Trusts & Foundations, earned income and, to a degree,

individual giving are potentially more lucrative areas of private investment to

explore. This does not however negate at a strategic level the broader

advantages of getting businesses engaged in the cultural life of the places that

provide them a home.


The Value of Arts and Culture in Place-shaping

This research was commissioned by ACE to look at if and how an area’s arts and

cultural offer attracts individuals and businesses to settle there; whether it’s a

factor in them staying there; and whether that cultural offer shapes a place’s

local identity. The research involved a nationally representative survey of adults

and a more in-depth series of focus groups and interviews across six towns and

cities.

Key Findings:

Creative desirable places to live

Arts and culture support personal well-being. A strong arts and cultural

offer makes people feel more content and likely to stay within an area.

Fostering community cohesion

A strong and vibrant arts and cultural offer was integral to providing

opportunities for communities to come together. Engaging in local arts

and cultural activities is valuable in fostering a sense of collective

identity, opportunities for interaction and shared experience and people

having a stronger attachment to place.

Attracting and retaining people to live and work

The local arts and cultural offer is a factor, both for people considering

moving to an area and for people remaining in an area. Arts and culture

was cited as an equal priority to ‘schools’ in people’s decision to move to,

or remain in an area. These findings support a notion that a strong local

arts and cultural offer can play a role in attracting and retaining workers.

Place marketing, inward investment and economic growth

Consultations with key stakeholders (e.g. councils, Chambers of

Commerce, Business Improvement Districts) emphasized the importance

of a strong arts and cultural offer in supporting place branding and

marketing.

Most businesses consulted agreed that a rich cultural offer provides

benefits for business in terms of branding, identity and reputation.

Positive media coverage of arts and cultural activities is important in

putting places ‘on the map’ and, where necessary, challenging and

changing negative perceptions.

Benefits for the high street

There are positive examples from across the UK of towns and cities that

are successfully transforming their high streets through the growth of

high-quality visitor experiences. A strong arts and cultural offer can

support efforts to maintain or enhance the attractiveness of retail centres

through the animation of public spaces including art works, live

performances and opportunities for local cultural identity to be explored

and celebrated.

Business location decisions

Whilst many businesses acknowledge the benefits of a strong local arts

and cultural offer in supporting their workforce’s quality of life, location


decisions are more strongly influenced by infrastructure considerations

such as transport, skilled workforce, further and higher education

institutions, premises and costs.

However, a strong arts and cultural offer is a more influential factor for

businesses within the retail sector.

A strong arts and cultural offer can also play a role in attracting creative

entrepreneurs and enterprises.

Business investment in the local arts and cultural offer

The majority of businesses consulted did not currently invest in their

local arts and cultural offer. Reasons cited included a lack of awareness

of the potential benefits for their business and the absence of local

networking opportunities to engage with arts and cultural organisations.

This suggests a need to create space for dialogue between local

businesses and arts and cultural organisations.

The conclusions of the research above are encouraging in the context of

‘Reading, Place of Culture’ aspirations and for the work of Reading UK in seeking

to promote Reading’s cultural offer as a key element of business facing place

branding and the emphasis on the role of a strong cultural offer in the

recruitment and retention of staff. This national research also resonates with

the findings of local perception surveys undertaken by Reading UK that are

outlined and analysed below.

Reading Context

This section of the report summarises and interprets a number of local business

surveys already commissioned and carried out by Reading UK that provide a

snapshot of the views of Reading’s business community (surveys and summary

results attached at Appendix 3):

Survey of business views on Reading’s identity, the significance of culture

and its impact on business, 2016 (60 responses);

Business feedback on the importance of culture in the context of the

Reading-on-Thames Festival 2017 (48 responses);

Survey of business views on the importance of culture to business

location and gauge levels of engagement, July 2019 (20 responses);

Visitor survey of the Christmas ‘festival’ 2018 (196 face to face

interviews).

By way of introductory comment, the self-selecting nature of business

respondents (in the three business facing surveys) is likely to provide a biased

sample of the total business ‘population’, as well as an over-representation of

businesses well connected to Reading UK and sighted on its role and activities.

Sample sizes are also relatively small, especially the 2019 survey, and, because

each survey is different, they do not represent a time series of comparable

information, although consistent themes can be drawn out. That said, and in a

national context where only a minority of businesses engage with cultural

organisations, the surveys do reflect the perceptions of a significant number of

businesses in the town that have well informed views and in the main are well-


connected to and supportive of the cultural sector. In and of itself this is a

positive indicator of both healthy levels of business engagement and the value of

Reading UK’s role in advocacy with the potential to further develop both.

