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7 FIFE

Project Background and Rationale

Background

7.1 The Fife Pathfinder project, ' Expanding Horizons....A ticket to ride', was from the outset strategic in its intent. Fife Council was concerned with exploring in depth how cultural services can work with all of the citizens of Fife, including those currently not engaged in cultural activity.

7.2 The project was designed as an extensive and ambitious consultation exercise to explore three key themes:

• what culture means to the people of Fife;
• views on current provision - what is good and what could be better; and
• recommendations for ensuring the development of creative talent in Fife.

7.3 The project was designed to combine universal and targeted consultation and campaigning processes to ensure grass roots engagement across diverse communities. Its ultimate aim was to develop a cultural strategy that is informed by community need and aligned with the Fife Community Plan.

Aims and Objectives

7.4 The aims and objectives of the project were specified in the Evaluation Plan submitted to the Scottish Government following confirmation of Pathfinder support for the project.

7.5 The overall aim of the project was "to develop a grass root informed cultural strategy and action plan influencing (and influenced by) the Fife Community Plan, along with a package of complementary resources (Fife's Cultural passport) so that the lives of Fife's citizens are improved through cultural participation relevant to their needs."

7.6 The Evaluation Plan detailed the following specific aims as being to:

• review and analyse current cultural provision, arrangements for support of creative talent, and strategic cultural and Community Planning priorities in Fife;
• creatively engage with citizens from a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences and geographic areas to participate in identification and prioritisation of local cultural entitlements, and identify an accepted definition of culture from a Fife perspective;
• improve the interface between both Fife wide strategic cultural and Community Planning and local community and cultural planning processes;
• maximise available resources to achieve both community and cultural planning goals through improved partnership working;
• build new and strengthen existing links with people who face additional barriers to participate fully in cultural opportunities (young families (0-3 years), vulnerable older people, adults with learning disabilities, and black and minority ethnic communities), through the application of 'creative' consultation methods and tools and the development of staff skills and resources to continue using these;
• develop a Fife Cultural Passport Scheme and supporting package of complementary resources informed by Fife citizens and stakeholder involvement, as a tool to enable greater uptake of cultural entitlements; and
• develop clear statements of intent and implementation pertaining to why we do what we do, what we (and others) will provide and how, who and where we will do it, that can be shared and understood by colleagues, clients, partners and communities: the Cultural Strategy for Fife.

Funding

7.7 The total cost of the project projected was £210,884. The Cultural Pathfinder Programme provided £58,125, Fife Council £125,869, with £26,850 of funding drawn into the project from 'others' including Community Planning partner organisations and other external funding organisations.

Strategic Fit

7.8 The project was developed in line with national cultural policy guidance at the time (eg Scotland's Culture). In particular, the project was developed with a strong focus on cultural entitlements and cultural planning. With the shift in policy emphasis to widening access to cultural provision, the project remains strongly aligned with policy concerns given its strategic focus on understanding and responding to the cultural needs and aspirations of the people of the region. The project also maintained a focus on under-represented groups through the more targeted elements of the consultation process. Finally, from the outset, the Fife Pathfinder had clear ambitions to engage with Community Planning in the region, seeking to embed cultural planning within this framework. This is very much in line with current policy focus on how cultural provision can be delivered through Community Planning, thereby helping support the CPP's strategic priorities

7.9 The Fife Pathfinder project is also well aligned with the original broad objectives of the Cultural Pathfinder Programme. In particular, it has a clear focus on encouraging participation in under-represented groups; exploring the benefits of cultural activity in different settings; exploring entitlements as part of cultural planning; effective community consultation and giving local people real influence; and a commitment to evaluation. These were priority issues for the Pathfinder Programme as detailed in the stated criteria for support ⁸.

7.10 At the local level, culture was already recognised within Fife and was included in one of the Council's 'Big 8' priorities ( improved sport, leisure and cultural opportunities) ⁹. In addition, one of the early achievements of the Pathfinder was to engage with Community Planning strategists to agree that culture should be recognised within the new Community Plan¹⁰ within the context of the Health Improvement Plan. Therefore, the Pathfinder project began at a time when the strategic profile of culture in Fife was already quite high.

