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note: all terms with a * are linked to a glossary of definitions located towards the end of this page.
Welcome to Glasgow’s draft Culture Plan.
Culture is hard to define, but it’s a feature of human beings. That means it should be a product of the experiences, lives and views of everyone. This should always be true. But it’s especially important in Scotland’s most diverse city; a city that expresses – but also shapes – culture in so many ways locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Culture should never be owned or decided upon by the powerful or self-selected. We are not all the same. We want different things. Sometimes we don’t know what we want. We need to be surrounded by things that reflect our lives, our communities and the way we feel, something that values and expands our experiences.
That’s why this Plan in its current form needs to be a living document. Something that is influenced and shaped by as many people, perspectives and organisations as possible. The established, powerful and confident will always find ways to make themselves heard, so that’s why we need to make a special effort to include the views of those with less confidence or power, and those who are trying to establish themselves.
This Plan has been developed as a starting point to give people and organisations something to consider. It needs to be criticised. It needs gaps and deficiencies highlighted. If it gets things right we need to know how, where and why.
This Plan doesn’t exist in isolation. So it needs to complement other plans, particularly A Culture Strategy for Scotland, the Scottish Government’s plan for the whole country.
This Plan doesn’t start from zero. Culture has been central to Glasgow’s evolution for at least 30 years. So it needs to understand and reflect this history, but also not be constrained by so much reverence for the past that the new can never become established.
None of this is easy. It might involve bringing things together which contradict each other. But we need to work together to make all our voices heard.
Come inside and help culture in Glasgow be for and about people like you.
Culture is Glasgow’s heart. Making, sharing and enjoying culture is our right, shaping and building the future health, prosperity and sustainability of our world city and its people.
This Plan is a framework that supports new ways of doing things and new kinds of initiatives that will enable us to address important Challenges. Using this flexible approach, the Culture Plan will remain current as a live working document and a valuable tool to achieve the intended Outcomes.
Acknowledging all that we have achieved over the last 25 years and working together to define what our priorities for the next 10 years should be, our aim is to harness and enable rights, equality, inclusion and diversity to reflect all our identities, so that everyone feels connected with and becomes the root of the city’s future growth.
Glasgow’s first Culture Summit took place on 12 September 2017. Around 200 people from across the City’s artistic, cultural and creative sectors, the City Government, partners and stakeholders came together to explore how we could best contribute to Glasgow’s future success.
Glasgow City Council's Depute Leader, Councillor David McDonald, City Convenor for Culture, Vibrancy and International Co-operation, introduced the City Government’s cultural commitments including the development of a 25-year Culture Plan in partnership with the sector, establishing an independently chaired Culture Forum, a community artists-in-residence programme, a Local Festivals Fund, and improved access to cultural facilities and activities in every community.
The first step towards the creation of a 25-year Culture Plan was taken at the Summit. From facilitated roundtable discussions participants put forward suggested priorities that were then reviewed and voted on by all the conference delegates. These findings were analysed together with submissions from those who couldn’t make it on the day. Four key themes emerged: 1) Education and Lifelong Learning; 2) Health and Wellbeing; 3) Enabling and Partnership Working; and 4) Community Development.
The Summit was followed by three open Culture Forum meetings, on 23 April, 31 May and 27 June 2018. The April Forum included a wide discussion on issues and priorities and a review of other City forums. The May Forum reviewed and developed the themes that emerged at the Summit. The June Forum focused on a framework / process to develop the 25-year Culture Plan, including learning from Cultural Plan development mechanisms used elsewhere.
The process agreed at the June Forum took the form of a series of small-group independently facilitated stakeholder workshops. These took place on 12 November 2018, 24 January and 14 February 2019. The stakeholders co-created a draft 25-year Vision, Values and Long-Term Outcomes, and six 10-year ‘Challenges’ and related Responses / Actions and Outcomes. A bespoke method based on crafting a story was created – and this structure has been carried over to the draft Plan. This work included defining Glasgow’s distinctiveness and the Plan’s audience, ideas for engagement methods and benchmarking comparator city Culture Plans.
Over March–November 2019 the workshop series and Summit outputs have been brought together with additional background and research to form this consultative draft and an Engagement Partner appointed.
Sector representatives, Glasgow Life and Glasgow City Council are committed to model best practice for development and engagement, living the accessibility and equality principles that have been developed through the Culture Plan development process. Independent community engagement specialists are leading an engagement programme during the consultation period. Your views are important and will help to shape the final version of this plan.
This draft plan is available in HTML format and as a downloadable PDF at www.glasgowcultureplan.scot.
Personal information will be processed in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR). For more information about this go to https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/the-small-print/privacy-glasgow-life.