The summary of key themes and ‘stand-out’ findings below uses the year of

each respective survey as shorthand reference, i.e. 2019, 2017 or 2016.

Reading as a Location for Business

The 2019 survey asked what factors currently influence the identity and

perceptions of Reading (top three). Very much mirroring the national place-

shaping research responses, the top two selected by 80% of respondents were:

Business sectors and location / connectivity to London. Next on the factors

selected as in the top three were: Its people and cultures (50%), lifestyle offer

(35%) and a creative reputation (30%). Of course, ‘its people and cultures’,

‘lifestyle offer’ and ‘a creative reputation’ overlap to some extent, emphasising

that identity, sense of place and perceived attractiveness are actually a

combination of many factors with a strong cultural offer being a significant

component.

In the Reading context where locational advantages, strong high growth

business sectors and a skilled workforce are all present, there is a good

economic development rationale for focusing on the lifestyle and cultural offer.

It can differentiate Reading in a positive way from sub-regional competitors and

give an edge on recruitment and retention of high-quality staff. This is

particularly the case given that Reading has historically perhaps undersold its

(developing) cultural offer to the detriment of reputation and image.

Staff Recruitment and Retention

2019 Reading’s arts and cultural scene is supporting recruitment and retention:

yes 35%, no 30%, not sure 35%.

2019 From a business perspective, which of these factors does a strong identity

and lifestyle offer best support: retention and recruitment 65%, attracting new

business 25%, business growth 10%.

2017 Could more cultural events / improved cultural life help attract talented

staff to Reading: yes 83%, not relevant 6%, not sure 11%.

2016 Is it important for a business location to have a strong identity with regard

to the following objectives (rated very important or important): for a relocation

100%, recruiting and retaining staff 100%, developing a strong business

community 100%.

In this context again ‘identity and lifestyle offer’ are not synonymous with the

arts and cultural offer, though the latter is clearly seen as a significant

component. The fact that in the 2019 survey over one-third of businesses

thought the cultural offer was supporting recruitment and retention is

encouraging, though the fact that just under a third had an opposing view and

35% were unsure suggests that culture does play a role in attracting and

retaining staff but this could be further developed. These local findings again

mirror the national research referenced above.


Strategic Significance of Culture

2019 Is it important for Reading as a business location to have a strong creative

identity: yes 85%, not sure 15% (no-one responded no!)

2019 Arts, culture and heritage can create a stronger sense of place for Reading:

yes 90%, no 10%.

2019 Reading’s heritage is helping define perceptions of Reading: yes 68%, no

26%, don’t know 6%.

2017 Can high quality arts, culture and heritage add value to Reading’s

reputation: yes 96%, no 2%, not sure 2%.

2016 Arts, culture and heritage can create a stronger sense of place for Reading:

yes 84%, ambivalent 12%, reputation more about business performance 3%.

Businesses overall clearly ‘get’ the overall potential for culture to contribute to

Reading’s reputation and success and the importance of this to business.

Quality of the Cultural Offer

2019 Reading has a strong lifestyle offer for the staff of the business

community: yes 60%, no 25%, don’t know 15%.

2017 Do you think Reading’s external reputation impacts on its ability to attract

talent and business relocation: yes still a reputation issue 49%, not ever been

an issue 8%, not anymore 29%.

2017 How would you describe the cultural life of Reading in the last 12 months:

vibrant and healthy 12%, improving noticeably 58%, trying hard but limited

success 17%, little to offer 4%.

2016 Does Reading have a clear identity: yes 33%, no 53%, don’t know 14%.

2016 Reading has an established vibrant arts and cultural offering: poor offer

12%, moving in the right direction 77%, an excellent offer 12%.

2016 There is lots going on in Reading: nothing much 2%, more than first

appears you just need to look for it 80%, has everything I need 18%.

The overall impression from the responses here is that Reading is on a cultural

development journey with a positive trajectory. In terms of the quality of the

cultural offer, its visibility and its contribution to a positive reputation for the

town, all were felt to be improving but with more still to do. A minority of

businesses have negative views about the quality of Reading’s cultural and

lifestyle offer. In 2016 only a third of businesses felt that Reading had a clear

identity and over half thought it did not (it would be useful at some point to test

this question again to see if there has been a significant shift in views).

Interestingly this overall picture accords with the views of ACE – significant

potential but needs a step-change to the next level and ACE have put in

significant investment to help achieve this over recent years.


Businesses and Cultural Engagement

2019 Do you think Reading’s business community has a role to play in fostering

a stronger sense of place in Reading: yes 95%, no 5%.

