The Scottish Government

NAME OF PATHFINDER PROJECT: An integrated Cultural approach for Aberdeen City and Shire

Brief description

The Cultural Pathfinder project will identify how the City and Shire can devise and coordinate a joined up programme of creative community engagement activities that will identify and thereafter deliver a set of common entitlements to our citizens.

Overall aim

Our main aim is to pilot creative engagement programmes and develop a joint action plan of delivery that we can embed in the community planning framework, thus improving the lives of those who engage in cultural activities.

Specific aims

Audit to assess the effectiveness of current cultural activities being carried out in City and Shire, through customer satisfaction and feedback.

Research marketing and information services improvements.

Develop an action plan for the integration of cultural plans and strategies between the two services.

Carry out and review pilot programmes with our target groups of rural communities, socially challenged groups, community planning networks and the Scottish Adult Learning Partnership group of older people.

To identify barriers to participation i.e. transport, access to venues ,cost etc

Resources (inputs)

£53,000 from Scottish Government

A project steering group

A team of cultural expert consultants

Open Space workshop facilitators and community artists

Local voluntary arts groups

Professional cultural organisations and venues

In kind support, i.e. venues, officer time, volunteers etc

Activities/services (outputs)

3D audit of cultural activities.

Marketing review

Consultation with stakeholders

Identification of options for entitlements/framework

Development and evaluation of pilots

Agreed action plan for integration of cultural plans and strategies, including local neighbourhood plans through the community planning process.

Indicators for key performance

Activity (output)

· An audit of current cultural provision within a framework agreed with the steering group to identify-what is presently provided, by whom provision is made and where the provision is made and how it is accessed.

· Development of a shared database

· Make an assessment of the current cultural development environment in Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire

· Identify gaps in provision

· Make an assessment of present marketing and information systems with recommendations for improvement

Participation (output)

· 5 open space workshops, covering an area of urban deprivation, rural community, and city, together with artists and creative individual sessions.

· Workshops to involve120 participants

· Series of joint focus groups of 60 citizens

· Involvement of artists in delivering a number of pilot projects to demonstrate how the agreed entitlements might be delivered.

· Engagement of community members in the programme.

Satisfaction (outcome)

· Community members will be satisfied with an agreed set of joint programmes and initiatives, measured through the city voice panel

· Community members will be satisfied that the agreed plans will be embedded in local community plans measured through community planning networks and forums

· That local arts practitioners will be satisfied with the plan of the project. Measured through the cultural forums.

· That Funders and Sponsors will be satisfied with the outcomes of their investments

Impact (outcome)

· Improvement in levels of city and shire joint working, through increased joint officer planning, networking, coordinated marketing and joint funded projects.

· Greater participation rate in community arts activity take up.

· Greater awareness of city's cultural venues from both city and shire audiences and vice versa for shire venues.

· Greater collaboration of the voluntary arts groups working with venues on joint projects.

· New audiences attracted to more diverse cultural menu.

· That there will be greater inclusion of culture in the strategic community planning process for each local authority area.

Value for money (output and outcome)

· Projects and programmes taken forward more cost effectively through joint funding

· Joint marketing initiatives' introduced have greater penetration rates.

· Action plan to identify new resources for joint delivery in short, medium and long term.

· Develop e based marketing systems to replace traditional print

· Pilot projects cost effective at managing risk factors with target groups

Data collected:

Baseline data

Use Aberdeenshire Audience Atlas figures for attendances at various art forms and Aberdeen City Council participation rate figures.

Interim report stage

Repeat data collection

Final report stage

Analyse to discover changes in patterns.

Use "How's Business?" survey to collect audience trends for cultural events.

Repeat data collection

Review take up over time

Council's Key Performance Indicators

Measure value of cultural strategy has delivered to public

Review impact of pilots and programmes created.

Outcomes

Agreed short, mid and long term programmes and initiatives between partners based on joint planning mechanisms.

Progress information (how is the project developing/did it develop, compared with the original plan?

Progress information to be documented by the steering group, who will monitor the plan.

Main learning points

These will be disseminated through joint stakeholder evaluation meetings.

Final report to identify ways to embed learning.