7.11 Overall, the Fife project was very strategic from the outset, and defined a set of aims and objectives that were very strongly aligned with national and local policy concerns and strategic priorities.

Activities and Processes

7.12 The project was developed and managed by Fife Council's Cultural Services Department with some external support provided by specialist consultancy firms and cultural organisations. A range of other partners contributed support (financial and in-kind) to the project. These included:

• Locality Management (Fife Council);
• Scottish Arts Council;
• Youthlink;
• venues and cultural providers in Fife; and
• schools and nurseries.

7.13 Beyond these partners, the project consulted and engaged very widely with a range of stakeholders and Community Planning partners across Fife, as discussed below.

7.14 The broad context for the Fife Pathfinder was provided by extensive research into Fife's cultural performance and achievement against that of the rest of Scotland. This research was undertaken by a firm of cultural consultants.

7.15 As noted above, the project combined universal and targeted consultation with communities and the professional sector, exploring the use of creative consultation methods and new technologies - the Culture Talk campaign. It also involved detailed desk research to review the extent and nature of cultural provision and participation in Fife.

7.16 The universal approach combined wide community consultation and public awareness raising campaigns to explore public attitudes towards culture and what culture means to the people of Fife. The universal consultation involved:

• text messaging and imaging campaign;
• public feedback via email, letters and telephone;
• two online questionnaires;
• a touring 'Culture Booth' providing members of the public with an opportunity to talk about what culture meant to them in a mock TV studio;
• postcard campaign;
• four public gathering events; and
• one youth gathering event.

7.17 The targeted consultation elements of the project aimed to explore cultural needs, aspirations and barriers In addition to the universal consultation, the project also aimed to develop four Imagineering projects and events targeting specific groups within the Fife community as follows:

• black and minority ethnic communities;
• older, vulnerable adults;
• families with very young children (0 - 3yrs); and
• adults who also have a learning disability.

7.18 The original scope of the Fife Pathfinder did not include work with children and teenagers - the focus was on adults only. However, with additional resources secured by the Creative Link Officer from the Scottish Arts Council, the project was able to include consultation with under-18s. In total, the Imagineering projects grew to seven in total, worked with a wider range of stakeholders than originally planned including members of Fife's LGBT communities, schools pupils, students and teachers and over all engaged 393 people in intensive Imagineering discussion and expression.

7.19 In addition to the public consultation, the Fife Pathfinder also engaged with professionals across Community Planning and the cultural sector through a series of one-to-one consultations, focus groups and attendance at the Cultural Gathering event.

7.20 Some elements of the consultation process were more successful than others, providing useful lessons for future activity. These issues are discussed in more detail below.

7.21 In total, the consultation process involved 3,549 people from all age groups, communities of interest and geographic communities, 1% of the total population of Fife.

7.22 The consultation process produced a very substantial volume of material for interpretation and analysis. The analysed consultation outputs then informed the development of a draft Cultural Strategy for Fife. Importantly, the original draft strategy was based on a very broad definition of 'culture' as 'lifestyle' rather than 'arts and culture'. However, professional feedback to this has led to a reclamation of the word 'culture' in the strategy, with a strengthened and better articulated 'shared understanding' and definition of the meaning of the word as defined by the people in Fife who participated in the consultation. As such, the scope and ambition of the strategy is wide ranging and extends beyond an arts and heritage centric perspective alone, although these elements are covered.

7.23 Prior to the drafting of the strategy itself, the key findings were distilled and fed back to the public through a series of five small meetings - four with adult participants and one major young people's gathering event.

7.24 At the same time as the strategy was drafted, the intention to establish a new strategic partnership group was discussed with a wide range of cultural and Community Planning partners. The suggested purpose of the new cultural partnership group - a new Cultural Consortium, would be to progress the objectives and actions identified in the strategy. The Fife Cultural Consortium suggested membership comprises key cultural organisations in the region along with Community Planning partners from Fife Council.