2019 How (if yes to above) would you envisage that role: deeper business

engagement in the arts 61%, support marketing campaigns for Reading 61%,

through representative business organisations such as Reading UK 61%, staff

ambassadors to help promote 33%.

2017 Would you like to her about plans for the 2018 Reading on Thames Festival

(including corporate hospitality packages): yes 81%, no 19%.

2016 Do you think Reading’s business community has a role to play in fostering

a stronger sense of place in Reading: yes 100%!

2016 Business and the arts are a good partnership: business and arts don’t mix

10%, business and the arts could do more to work together to support the

economy 80%, business and the arts work well together in Reading 10%.

In a similar way to the quality of the cultural offer, there is a real sense here

that more and better is possible. Businesses see the sector as having an

important role to play and that more could be done to work together with

cultural organisations. This includes a sizeable core of businesses who would

support a deepening of the relationship with cultural organisations, as well as a

more indirect engagement via promotion of the town’s offer more broadly. A

significant minority see engaging staff as ambassadors as a useful way to help

promote the cultural offer. Coupled with potential recruitment and retention

benefits, this could be an area of further exploration with regard to practical

implementation in a systemic way for those businesses willing to engage.

The qualitative research findings below provide further insights into the links

between business and cultural organisations to supplement and ‘get under the

skin’ of some of the issues raised by the suite of surveys summarized here.

Visitor Survey, Christmas ‘Festival’ 2018

Although rather different in nature, being targeted at town centre users with a

particular focus on the Christmas period, this visitor survey does provide a

picture of key attributes contributing to the attractiveness of Reading in the

context of a deliberately devised ‘Festival’ of cultural events to boost footfall,

with the main objectives being:

To understand where visitors are coming from and the modes of

transport used;

To identify why people visit the town centre and what they do there;

To measure perceptions of Reading and its facilities;

To measure recognition and opinion of the Christmas events campaign;

To understand the impact of the Christmas campaign on likelihood to

visit.

It also followed a comparable survey in 2013 which allows a number of insights

into trends and changes over the five-year period and a timeframe that

corresponds with a significant renaissance in the town’s cultural offer. It also


allows Reading UK and other local stakeholders to assess the ongoing impact of

major new shopping developments in Bracknell and Oxford that had a significant

negative impact on Reading in 2017.

The full summary of the visitor survey results is attached as an appendix and

rather than regurgitate it is more useful to pick-out the following key points:

Transport initiatives and infrastructure upgrades have greatly increased

the use of walking and bus to access the town centre, including park +

ride for those non-residents and parking is also perceived to have

improved greatly.

General perceptions of the town centre have also improved significantly,

shops being the main draw, particularly the Oracle (up 10% to 66% as

the most prominent best feature). Interestingly, Broad Street Mall (BSM)

scored 17% as an unprompted ‘best feature’ in 2018, up from 0% in

2013. Both the Oracle and BSM featured cultural events as an integral

part of their Christmas activities with the new owners of BSM, in

particular, looking to overhaul its offer and image.

The 2018 survey indicated that whilst shopping was the main reason to

visit, more people are engaging in a wider range of activities. For

example, collectively: going to the cinema, attending Christmas events,

going to the theatre and visiting Reading Abbey rose from 0% to 20%

between 2013 and 2018 and sightseeing from 1% - 23%. The score for

being ‘family friendly’ also rose from 2% - 24%.

Prompted associations with Reading are positive, although relatively few

think, or are aware, it has an exciting programme of events – 53% aware

and 28% unsure but the vast majority of those who were aware thought

events of very good or good quality.

Only a minority of those surveyed said they were coming in on any given

day specifically for a Christmas event 7% (with 10% saying they had

already attended an event), although 19% said that an exciting

Christmas events programme would make them more likely to visit

Reading.

There was much greater awareness of the Christmas advertising

campaign in 2018 (51%) than in 2013 (24%).

When compared to Oxford and Bracknell, Reading was rated much more

favourably, and significantly so for those who had experienced the

alternative locations.

As with the drivers for business location, cultural activity is not the primary

reason for visitors to come to the town centre, perhaps especially at Christmas

with the shopping offer being paramount. However, it is clear that an enhanced

programme of cultural activities combined with other positive factors, such as

improving accessibility and a wide range of restaurants, does make a difference

and can be a source of competitive advantage over other destinations. A key

differentiating factor between the surveys of 2013 and 2018 is that the latter

provides substantive evidence that visitors are accessing a broader range of

facilities and activities – a sort of town centre ‘multi-tasking’, also resulting in an

increase in ‘sightseeing’ and ‘use by families’. With the well documented


changes to retailing and the ever-increasing importance of ‘experiences’ to

healthy town centres, this would imply that cultural activities will become more

not less significant into the future. In turn, at a strategic level, it also means

that ‘place-making’ involves multiple strands of activity all pulling in the same

direction to provide a high-quality experience: from good public transport and

parking, to the quality of the public realm, shopping, food and drink and the

cultural offer. The corollary is that all those involved in shaping this ‘place’ offer

should be able to influence and work together to achieve mutually advantageous

outcomes.

