Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed Members, officers, and guests to the meeting.

Apologies had been received from Cllrs Karen Rampton, Jane Black and Matthew Lee.

Cllr David Jeffels attended the meeting as a substitute.

No declarations of interest had been received.

The minutes of the meeting held on 20 January 2021 were agreed as an accurate record.

The Chairman invited Ian Leete, Senior Adviser, to introduce the report.

Ian stated that a total of 704 people attended the virtual events. In addition to the virtual events being so well-attended, there was a much wider variety of audience, in terms of both councillors and officers, particularly a much wider geographical spread of delegates. Ian said that officers were particularly pleased with how the Hearts for the Arts Awards ceremony was carried out, the enhanced experience virtually and general celebration. Ian encouraged the Chairs of the events to provide feedback to officers in relation to how the events were operated, and the possibility of the events being held virtually in the future.

The Chairs of the events made the following comments:

• Cllr Coghill, Chair - Hearts for the Arts Awards:
  The format of the virtual Hearts for the Arts event was excellent, so many people attended and were accompanied by family members. We should continue to host these events virtually or perhaps in a blended/hybrid format to ensure that as many people as possible can attend and don’t have the make really expensive journeys. Samuel West, Actor, Director, and Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts, was great and really understood our sector and the financial contribution that we make as Councils to the sectors, but also the leadership that we show in terms of the Arts.

• Cllr German, Chair – Culture Conference:
  I echo Cllr Coghill’s comments with regards to the format of the conferences. We need to consider the networking element and ensure that it is not lost through hosting the events virtually. It would be great to make the conferences hybrid in the future so that the option to attend in person is available.

• Cllr Golds, Chair – Sports Conference:
  188 people attended the virtual Sports conference which was excellent. There were two very valuable contributions from individuals from the Youth Sport Trust who were fantastic ambassadors for young people in sport. In future, we should look into the option of hosting these events as hybrid events. We can’t ignore the fact that we have had a far higher turnout than we would have had by doing the events virtually.

• Cllr Vernon-Jackson, Chair – Tourism Conference:
  We could continue to run virtual conferences for Culture, Tourism and Sport sectors on a continuing basis and then we could also run physical face-to-face conferences at a different point in the year, or, we could host hybrid events.

It was generally agreed that the future events should be hosted in a blended/hybrid format Many Members of the Board agreed that

• A blended format is the way forward, I find visiting new places is also really valuable, as well as going on tours, meeting new people and networking.

• The standard of the speakers at each of the conferences was superb, as was the chairmanship of each of the sessions. The message regarding the revitalisation the economy and the importance of the role that culture, and tourism can  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The Chairman invited Ian Leete, Senior Adviser, to introduce the report.

Ian introduced the report which outlined the ongoing work to support councils with the challenges facing their leisure services, including The National Leisure Recovery Fund, Rapid insourcing document and The Future of Public Leisure research.

Members made the following comments:

• We should collectively write to MHCLG highlighting these issues and encourage other councils to do so, the figures speak for themselves in terms of how much of an issue this is. We’ve just received a small amount of funding through the National Recovery Fund, but it’s about a quarter of what we actually applied for. This funding therefore does not compensate for the losses earlier on in the pandemic and there are future challenges for leisure services going forward too in terms of insight and higher costs to reopen.

• Health and wellbeing are very important, especially post-pandemic.

• Government and recognise that sport, leisure, and culture is going to be vital to people’s physical and mental health recovery, so we need to emphasise that point.

Decision:

• Members noted the report.

Action:

• Officers to provide further information to Cllr German in relation to findings and challenges which related to leisure services.

• Officers to provide further information to Cllr Burnett in relation to officers’ contributions.

• Officers to continue to work on existing developing campaign elements.

The Chairman invited Members appointed to Outside Bodies to provide a brief update.

Cllr Jeffels said that a meeting would take place w/c 22 March of the Coastal Special Interest Group where he would provide a report on schemes on the North Yorkshire coast. He added that he would be the champion for suicides on the coast.

None.

The Chairman welcomed Nigel Huddleston, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Sport, Heritage and Tourism at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to the meeting.

The Board presented a series of slides which related to sport and physical activity. The Chairman invited the Minister to respond.

The Minister responded to the points raised in the presentation slides and answered a series of questions from Board Members.

Decision:

·       Members noted the points made by the Minister.