7.25 The draft strategy was presented to an inaugural meeting of proposed Consortium Members in October 2008 and a revised version was then re-submitted to them in November 2008 for final comments. The final strategy framework paper is tabled to be presented to the Fife Housing and Communities Committee for official approval in January 2009.

7.26 The project made good use of the Pathfinder Evaluation Toolkit and evaluation was built in to the process from the very outset. The project manager reported that the Toolkit had been very helpful in providing a clear structure for the evaluation process, and the project's final report provides a clear account of performance against the indicators identified in the Evaluation Plan, as described below.

Achievements and Impacts

7.27 The account of the achievement and impacts of the Fife Pathfinder is based mainly on the evidence provided in the Final Report of the project and associated documentation.

7.28 In line with the structure provided by the Evaluation Toolkit, the Evaluation Plan for the Fife Pathfinder identified indicators in relation to Activities, Participation, Satisfaction, Impacts and Value for Money.

Activities

7.29 In relation to Activities, the project delivered all of the outputs identified in the Evaluation Plan, including:

• a detailed review of cultural access and participation levels and the strengths and weaknesses of current provision;
• delivery of a range of participative consultation methods and techniques; and
• synthesis and analysis of the outputs of the consultation process and production of a new Cultural Strategy for Fife.

7.30 The Final Report, and consultation with the project manager and key project stakeholders and partners, identified a number of key lessons with respect to the processes used in the Fife Pathfinder. In particular, the project took an innovative approach to consultation, trying out new methods and seeking where possible to make best use of new technologies to support consultation processes. It is therefore inevitable that some methods worked better than others, and the Fife Pathfinder has provided very rich learning in this respect, as detailed in the Final Evaluation Report.

7.31 A key feature of the campaign in Fife was the sheer scale of its coverage. In addition to the interactive consultation methods described above, the project also undertook very widespread promotion through the distribution of printed materials (posters, fliers, postcards etc) at a very broad range of public and community venues and facilities, including all schools in the region.

7.32 The project also took consultation out of cultural venues and into a wider array of public spaces, including shopping centres, schools, libraries, town halls and nurseries. This again was felt important in removing some of the traditional barriers to cultural participation.

7.33 Finally, the consultation made extensive use of new technologies to facilitate and support the consultation process. This was reported positively, as it was felt to have offered new forms of consultation aligned with people's everyday experiences (e.g. text messaging) and created excitement and contributed to a perception that the Culture Talk process was different.

7.34 Overall, the project found that it was very difficult to get people to talk about culture as the word typically had various negative connotations. However, the Culture Booth was felt to have worked particularly well for a number of reasons:

• it was based on the idea of a mobile TV studio, and previous consultation work had identified a close association between culture and TV, meaning that the TV medium was familiar and accessible to members of the public;
• the Culture Booth was a mobile project, and was therefore able to engage with people in a range of everyday settings such as shopping centres. This removed the need for people to come to a 'cultural venue' to participate in the Culture Talk process; and
• the Culture Booth was popular because it was fun.

7.35 In particular, the Culture Booth proved extremely popular with children and young people although, while clearly successful, it was expensive and resource intensive.

7.36 The other consultation method that was felt to have been particularly successful was the Imagineering projects ¹¹, which made use of creative techniques to engage different target groups and encourage them to express their views about culture. For example, 'Moussa's Castle' was a theatre based process, facilitated by Imaginate, which toured around nurseries, taking theatre out of cultural venues and into everyday settings.

7.37 Some of the other methods used in the universal consultation process proved less successful, including the text campaign in which members of the public were invited to email a photo that they felt summed up Fife's culture. There was a lower than expected response to this consultation.

7.38 There was also a mixed response to the online questionnaire and a feeling that these needed to be made more accessible and appealing to potential contributors. It was also reported that the more creative approaches tended to work better with different target groups such as children and young people and adults from LGBT communities. In contrast, older people tended to prefer more straightforward consultation methods.

7.39 Overall, the evidence is that the Fife Pathfinder exceeded its original planned activities, in particular by extending the scope of the work through an expanded research programme and the additional work with children and young people funded through the Scottish Arts Council contribution.