Survey of Cultural Organisations

Overview of Business Engagement in Reading

A disparate range of views on the strength of business engagement in the town

with a generalisation being ‘could be better’. Acknowledged that a core of

engaged businesses with interest ‘on the fringes’ but difficult to translate this

into practical and meaningful engagement across the piece, although established

relationships were hugely valued. This was also closely linked to a perception

that Reading was doing reasonably well but was behind other places, inevitably

London but also Bristol, Brighton and major regional centres such as Manchester

and Glasgow. These views were primarily based on the cultural reputation of

other places with Reading perceived as being in transition, a ‘chicken and egg’

conundrum. There was a strong sense that Reading hadn’t yet reached a critical

mass of activity and reputation that would drive up audiences and increase

attractiveness to businesses wishing to associate with a strong cultural ‘brand’.

The nature of the economy with a high proportion of big-name companies

operating at a national or global scale with limited roots in, or connection to, the

town was also seen as a significant challenge.

Interestingly for those with knowledge and experience of the cultural sector in

other European countries Reading felt like a ‘poor relation’. Both public sector

investment and direct commissioning by the private sector were seen as being

much greater in some other European states (e.g. Germany, Norway). The

decline in public funding for culture in England, especially due to reductions in

local government budgets, is a well-documented and key factor in hampering

the potential role of culture in place-making. It is against this backdrop that the

ongoing development of Reading’s cultural offer and local business engagement

with this should be viewed. Despite austerity, the continued support of the

Council, ACE and Reading UK, and particularly the ambitions from within the

sector itself, have all been significant in fostering ongoing cultural development

in the town.

The Nature of Business Engagement

Also on a positive note, the comparisons with other towns and cities above could

be seen as with those places regarded as ‘best in class’ at a national scale (and

the consistency of the places cited across a number of respondents is

noteworthy). What was highlighted in Reading was the wide range (if not

quantum) of business support, both in terms of the type of business and the

nature of the relationship where these links existed. In-kind support, especially


access to spaces and premises, was a key valued element of business

engagement (however, lack of dedicated space and permanency remains a

significant issue in Reading for a number of cultural organisations and is seen as

a potential barrier both to ongoing cultural development and for creative start-

ups). Other forms of support included pro bono work and discounted rates for

services or special offers. These links were often through ‘business to business’

relationships and supply-chains, which in a number of cases involved businesses

outside Reading itself. Marketing support, raising profile and targeting

employees as potential consumers of culture were all cited as beneficial by a

number of cultural organisations. This extensive range of in-kind support,

although often hidden, is extremely important and impacts positively on the

majority of the cultural organisations interviewed.

Personal contacts and networks were also seen as potentially deeper and more

significant in Reading with a strong emphasis on mutual benefit and genuine

engagement. Many of the cultural organisations interviewed stressed the

importance of a transactional relationship rather than ‘Oliver’ syndrome (please

sir…!). Ongoing relationships with businesses were seen as particularly

beneficial (and in a few instances critical) but many organisations had a mix of

relationships including one-off or ad hoc linked to particular events or

productions.

In this mix, direct cash or sponsorship was less common and generally felt to be

more difficult to secure, although there was a strong awareness of the need to

offer value to businesses and some form of return on investment for both

parties. There was also an acknowledgement that businesses face many

challenges in a busy market place of ‘good causes’ and that the cultural sector

should not expect handouts but focus on shared interest and mutual benefits.

Barriers and Challenges

Overwhelmingly the key barrier to more effective engagement with businesses

for cultural organisations was capacity linked to limited resources and time

pressures. A strong message was that effective engagement needed the

development of personal relationships, face to face conversations and then

sustaining these, very often over a number of years. This capacity issue is

compounded by the complexity of getting to the ‘right’ person within a business

and understanding a business’s culture and values to pitch appropriately.

Networking and ongoing communication were seen as essential components,

both to maintain existing relationships and to find ‘door openers’ to develop new

ones, including dealing with senior staff churn within businesses. All of which is

inevitably time and resource intensive and many organisations simply lack the

resources to do this effectively and / or need to prioritise other areas of core

business. For some cultural organisations the return on investment of time and

effort genuinely wasn’t worth it in comparison with other areas of activity more

critical to their business model.

