Agenda and minutes

Apologies had been received from Cllr Ferriby, Cllr Mather, Cllr Masterman, Nicky Chance-Thompson, Halima Khan, Leigh-Ann Stradeski, Ben Walmsley, Paul Weed, Oliver Bray, Dave Russell, Kamran Rashid, Syima Aslam.

There were no declarations of pecuniary interests at the meeting.

There were no items that required the exemption of the press and public.

Resolved: That the minutes of the last meeting be approved.

The mayor thanked Keighley Creative for hosting the meeting and updated members on the events in the Culture, Heritage, and Sport Sector since the last meeting.

·       The Royal Society of Arts had convened a meeting of the UK’s key creative industries stakeholders which discussed key policy interventions which could help the northern creative sector.

·       The Government had published their Creative Industries Sector Vision which set out shared ambitions to maximise growth in the sector.

·       20 million funding had been announced for Bradford UK City of Culture.

·       Creative Catalyst had completed delivery of its schemes including the Accelerator and the Export Labs

·       The Skills and business package “You can make it here”, would be on the agenda at the Combined Authority meeting on 27 July.

Members considered a report that set out the governance arrangements approved by the Combined authority at its annual meeting on 22 June 2023.

Resolved: That the governance arrangements be noted.

Members considered a report which provided an update on the latest economic data relating to the cultural sector.

It was report that employment in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation sector remained flat over the last three quarters but employment in the information and communication sector continued to grow.

At the West Yorkshire level vacancies remained relatively strong across creative, cultural and sport occupations.

Members asked for more data relating to freelance and on new start-ups in the region.

Resolved: That the report be noted.

The Committee considered a report that set out the work underway to support the tourism and hospitality sector.

Members noted the update on the joint application made by the Combined Authority and the local authorities to become an accredited Local Visitor Economy Partnership.

Members asked about the possibility of measuring footfall in smaller cultural venues in give a more accurate picture and tell a better story about the region as well as if there could be a metric for tourist engagement in deprived areas.

Resolved:

(i)              That the status of application, Yorkshire-wide project, Destination Management Plan, and governance model be noted.

(ii)             That the development of a funding proposal to establish the region’s LVEP, subject to the Combined Authority’s Assurance Framework, be endorsed.

The Committee was provided with a presentation by Dominic Bascombe on the TUC Creative and Leisure Industries Committee’s 2023 Cultural Manifesto.

Resolved: That the presentation be noted.

Members were provided with a presentation on the Leeds 2023 year of culture which set out the delivery to date as well as their future plans.

Resolved: That the presentation be noted.

The Committee considered a report that provided an update on the Creative Catalyst delivery.

Members noted that a number of schemes had completed delivery and had met or exceeded their key performance indicators.

Further schemes across skills and business support were in delivery including the “You can make it here” which would include a further iteration of Creative Catalyst; Events and Venue Accessibility Resource; Freelance and Micro Business Support; Heritage and Sport Asset-Owning Business Support; further iterations of the Mayor’s Screen Diversity Programme; Year of Culture Knowledge Transfer and Talent Escalator.

Resolved: that the update on Creative Catalyst and the wider skills and business support in the creative industries, be noted.

The date of the next meeting is 27 October 2023.