Participation

7.40 The project has clearly secured widespread participation across a very broad range of communities and target groups in Fife, and any shortfall against targets must be seen in this context.

7.41 Despite the very impressive scope of the consultation, the project fell short of its overall target for total participation by 50%. In addition, there were issues with the engagement of some of the specific communities targeted by the Imagineering projects.

7.42 As noted above, the Pathfinder team found that it was more difficult than expected to engage people in talking about culture. However, the evidence does suggest that the project was successful in engaging people that do not normally participate in cultural activity. Indeed, given this focus, it may be that the original target of 2% of the Fife population (almost 7,000 people) was too ambitious.

7.43 In relation to the specific target groups to be engaged through the Imagineering projects, the Final Report records strong achievement in engaging children and young people, as well as specific groups such as residents of regeneration areas, LGBT communities, adults and teenagers with learning and physical difficulties and older people. However, difficulties in engaging black and minority ethnic ( BME) communities and vulnerable older people were reported. In the former case, this was in spite of many attempts to connect to BME communities through agreed and formal routes, although the Pathfinder team did engage members of these communities through the wider consultation process. In particular, the Pathfinder team was invited to attend a number of BME celebratory events at which information and materials about the Pathfinder were distributed. There was also strong representation from the BME communities through the Fairness, Race and Equality Fife group involved at the focus group stage and in the Professional Gathering event.

7.44 It also proved difficult to engage vulnerable older people in the Imagineering projects although again some were involved through the Culture Booth work in shopping centres, and through additional focus group work. However, the Imagineering project focussed on adults engaged in the Byre Theatre's 'Haydays' group and, as a result, cannot be considered to be vulnerable (the Haydays group was also involved in the SLP Pathfinder project).

7.45 The evaluation plan also set a target for the project of engaging five partners from outwith Fife's public sector. This appears to have been achieved, with direct financial support from two partners (Scottish Arts Council and Youthlink) and other support in kind from five other partners beyond the region. However, the project did set out to engage, and raise financial support from, more non-cultural partners. This proved more difficult than hoped, and while there was strong interest from other organisations in being involved, often to explore the relevance of culture to their business, the perceived relevance of culture to their core business was reportedly low.

7.46 Feedback from our own consultations indicated that engaging the cultural sector in the region was also challenging. At the time of the Pathfinder, the sector in Fife was going through a period of significant change, with a number of the major cultural organisations restructuring and/or refocusing their activities. This period of uncertainty made it difficult to engage some of the cultural sector who initially approached the Pathfinder with a degree of suspicion or cynicism. However, anecdotal feedback suggests that initial doubts were largely overcome, and the cultural sector has been engaged in the process through individual consultations and the Cultural Gathering and many of the leading cultural organisations in the region are now involved in the Cultural Consortium.

Satisfaction

7.47 As reported in the Draft Evaluation Report, feedback from the public consultation events and activities was very positive, and the involvement of key strategists, Elected Members and representatives from the widest possible Community Planning partner mix was reported. In addition, the Report also notes that key cultural stakeholders have been kept fully informed of the progress of the Pathfinder throughout, and that the levels of satisfaction with the professional gathering event were very high.

7.48 It is too early to assess the satisfaction of the wider community with the project and with the resultant Cultural Strategy for Fife, and community feedback will be monitored as the strategy is implemented.

7.49 The overall impression is that levels of satisfaction have been high throughout the Fife Pathfinder, in terms both of members of the public that contributed their views, and public and cultural sector partners. The grass roots nature of the consultation process appealed to partners and Elected Members in particular, and by keeping the consultation process novel and fun, public engagement was almost certainly enhanced.

Impacts

7.50 The impacts identified in the Fife Pathfinder Evaluation Plan focus mainly on dialogues between cultural and Community Planning professionals and greater engagement with culture by a wider range of people in Fife.

7.51 In relation to partnership working, the formation of the Cultural Consortium is a key impact, and one that should provide a forum for ongoing cross-sectoral dialogue. However, it is also clear that the project itself provided these kinds of opportunities, in particular through the Professional Gathering event, and the feeling is that it has done much to bring culture in from the margins to a more central position in planning and policy terms.