This also played out in the extent to which different cultural organisations had a

strategy for business engagement as part of their forward planning - splitting

roughly 50/50 between those saying ‘yes’ and those saying ‘not really’.

Unsurprisingly, those who saw business support as critical to success, or even

existence, were much more likely to have a strategy (even if resourcing this


remained a challenge for some). For those without a clear strategy there was

generally a conscious recognition that it was not worth the effort required in

relation to the core business and resourcing model for their particular

organisation. That said, all the cultural organisations interviewed did have or

had had links with business in one way or another and were very open to any

opportunities that might arise in the future.

A variation on the strategy theme was the timing of focusing on business

engagement linked to very specific needs or objectives, for example a major

capital investment or a particular event or performance. Key funding streams

for these, such as from Trusts & Foundations, ACE or earned income would be

pursued 1st to fund a project or programme at a minimum viable level but with

long lead in times to secure funding. Business engagement would then focus on

enhancing or adding value and very often over a much shorter timeframe,

although still influenced by relationships, reputation and credibility that might

have taken much longer to establish.

A less pronounced theme emerging was a view that the business community, for

whatever reason, wasn’t very proactive in seeking out relationships and/or had a

lack of awareness of cultural organisations in the town and how they might be

supported and why (from a business perspective). This lack of awareness also

related to knowledge of businesses about the quality of what cultural

organisations delivered, be this artistic quality, impactful outcomes or both.

Cultural organisations were also unsure as to what businesses want from a

relationship and what might be attractive to them. Of course, this will vary in

emphasis and focus, for example support for the delivery of positive social

outcomes for vulnerable children compared with a high-quality cultural

experience for clients or better profile and positioning of the business in local

markets. This does suggest that more could be done to codify and promote a

menu of engagement opportunities linked to the specific cultural landscape of

organisations in the town and / or a series of positive case studies.

Critical Success Factors for Business Engagement

The following emerged as key across the views of a number of organisations:

Build relationships (noting the challenges around this above!) and sustain

these with ongoing and proactive communication.

Understand business drivers and align a specific bespoke offer with the

values, CSR priorities and needs of the individual business.

Be flexible and prepared to manage expectations on both sides.

Focus on the transactional nature of the relationship and be clear on the

benefits for both sides (and potentially the value of community

outcomes) based on the quality of the ‘service’ provided.

High calibre work and ‘product’ that businesses are keen to be associated

with (which might require a degree of knowledge transfer to the business

community).

Integrity and being true to your organisation’s core purpose and values.


Increase exposure and raise awareness of Reading’s cultural sector,

including the quality of work.

Target and grow the cohort of businesses with a genuine desire to see

Reading improve and that recognise culture has a role to play in this.

How Could Business Engagement be Improved

At an over-arching level there was a view that an ongoing improvement in the

profile and reputation of the cultural sector in Reading was important.

Particularly promoting Reading beyond the local area, growing audiences and

awareness and ‘shouting about success’, including a narrative that reflected the

diversity, vibrancy and richness of the culture and people of the town. In this

context the future potential catalytic role of the prison (as part of the wider

‘Abbey Quarter’) was flagged by a number of organisations as something that

could give Reading a cultural boost.

There were mixed views on the potential of a dedicated brokerage role and

whether this might negatively impact on existing relationships and the autonomy

of individual cultural organisations who have the responsibility to control their

own destiny. However, actions to raise awareness of the opportunities available

to business, the benefits of engagement (both to individual businesses and the

town as a whole), and creating more meaningful opportunities for dialogue (and

enthusiasm) were all widely supported. These views linked strongly back to the

capacity issues for relationship building that exist for many individual cultural

organisations but also reflected an awareness of the need to make engagement

more straightforward for businesses (and time poor senior decision-makers).

‘Peer to peer’ advocacy was seen as particularly important with Reading UK

being by far the most commonly cited as the organisation best placed to fulfill

this high-level brokerage role building on its current activities and track record,

though acknowledging greater capacity than currently available was required to

do this effectively. A good practical example of building from existing activity

were the annual cultural awards that have engaged well with both businesses

and arts organisations and been very positively received. However, at the

awards themselves both businesses and arts organisations have tended to self-

select to sit at segregated tables with relatively little opportunity for networking

between the sectors. Modest tweaks to the format, without losing the energy

and enthusiasm, could provide an opportunity for greater engagement and

learning on both sides and create more of a legacy.