This draft can be made available in a variety of alternate formats and community languages on request. If you would like more information about this or would like to request an alternative format or language please contact Andrew Ferguson, cultureplan@glasgowlife.org.uk, 0141 287 0143.
This overview starts with regeneration drivers and the development of the City’s cultural policy from the 1980s and describes the characteristics of present day Glasgow in terms of its place as a cultural city on the world and UK stage. A long road has already been walked; and so Glasgow’s cultural ambitions for the next 25 years can be built upon this strong foundation.
Looking forward to the next 10 years, the prologue then describes the context of the Plan’s priorities for future growth that will enable a more equitable, diverse and inclusive cultural sector to thrive.
Glasgow’s cultural infrastructure has emerged organically. Home to many national and local institutions, the early 1980s served as an incubator for its potential when Mayfest showcased everything from grassroots work to the international and avant-garde. The period before then, in the early 1970s, was marked by rapid de-industrialisation and significant associated socio-economic deprivation. An emergent and edgy arts scene created the confidence to bid for European City of Culture in 1986.
The development of Glasgow’s cultural infrastructure since the mid-1980s has been instrumental in the city’s transformation as capital investment combined new venues with refurbished Victorian-era civic culture facilities and repurposed historic buildings.
The development of its cultural policy was primarily driven by Glasgow’s contribution to economic development and regeneration. In broad terms, regeneration led culture rather than culture leading regeneration. This approach has been well documented and has influenced a range of post-industrial cities in the UK and beyond. However, the picture has not always been one of growth, as difficult choices have had to be made in response to a sustained period of budgetary cuts since the 2008/09 recession.
Glasgow is the largest city in north-west Europe, and in many ways its remoteness from other major cities means that it has developed its own unique cultural ecosystem which is grounded in authenticity.
Over time key features have emerged:
Understanding and harnessing the power of what we have in the city – tangible assets such as our museums’ collections, or less tangible features such as the edginess of our contemporary visual arts scene – has worked in tandem with the development of major new venues and significant programming investment.
This has delivered both hard economic benefit and softer quality of life outcomes, for the people of Glasgow, but also more widely for Scotland’s reputation as a visitor destination of choice, and as a place with a superb, dynamic and unique cultural life.
Glasgow is now characterised by:
Glasgow is home to more than 100 cultural organisations including Scotland’s national orchestra, theatre, opera, and ballet companies and is also blazing an internationally acclaimed trail in contemporary art, design and music. There are 9 million visits annually to cultural institutions, 5.4 million visits to museums, historic buildings and gardens, 3,600 live cultural performances, 1.45 million concert visits and 1.1 million theatre attendances [Glasgow Cultural Statistics Digest 2017].
The City has also prioritised the positioning of its cultural tourism offer in key UK and international markets. For example, Glasgow is home to the world’s largest winter music festival of traditional music: Celtic Connections. As well as promoting indigenous cultures, it encourages interculturality and innovation. Glasgow International is Scotland's largest festival for contemporary art, taking place over three weeks every two years across the City.
Glasgow is now a year-round festival city and the main centre for Scotland’s culture and creative industries – including film and TV production. Renowned as an incubator, Glasgow's booming art scene has been dubbed “the Glasgow miracle”.
Glasgow’s cultural sector is multi-layered, vibrant, diverse and influential. Over the coming decades cultural policy needs to be explicitly driven by a recognition of this diversity. Cultural expression is not the right of dominant groups. Wealth and power imbalances stop people with diverse lived experiences* from interacting, negotiating and working to understand each other, but more importantly to negotiate a common good that is equitable. We should also never forget that much of our own culture and infrastructure is a product of imperialism and dominance.
Built on tobacco and cotton harvested by enslaved people, profits from people starved and forced off their land, or backbreaking heavy industries, Glasgow has the opportunity to create a new future. The cultural economy and our creative industries are major employers, now more so than heavy industries. It is this energy, and UNESCO’s new Urban Future Agenda† shaped by the 4th Industrial Revolution, that offer opportunities to make, shape, create and innovate.
The new Culture Plan is rooted in rights, harnessing and enabling equality, diversity and inclusion to build something together that reflects all our identities, that everyone feels connected with and becomes the root of the city’s future growth and sustainability.
† See Setting, for more on Glasgow’s strategic context
Our enduring core beliefs – our shared values – guide the Plan’s vision, outcomes and responses. They help set out what is unique and distinctive about Glasgow and what we will stand by as we work together to deliver Glasgow’s Culture Plan.
This ‘final chapter’ of the Culture Plan starts with where we want to be in 25 years, our concluding statement: ‘Culture is Glasgow’s heart’.
The specific changes we want to bring about over the next generation is composed from fourteen Long-term Outcomes, forming the backbone of the final chapter.
Culture is Glasgow’s heart. Making, sharing and enjoying culture is our right, shaping and building the future health, prosperity and sustainability of our world city and its people.