7.52 Engagement with local people is also a key impact, and there are plans to continue this as part of the implementation of the Cultural Strategy. In particular, regular local cultural gatherings are planned at Area level, with the intention that these gatherings will inform service planning and developments. The Draft Evaluation Report also notes that the Consortium will set new targets for further public engagement as part of the strategy implementation process.

7.53 It is important also to recognise the wider strategic impacts of the Fife Pathfinder, both within and beyond the region. The consultation findings suggest that the process has done much to raise the profile of culture and its potential contribution to a range of issues from health and well being to regeneration and learning. As a result, it was felt that, strategically speaking, culture was in its strongest ever position in Fife.

7.54 The project has also gained a profile beyond the region partly through the Pathfinder Collaborative and through the involvement of national partners such as Scottish Arts Council and Youthlink. This may help to enhance the wider profile of culture generally and of Fife in particular.

Value for Money

7.55 The project cost £211,719, almost £20,000 over the original budget. Of this, £59,000 was provided by the Cultural Pathfinder programme and £125,869 from Fife Council (cash and in-kind) and £26,850 from other sources, including the Scottish Arts Council and Youthlink Scotland.

7.56 The overspend in the project was related to the additional staff costs as a result of the extended scope of the work. In addition, the original budget overestimated the extent of external funding interest in the project, and the target leverage of £48,000 was not achieved (£26,850).

7.57 Establishing the value for money of the initiative is problematic. At one level, it cost £60 per person consulted, however this tells us little about the value of the process. The Draft Evaluation Report claims that the process of implementing the process from start to finish will have costs each Fife citizen 11 pence over the five years of the strategy, a finding that is argued to represent excellent value for money. It is also true to say that the outputs of the Culture Talk process (in particular, the Cultural Strategy for Fife) have helped to secure additional resources to support cultural activity, and will continue to do so through the strong partnership base that has been established.

7.58 The breakdown of funding in the Final Report shows that the process elements that were reported to have worked best were also the more expensive aspects of the project (e.g. Culture Booth, professional gatherings). The exception to this were the Imagineering projects, which were relatively modest in budget terms, but were reported to have had a particularly strong impact (in particular the project targeting very young children). Indeed, the report suggests that Imagineering as a technique will be continued in Fife with a new resource dedicated to supporting this as a form of community consultation.

Contribution to Strategic Objectives

7.59 We have identified a number of key strategic objectives to which each of the projects would be expected to contribute. Here we provide an assessment of the extent to which the Fife Pathfinder project has successfully:

• engaged under-represented groups in arts/cultural activities;
• encouraged collaborative working within and/or across authorities;
• engaged CPPs and other partners/stakeholders;
• delivered effective consultation with communities;
• delivered something that it truly new and additional; and
• considered and ensured the sustainability of its impacts.

7.60 This section draws on the feedback from the evaluation fieldwork as well as lessons reported by the projects through their interim and final evaluation reports.

Engaging Under-Represented Groups

7.61 The project has largely succeeded in engaging under-represented groups through both universal and more targeted consultation methods, albeit with a couple of areas in which specific challenges were experienced.

7.62 The universal consultation methods were designed to reach as many people as possible in new ways. In particular, the Cultural Booth reached a broad cross section of people and did so by:

• its focus on a familiar and widely appealing cultural medium (television);
• providing an opportunity to contribute to the consultation process in way that was fun, enjoyable and approachable; and
• taking the consultation out to everyday public spaces (e.g. shopping centres) to engage people.

7.63 Similarly, the Moussa's Castle Imagineering project was also successful in engaging very young children and their parents/carers through drama, but did so by taking theatre out of theatre venues and into nursery settings.

7.64 Anecdotal evidence is that one of the barriers to wider cultural engagement is that many people feel that the cultural activity is 'not for them', and feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in traditional cultural venues (theatres, galleries etc). By taking culture out of these venues and into the public realm, the Fife Pathfinder showed that cultural activities can have wider appeal and can engage a larger cross-section of society if made more accessible.