As an observation, only one organization suggested that Reading Borough

Council might have a role in enhancing business engagement and only one the

Cultural Partnership (‘a good forum for this theoretically but not in practice’!).

Indeed, there was some concern within the business community that Reading

was not getting the ‘basics’ right in terms of the town centre environment in

particular and that this hampered any enhanced contribution that cultural

activity might offer.

Given the many interrelated strands of successful ‘place-making’ referenced

above, and the need for a range of activities to pull in the same direction, this

suggests that ‘place leadership’ would benefit from greater collaboration

between key influential stakeholders and a need to ‘work together as one town’.


Whilst of a different scale, models of practice from other areas such as Liverpool

and Hull offer potential learning with regard to business engagement that could

inform approaches to 2021 anniversary celebrations in the town and potentially

a ‘City of Culture’ bid in the future. As with Reading’s Year of Culture in 2016,

having a clear tangible focus – a ‘thing’ – can help attract interest as well as

providing profile and scale.

Survey of Established Businesses

Overview of Business Engagement in Reading

The sample of ‘engaged’ businesses covered a range of business types from

retail, to professional services, hospitality and public transport. All had

experience of supporting cultural organisations with the vast majority having

serial and multiple relationships and saw business engagement with cultural

organisations as an essential or important contributor to future economic

success. Promoting and protecting the vibrancy of the town centre was a

particularly strong aspect of this latter viewpoint.

The range of support offered included:

Access to free or subsidised space / use of premises for a range of

activities;

Direct sponsorship and / or ‘seed funding’ to get things off the ground;

Marketing and promotion;

Discounted fees for professional services;

Organising fundraising events;

Attending (and buying tickets for!) cultural events and promoting to staff

and clients;

Regular engagement with annual events such as the Arts Trail, Reading

Fringe and Christmas.

Motivations for involvement were in the main aligned with the nature of the

business and some form of business benefit, for example:

As a response to the changing face of retail and the need to give the

public ‘experiences’, create interest and shift perceptions – responding to

public demand and expectations;

Supporting a thriving town centre more broadly, helps ‘brand’ as a

destination across a range of audiences;

To encourage more visitors and weekend stays to complement the strong

corporate market in the hospitality sector;

To raise profile and visibility in a sector that was also a significant part of

the customer base;

Targeting new customers and / or thanking existing ones;


Direct links to their own products or services;

To differentiate from competition in the local market place and to

enhance reputation;

Develop links with diverse communities to assist recruitment and

retention of staff locally.

In this sense engagement was an integral part of business strategies but often

also linked to being invested in the town for the long-term and the particular

interests and passions of senior decision-makers:

Pride in the town and wanting this to grow;

Making Reading a ‘better’ place;

Arts and culture the ‘heart and soul’ of the town;

To put something back and support the town;

Key aspects of the propensity to engage were therefore a mix of long-term

presence and / or commitment to Reading, the interests and values of senior

decision-makers, alignment with core business, overlain with a strong sectoral

‘self-interest’ for retail and hospitality businesses.

There was, overall, strong support for increasing the number of businesses

engaging with cultural organisations and the cultural offer in the town, whilst

emphasising that this could not be forced. Each business would have their own

view on the relevance and potential benefits (or not) of such engagement.

Reading UK and the BIDs were cited frequently as good platforms to raise

awareness of and bolster the opportunities for cultural activities, with the retail

and hospitality sectors potentially being strong advocates.

Views were also expressed that engagement with cultural organisations would be

less likely for major corporates (‘not interested in the community’) and for those

businesses outside the town centre. This could be exacerbated by a high

proportion of staff coming from further afield and not utilising Reading for

anything other than being a place of work. These themes could be further

explored as part of further work beyond this initial phase of research and, to a

degree, in learning from the experience of implementing the Abbey Quarter BID

that is focused primarily on commercial rather than retail occupiers.

Barriers and Challenges

At a structural level one of the key challenges was seen as overcoming proximity

to the cultural offer in, and reputation of, other major centres, particularly

London but also Oxford (and even Henley was mentioned in this regard). Whilst

London as a major international capital, and only half an hour away by train, is

always going to be in a unique position (although notably hasn’t prevented

Brighton, an hour or so away from London by train, from establishing a strong

cultural reputation), this does perhaps indicate that Reading needs to better

position itself in the regional market and be clearer on its unique selling points

and target audiences. In this regard diversity and the richness of the local

cultural offer were frequently referenced as something that could perhaps be

emphasised more in the sub-regional context.