‘Our story’ sets out how we will achieve our Vision and Long-term Outcomes. To do this, we have broken down our Long-term Outcomes into Shorter-term Outcomes and defined six Challenges we will tackle over the short to medium term. Given our long-term Vision, our starting point (section 04. Prologue) and our Values (section 05. Principles), we believe that a rights based approach to equality, diversity and inclusion should be at the centre of the Challenges we have set ourselves for the next 10 years. To achieve our intended outcomes, we have defined a series of broad ‘Responses’ or actions and listed these under each corresponding Challenge.
The Culture Plan creates a framework that supports new ways of doing things and new kinds of initiatives that will enable us to address important Challenges. This approach allows for ideas to grow organically and Responses to adapt as contexts change, as new opportunities arise and as best practice evolves. Using this flexible approach, the Plan will remain current as a live working document and a valuable tool to achieve the intended Outcomes.
Challenge #1. Ensure everyone has the opportunity to create, experience and participate in cultural activity
Responses
Short / Medium-Term Outcomes
Challenge #2. Promote inclusion and increase visibility by valuing all cultures equally
Responses
Short / Medium-Term Outcomes
Challenge #3. Increase support for the cultural and creative sector by adapting and restructuring financial and economic models
Responses
Short / Medium-Term Outcomes
Challenge #4. Broaden the relevance of the cultural sector beyond the sector to increase engagement, advocacy and sponsorship
Responses
Short / Medium-Term Outcomes
Challenge #5. Promote equality of opportunity and equitable outcomes by sharing power and resources with under-represented groups*
Responses
Short / Medium-Term Outcomes
Challenge #6. Use, programme and promote our cultural assets to sustain them and excite and engage people
Responses
Short / Medium-Term Outcomes
Going forward, a key role of the Culture Forum will be to monitor and report progress again the Plan’s intended Outcomes and Responses.
The ways in which people can contribute to Telling Our Story and how progress could be best communicated in the future are areas we will be exploring through our engagement activity and consultation about the draft Plan.
The commitments and challenges set out in the draft Culture Plan will be the focus of Glasgow's Culture Plan Breakfast in January 2020, enabling wide-ranging conversation, learning and sharing.
Culture forms one of the eleven National Outcomes of the Scottish Government National Performance Framework and is a core contributor to national economic growth priorities. The strategy for Glasgow is being developed at the same time as a Scotland-wide Cultural Strategy; its ambitions are: transforming and empowering through culture and sustaining culture.
At a city scale, culture features in the City Government’s strategic themes and priorities, is an integral part of the City’s economic ambitions and has an important role to play in improving the health and wellbeing of the people of Glasgow.
The relevant international, national and local policy landscape and strategic drivers that have helped to shape Glasgow’s Culture Plan priorities are set out below:
UNESCO launched Culture For the 2030 Agenda in 2015. It is the first international agenda to acknowledge the power of culture for creating decent work and economic growth, reducing inequalities, protecting the environment, promoting gender equality and building peaceful and inclusive societies. Glasgow has been a UNESCO Creative City of Music since 2008.
UNESCO’s International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities New Urban Agenda adopted in 2016 also places special emphasis on the role of culture in building sustainable cities. Culture For the 2030 Agenda sets out ways in which culture contributes to sustainable development under the themes of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership:
People
Planet
Prosperity
Peace
Partnership
The Scottish Government launched its new National Performance Framework – “a vision for national wellbeing” – in 2018. One of its eleven National Outcomes is:
Culture has the potential to contribute to several more Outcomes, including:
Current national indicators for culture include measures for attendance at cultural events or places of culture, participation in a cultural activity, growth in the cultural economy, and people working in arts and culture. Scottish Government’s Economic Strategy [2015] identifies a number of key growth areas – including Sustainable Tourism and Creative Industries – where Scotland has ‘comparative advantage’ and where additional support for growth is being provided. And Scottish Government’s Fairer Scotland Action Plan has five high-level ambitions to 2030, including A Fairer Scotland For All and Fairer Working Lives.
The Scottish Government is in the process of creating a culture strategy for Scotland which seeks to embed and elevate culture’s position across society and enable everyone to have the opportunity to take part in or contribute to cultural life in Scotland.
Themes that emerged from the engagement phase are:
Together with three ambitions that are intended to underpin the whole strategy:
Relevant sector specific national strategies include: Going Further: The National Strategy for Scotland’s Museums and Galleries [2012]; Ambition and Opportunity: A Strategy for Public Libraries in Scotland 2015–2020; Scotland's Creative Learning Plan [2013]; Our Place in Time: the Historic Environment Strategy for Scotland [2014]; and Creative Scotland’s strategies: Arts Strategy 2016–17, Creative Industries Strategy 2016–17, Creative Scotland on Screen: Film Strategy 2014–17; and National Gaelic Language Plan 2018–23 and Gaelic Tourism Strategy for Scotland 2018–23.