7.65 However, as noted earlier, the project struggled to engage two specific target groups - older people and BME communities. In the former case, this was attributed to a failure on the part of the Pathfinder team to engage with the infrastructure that cares for vulnerable older people, and in the latter it proved difficult to contact BME communities through agreed and formal routes, even through representative bodies and community organisations These are relatively minor shortcomings in what was an imaginative and ambitious consultation exercise that sought to reach beyond the 'usual voices' and seek input from a broader cross-section of society. The evidence suggests that it was successful in doing so.

7.66 Some of the most important findings to emerge from the Fife project relate to what the people of the region understand culture to mean. It is clear that the word 'culture' has negative associations for many, and rather than being related to the arts, culture for Fifers is more about way of life. There was also a very strong local dimension to the ways in which people thought about culture.

7.67 These are important issues. A broad definition of culture is more accessible and involving than one based around the arts. In fact, if culture is broadly conceived as being about lifestyle, then the nature and extent of under-representation changes, a shift that may have wider policy implications. However, as noted above, it is also apparent that the word culture, rather than being dismissed, has been 'reclaimed' following feedback from the professional community, and although the resulting strategy remains broad, arts and heritage are strong features.

Collaborative Working and Community Planning

7.68 The Fife Pathfinder did not seek to work with other local authorities or (extensively) with partners in other areas. It did, however, develop strong links across different service areas within the Council and with a very broad range of Community Planning partners.

7.69 In respect of the latter, the project sought from the very outset to be involved with the Community Planning process first by engaging strategists within Fife Council as well as Heads of Service and Elected Members. This 'top down' process was considered essential to gaining high level support for the role of culture within Community Planning, and an early result of this was the inclusion of culture in the revised Community Plan for Fife.

7.70 The project also benefitted from the enthusiastic support of the then Chair of the CPP, and from the efforts of the Pathfinder team and the project manager in pushing a broad consultation across Community Planning partners.

7.71 The evidence suggests that a number of key features of the Fife Pathfinder were particularly important in securing the broad engagement with Community Planning:

• from the outset, the project sought to engage Community Planning partners in a cultural planning process;
• the Pathfinder team targeted key strategists early in the process, and also focussed on securing senior support (including Elected Members) for the project;
• early recognition was secured with mention of the role of culture within the Health and Well Being theme of the Community Plan;
• the gravitas of being supported by a Scottish Government initiative helped to attract the attention (and support) of key partners;
• the project was based on genuinely grass roots community consultation and engagement, in line with the aspirations and objectives of Community Planning;
• culture was broadly defined (by the community), making its relevance across different service areas more apparent; and
• the experience, energy and enthusiasm of the Pathfinder team were consistently cited as decisive factors in the success of the project.

7.72 It is instructive that the Fife Pathfinder was both 'top-down' and 'bottom-up', an approach that was felt critical to ensuring the relevance and appeal to Community Planning. Therefore, the ability to engage at different strategic levels is a key factor.

7.73 As described above, the draft Cultural Strategy is being overseen and implemented via a newly formed Cultural Consortium. The longer term success of the interface between culture and Community Planning in Fife will depend on the future role and status of this Consortium. Our understanding is that there are no plans to create new sub-partnerships within the Community Planning structure, but that the longer term position of culture may depend on the Consortium developing just such a planning role and position. For now, the Consortium reports to the Health and Well Being Partnership.

7.74 It is also important to note that culture has also been embedded as a supporting driver within Fife's Single Outcome Agreement, a further indication of the strategic engagement achieved in the project, and the resulting profile of culture across the Community Planning partners. The longer term significance of this is important as SOAs become the key framework for the delivery of local services.

7.75 However, despite the undoubted success of the Fife Pathfinders in building strategic engagement, it is also instructive to note that the project still struggled to engage funding partners. This was reportedly due to the fact that: "lack of the perceived relevance of culture to their core business was evident at every stage of the process."