There was also a more negative minority view that Reading’s cultural offer was

too small scale, that it was not a cultural hub and efforts and resources to

promote the town, including the role of Reading UK, might be better focused on

other agendas, e.g. ‘a green place to live’. Whilst very much a minority view,

and at odds with Reading UK’s survey feedback (summarised above), it is worth

noting and testing with a wider cohort of businesses into the future.

This viewpoint did though resonate with a more widely held view that the town’s

offer was somewhat disparate, not joined-up enough and lacked a central

‘cultural hub’ of sufficient scale to be a major draw. The Prison and to a degree

the Hosier Street regeneration sites were referenced as potential opportunities

to address this issue and create cultural ‘destinations’.

In the main, those businesses that have engaged with cultural organisations

were very positive about the relationships and valued the passion and energy in

the sector. However, there was also a view that Reading lacked a high-end

product or ‘finest’ range that could, in particular, fulfil the business benefit of

client hospitality. This was mirrored by a view that there was an absence of

‘product’ to attract weekend visitors to the town and increase the number of

overnight stays – of strategic interest to the hospitality sector and the economy

more broadly. There is clearly scope here for some further thinking and

development of new partnerships and offers to benefit both businesses and the

profile of the cultural offer. The ongoing engagement with and promotion of the

‘Great West Way’ also provides a context and platform for thinking about

creating different visitor packages and collaboration.

At a more granular level, and whilst overall the experience of engagement had

been positive (‘lovely across the board’!), there was an acknowledgement that

there were issues on both sides in terms of understanding and different mind-

sets. There was a view that the cultural sector was very disparate, not joined-

up enough, sometimes too insular and small ‘p’ political – reflecting the issue of

competition within the sector. This made it difficult for businesses wanting to

engage and to find the right people to approach (mirroring the engagement

challenge for cultural organisations), this was especially the case for businesses

relatively new to the town. It was also felt that cultural organisations could

promote the benefits of engagement more coherently, shout more loudly about

the quality of work going on and improve accessibility. On the other-hand there

was also a view that in general terms the business community could be more

proactive.

Workshops, seminars, promoting best practice, a range of case studies and

structured opportunities for interaction were all raised as potential ways of

demystifying on both sides and encouraging positive relationships. Interestingly

the new ‘What’s On’ platform was seen as a potential mechanism for sector

communication and enhancing the supply network, as well as fostering a more

coherent plan and understanding of complementary activities.

‘Selling’ Engagement to Other Businesses

The engagement with businesses provided a useful opportunity to see how they

themselves would ‘pitch’ cultural engagement to other businesses:


It makes you visible (long term approach of getting involved and

developing networks).

Focus on what, why and the benefits created (noting that this will vary

depending on the business and the cultural organisation on a case by

case basis).

Pitch the commercial dimension, more to do in the area = more bookings

= better business and brand promotion.

Why wouldn’t you want to get involved? Flag success and impact to date

and also it’s what the public want.

Importance to overall economic success and vibrancy of Reading as a

place to live and do business.

Long-term you will get something back and it promotes your business in

a different light to competitors – competitive edge.

Interestingly most of the businesses interviewed were happy with the benefits

generated by their engagement with cultural organisations and felt that their

expectations had been met, even if measuring impact was difficult, and would be

good advocates for the sector. The exceptions to ‘meeting expectations’ were

those described above: lack of a ‘high-end’ hospitality offer and attracting more

weekend visitors.

Conclusions

Whilst, in the spirit of continuous improvement, there has been a significant

focus on ‘barriers and challenges’ in the analysis above, the actual process of

interviewing both businesses and cultural organisations has been

overwhelmingly positive. Lots of energy, enthusiasm and a real passion for

wanting the town and its communities to thrive.

In many ways Reading reflects the national context where business investment

is a valuable contributor to the cultural sector but by no means a mainstay.

Accepting that engaging is not for every business or cultural organisation, local

feedback suggests there is strong conceptual support for the role of culture with

a significant cohort of businesses actively engaged and some expressing a desire

to deepen this engagement.

Similarly, the national study on the role of culture in place-shaping is strongly

reflected in the feedback from Reading UK’s business surveys and in the

motivations of local businesses to get involved. The particular potential of the

cultural offer to support a thriving town centre is also strongly evident locally.

The Christmas surveys of 2013 and 2018 have also evidenced a very positive

trajectory in relation to perceptions and use of the town centre, with cultural

activity playing a significant supporting role.

Utilisation of space and premises is a major beneficial form of ‘in-kind’ support

from businesses for cultural activities and organisations, but permanency

remains a constraint and the lack of a town centre ‘cultural hub’ has emerged as


an issue. In terms of place-shaping the future of the Prison and Hosier Street

sites is potentially pivotal.