A 25-year Culture Plan and an independently chaired Cultural Forum are commitments of the Glasgow City Government:
Culture is a force for good, enabling community engagement and empowerment. In Glasgow, our vibrant cultural sector gives the city an edge….
We want Glasgow to become a truly international arts capital, showcasing the best in local and international creativity. We will seek to create the conditions in which our confident cultural sector can develop and grow, and where our artists are nurtured in their work.
The seven City Council Strategic themes set out in the Glasgow City Council Strategic Plan 2017-2022 are: A Thriving Economy; A Vibrant City; A Healthier City; Excellent and Inclusive Education; A Sustainable and Low Carbon City; Resilient and Empowered Neighbourhoods; and A Well Governed City that Listens and Responds. Culture has the potential to be used in an instrumental way to contribute to the delivery of all of the themes. More specifically, the following outcomes are listed under the Vibrant City theme:
Public services operate in a very challenging environment. Managing increased demand with fewer resources has been the norm for more than a decade. Relevant policy drivers therefore include:
Culture has a role to play in delivering the City’s economic priorities, as set out in the Glasgow City Region Economic Strategy 2017–2035, Glasgow Economic Strategy 2016–2023 and in Glasgow’s Tourism and Visitor Plan to 2023:
Glasgow City Region has successfully revitalized and rebranded itself in recent times… to become a cultural, vibrant European city region that is known for its pride, passion and people.
Glasgow starts from a position of strength, as the 6th most visited city in the UK. We aim to raise the profile and reputation of the city for leisure tourism, and sustain and grow our success in day visits…
Priority 1. Culture and Creativity – Driver of profile and visits...
As culture is one of the defining attributes that make a city distinctive, our new plan will, for the first time, focus on [five] key strands of Glasgow’s cultural offer…: Heritage; Contemporary Art; Music; Charles Rennie Mackintosh; Events.
Culture also has a role to play in improving the health and wellbeing of the people of Glasgow. It can contribute to Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership’s Vision “to support people to flourish, work in partnership with people and organisations to transform our services for the better and engage with communities to improve health and wellbeing”, and to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s Public Health Strategy’s objectives, specifically “to promote good mental health and wellbeing at all ages”.
Other relevant local strategies include: A Vision for Glasgow Libraries [2015], “Glasgow's Libraries are amazing places to read, learn and discover – the trusted guide at the heart of our communities”; a new Glasgow’s Events Strategy “to achieve an inclusive world class programme of events for Glasgow’s visitors and citizens through to 2030”, to be launched in 2019; a Historic Glasgow strategy is a priority of the City Council Strategic Plan; and Glasgow Community Learning & Development Plan 2018–2021, whose vision is “to work in partnership to ensure the delivery of a range of accessible, high quality [Community Learning & Development] which makes a real difference to people’s personal, family and working lives”.
accessibility |
The Culture Plan adopts a broad definition of ‘accessibility’ where products and environments are designed to remove physical, virtual and psychological barriers or issues to enable access to spaces and information. |
communities |
The Culture Plan embraces a broad definition of ‘communities’ as ‘clusters’ which are not confined to specific geographies or socio-economic groups. They may be self-defined, their needs and wants are not homogeneous, and individuals may belong to one or many such clusters. |
diverse lived experiences |
The Culture Plan refers to people with ‘diverse lived experiences’. This Plan acknowledges that everyone does not have the same access to cultural opportunities and resources. Lived experience such as poverty, gender, race, age, nationality and class has an impact on the different kind of culture we participate in and access. When we use this phrase in the Plan we are seeking to centre those who are not traditionally centred in cultural participation. |
everyday culture |
The concept of ‘everyday culture’ recognises value and worth in ‘everyday’ activities that contribute to the cultural lives of people as defined by those individuals/communities. |
STEAM |
‘STEAM’ stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. |
under-represented group |
An ‘under-represented group’ is a subset that holds a smaller percentage within a larger subgroup compared with the proportion that subset holds within the general population. For Culture Plan challenge #5, the subgroups relate to cultural leaders, curators, organisations and practitioners. |
If you are providing a written response to this draft plan, you must include the following information with your response so we know how you want us to handle it:
1. Are you responding as an individual or an organisation?
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3. Please select one option to indicate your consent for how we may refer to your response in published consultation analysis reporting:
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Personal information will be processed in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR). For more information about this go to https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/the-small-print/privacy-glasgow-life
We would be grateful if you could include the following information with your response for equalities monitoring purposes:
How would you describe your gender identity?
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If you would like to, please tell us what other words you use to describe your gender identity:
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