Effective Consultation with Communities

7.76 All of the available evidence suggests that the Fife Pathfinder delivered effective consultation across a broad range of different communities in Fife. As noted earlier, the project sought to try out new methods of consultation, combining creative techniques and new technologies to pilot new approaches. Inevitably, not everything worked, and the project has provided much valuable learning about how to consult with diverse communities.

7.77 In particular, some of the less intensive consultation methods were less successful (e.g. text campaigns, online surveys). This is possibly because these required the public to respond rather than participate, and the more distant nature of these methods provides little opportunity to engage respondents in the subject matter. As reported above, the feedback was that it proved more difficult than expected to engage people in talking about culture, due mainly to negative associations held by many by the word 'culture'. More participative consultation methods such as Culture Booth or direct one-to-one consultations provide greater scope to overcome these issues through discussion and encouragement.

7.78 It may also be that some form of incentive is needed to improve response rates to the less intensive consultation methods, although our own experience as researchers is that prize draws and similar incentives have limited effects on response rates.

7.79 Despite these issues, the success of some of the more participative and creative consultation methods demonstrates the value of cultural means of consultation, and provides a powerful example of how cultural planning methods can inform and influence Community Planning.

7.80 Key lessons regarding consultation include:

• a single, shared definition of culture cannot be assumed, as culture means different things to different people;
• there is no one size fits all approach to effective consultation and different groups need to be approached in different ways;
• engaging people in everyday settings rather than in cultural venues can encourage participation;
• fun is key, and was a strong factor in the success of the Culture Booth;
• consultation should be simple, clear and light, particularly for one-to-many methods (eg texts, online surveys and print campaigns);
• new technologies, if used intelligently and creatively, can add value, but should not be used for their sake alone; and
• strategic engagement of key partners is challenging and requires persistence, senior buy-in and champions.

Additionality

7.81 Consultation feedback indicated that the Pathfinder funding enabled Fife Council to design and deliver a project that was more ambitious and imaginative than would have otherwise been possible. While the Council may have undertaken some form of consultation and developed a Cultural Strategy, it was felt that this would not have been as extensive or as innovative as the Pathfinder, and the resultant strategy would be narrower in focus, with less direct connection with community needs and aspirations.

7.82 In addition, the evidence consistently suggests that the approach taken in Fife represented a genuinely new way of consulting with the community on such a scale, and could provide a model for future strategy development work.

Sustainability and Legacies

7.83 There are two significant and obvious legacies of the Fife Pathfinder. First, the development of a new Cultural Strategy, fully informed by the people of Fife is a key legacy that will direct investment in line with identified community needs. Already, the Council has allocated new funding (£1m) to a year-long celebration of Fife's Culture in 2010 and is making investments in line with community concerns as articulated in the Pathfinder project and the resulting Cultural Strategy.

7.84 The Strategy sets out five key commitments, supported by 17 objectives and 60 actions. The strategy proposes a broad definition of culture, and identifies actions designed to ensure wider (and fairer) access to cultural opportunities, better support for creativity and creative talent, more celebration of culture in Fife and sustainable planning processes based around the input and involvement of local communities.

7.85 Within the strategy, the progression of the Cultural Passport idea is a key commitment. To date a range of linked resources have been developed under the umbrella title and more are planned. These include:

• a Culture Grant open to groups and individuals of all ages across Fife to promote creative learning, arts and heritage participation and access to wider experiences;
• a new grant to support artists in Fife developed in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council;
• a new grant to support crafts makers, again developed in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council;
• a pilot seed corn funding scheme to help schools and children's/youth groups to widen participation in cultural activity outwith the school building itself; and
• a new Imagineering website, toolkit and staff training scheme developed in partnership with Youth Link and Fife Council Community Learning and Development Service that now offers access to support and training in creative consultation approaches and methodologies to aid services and facilities responsiveness and improvement.

7.86 The second legacy of the project is the formation of the Cultural Consortium as a new strategic forum for cultural planning in Fife. The sustainability of this new interface between culture and Community Planning in Fife is unknown, although the current indications are positive. There is ongoing commitment to the Consortium on the part of the Council and its cultural sector partners and, with the approval of the Cultural Strategy by the Communities and Housing Committee on 18 November, the Council has committed to new investment in culture in Fife, an important legacy of the Pathfinder project.