In many ways Reading has developed significant ‘infrastructure’ as a platform to

further develop the role of culture at the heart of place-shaping. This includes

two Business Improvement Districts, one covering the retail core and the other

focused on Reading’s ‘stand out’ heritage assets in the Abbey Quarter. Reading

UK is widely recognised as having a leadership and advocacy role and this is

strongly supported by the vast majority of businesses when expressing a view.

There remains significant potential to further develop cross-sector partnership

working at a strategic level focused on ‘place’, culture and identity to support a

thriving town.

From the surveys undertaken and throughout this piece of research there is a

real sense that Reading is on a cultural ‘journey’ with a positive trajectory but

not yet realising its full potential. In many ways the same could be said for

culture and business engagement – some very positive examples and a

supportive environment but more could be done. Helping to overcoming time

constraints, improving mutual understanding, raising awareness, opportunities

for meaningful dialogue and developing good practice are all areas of potential

focus. In detail the following emerged as opportunities that could be usefully

explored further:

Broker links between the hospitality and cultural sectors to develop a

visitor offer targeting weekend stays and integrate this with the Great

West Way initiative.

Engage with the cultural sector and business representatives to

consider the potential to develop a ‘premium’ hospitality offer that would

be attractive to businesses and their high worth clients and customers

(this could link to a degree to the above).

Create a ‘Business Cultural Ambassadors’ group of cultural champions to

act as advocates, broker dialogue with cultural organisations, share

experiences and promote best practice.

Potentially working with the above Ambassadors, further explore the

potential to establish a staff ambassadors scheme for businesses that

would promote cultural engagement across the wider workforce.

Build on the positive energy generated by the annual Cultural Awards but

look at refreshing the format to create more cross-sector interaction and

legacy.

Explicitly embed cultural programmes and activity, including forward

planning in the work of the BID management committees.

Codify and make explicit the potential value of cultural activity and

engagement to businesses and support this with a range of local case

studies.

Subject to resources and in-line with other upskilling activity that has

been embedded in Reading’s Great Place programme, develop best

practice workshops / seminars on the theme of effective business

engagement.


Consider the use of the new ‘What’s On’ platform to promote upskilling

activities and engagement opportunities to a wider audience.

‘Top Tips’

From Cultural Organisations

Don’t spend too much time on it! Know the potential return on

investment and associated risks. Don’t give away too much, needs to be

a fit and worthwhile.

Have a clear view of why a business might be interested and

communicate this effectively. A focused offer and be good at what you

do.

Do your research. Understand the partner organisation and their

business motivation and respond with a bespoke offer.

Build relationships, establish trust and credibility and be prepared to start

small – planting seeds.

Believe in and nurture relationships and don’t underestimate the

potential value of non-cash support.

Show your best bits and create excitement about your purpose and

activities (and listen to any feedback).

Don’t underestimate how much time it takes and have a strategy linked

to your organisation’s timelines and key developments.

Develop a useful product or service that brings something of benefit to

the business (as well as to the community), e.g. opportunities for staff

engagement and development.

A high-quality offer, be very good at what you do, communicate

frequently and personally to maintain ongoing relationships.

From Businesses

Be realistic, engage with Reading UK and the BIDs, start small, develop

relationships and let grow.

Be interesting and create the unexpected being mindful of the target

audience and give regular updates.

Talk and communicate better. Many (cultural organisations) don’t like to

ask.

Just ask! Many ‘arts’ people aren’t so business minded and don’t know

how to push themselves out there. Could be a role for sharing expertise

and possibly mentoring.

Don’t assume benevolence and think about the business case. Take

advice on how to best approach and know what ‘good practice’ looks like.


Need to realise that there is goodwill, intent and support within the

business community.


Appendices

Appendix 1: Reading, Place of Culture Story of Change

Appendix 3: Local Groups – needed?

Appendix 4: Cultural Commissioning Pilots: Stories of Change

Appendix 2: supporting data from Culture and Business project.


Appendix 1: Reading, Place of Culture Story of Change


Appendix 2

Business Engagement - Participating Organisations

Businesses:

Blandy and Blandy

Broad Street Mall

Cream Design

Haslams

Jacobs Jewellers

Reading Buses

Roseate Forbury Hotel

Cultural Organisations:

CultureMix

Jelly

Museum of English Rural Life (Reading University)

Reading International (Reading University)

Reading Arts (Reading Borough Council)

Reading Between the Lines

Reading Fringe

Reading Museum (Reading Borough Council)

Readipop

Reading Rep Theatre

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