7.87 The position of culture within the revised Community Plan and the SOA are both evidence of an increase in the strategic profile of culture in the region. It is difficult to establish how much of this is attributable to the Pathfinder process, but it has undoubtedly had a significant influence. This enhanced profile is also an important legacy of the project as it provides a platform for future planning and delivery.

7.88 For Fife, the real challenge will be to maintain the momentum that was developed through the Pathfinder and translate the priorities of the Cultural Strategy into deliverable actions. There is an ongoing staff resource needed to support this process, and it will be important to secure investment and support from other service areas if the cross-service contribution of culture is to be realised in Fife. These will be key challenges for Fife Council and its partners.

7.89 However, the new strategy and its ongoing commitment to local consultation (through a series of planned Area level cultural gatherings) represent clear commitments by the partners to maintain the momentum created by the Pathfinder. The effectiveness and sustainability of these developments have yet to be evaluated, and again there is a clear commitment to doing so on the part of the partners.

Overall Assessment and Key Lessons

7.90 The Fife Pathfinder must be considered one of the most successful of the projects funded through the Programme. It was always clearly focussed on strategic impact and effective community consultation, and has delivered on both.

7.91 Many factors have contributed to this success. In particular, the role of key individuals here is critical. The Pathfinder Project Manager was widely praised for her vision, passion and commitment to the project and its ambitions, and for her persistence in seeking to open up productive channels of communication with strategic partners. However, management support is also critical, and the Project Manager's commitment aligned with strong support from middle and senior management to create a supportive context for the project within Fife Council. Here the influence and strategic awareness of the Head of Service may have been a key influence.

7.92 The Fife Pathfinder was also ambitious in its scope and was strongly focussed on its strategic goals, understanding that the future for cultural provision lies in broad partnership engagement and commitment. These are difficult to achieve in practice, but it is clear that the Culture Talk process has moved on the debate in Fife to a very significant degree.

7.93 Despite these achievements, it was reported that the early progress of the project was hampered by the shift in national policy away from cultural entitlements towards the widening access to cultural provision agenda. This required a shift in the project approach as it had been designed to explore entitlements, and had begun with extensive lobbying on this issue. However, the focus of the project on grass roots consultation and on using the outputs to inform delivery meant that the project survived the change in policy emphasis.

7.94 There are a number of key lessons about how the Fife Pathfinder has achieved these impacts, as follows:

• clear and consistent focus from the outset on strategic impact and on partnership, coupled with emphasis on widespread grass-roots consultation;
• effective management at the project level, but within a supportive management approach;
• open-ended and people-led consultation process that allowed communities to define the agenda;
• combination of many different methods of consultation and communications, helping to build the profile of the project and maintain its visibility both to local communities and to key strategic partners;
• outputs (the Strategy and its identified priorities) that reflect the community inputs;
• taking cultural participation out of cultural venues and into everyday community settings;
• flexibility, allowing the project to adapt to changes in policy direction (at national and local levels);
• the formation of a clear structure through which to maintain community consultation and the ongoing development of strategic planning for culture in the region; and
• push towards endorsement of the strategy from partners and within the Council (through the Housing and Communities Committee) as a way of embedding the commitments, objectives and actions across the wider partnership.

7.95 The last two points are particularly important. The Fife Pathfinder has established a structural framework for ongoing planning and has sought to embed some of the processes piloted in the project into ongoing provision. This may not be the only way to achieve sustainability, but it may be that an approach such as this is well suited to engaging with Community Planning structures and processes in which partnership working is facilitated through partnership groups and structures. Seeking official approval through the Council committee structure is an important way of securing support and adequate resources, particularly in an environment in which ring-fenced monies are no longer available and budgets are tight.

7.96 It may also be that in Fife, the time was right for this kind of approach, and that culture was enjoying a higher profile than ever before in the region and across the key partners. This underlines the importance of local circumstances in influencing the success of particular approaches to strategic engagement.

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