Following a joint Radcliffe Trust (RT) & Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) event in March, entitled ‘Heritage and Crafts: working together to develop skills and sustain the sector’ the organisers have written to provide an update on progress.
Carole Milner, Adviser to the RT Heritage & Crafts Programme & Jo Reilly, Head of Participation and Learning at the HLF, have written as follows:
We are writing to let you know that the notes and key documents from the 24 March event have now been posted on the Radcliffe Trust website – http://www.theradcliffetrust.org/ under Events and will also be available on the Heritage Lottery Fund website – http://www.hlf.org.uk/ under Skills for the Future. This process has taken significantly longer then we would have liked, and we apologise for this, but during this period a lot work has been undertaken to take forward some of the issues raised during the day.
HLF received evaluations of the event indicating a 1.7 satisfaction rate (on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being the highest rating). In general, participants felt it had been a timely, unique and very worthwhile event but also wanted to know what would happen as a result of it.
Our main objective for the day was to listen and learn, and to identify the strong messages that could be taken forward and acted upon. We have each analysed the implications of the day for our respective organisations and a lot has already happened. For HLF, much of the learning from the event fed directly into its consultation process, which closed on 27 April. The impressive 2000+ responses are being analysed and the first summary report will be published on HLF’s website by the end of August. For the Radcliffe Trust, the Board of Trustees considered some immediate issues relevant to its support for the sector at their meeting in June. They are now awaiting the outcome of the HLF consultation before making longer-term decisions. However, as a result of the event, they are looking in particular at early stage support for younger people entering the sector.
One of the immediate outcomes of the event was the decision to set up a Heritage & Crafts Funders’ Network. This was discussed at the concluding session amongst funders, in the light of everything we had all heard. The Radcliffe Trust has since put together a brief for the network, with valuable advice from the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF). The Trust Partnership (TTP) is providing initial support and the network will soon be underway.
HLF has listened to the many smaller organisations who expressed their need for better understanding of ways in which they can access funding from HLF. Once the consultation process is finalised, they will be looking at practical ways of addressing this, for example, through bespoke funding workshops. Since the event HLF has decided to pilot a new Forum-based approach to sharing good practice with its Skills for the Future grantees and, if this proves effective, there may be scope for it to be opened to the wider sector. There was also a call for the sector to engage more with schools and training providers. With this in mind, HLF has secured a presence at the world’s largest skills competition and exhibition, WorldSkills 2011 www.worldskillslondon2011.com which is hosted this year by the UK and will take place at Excel in London from 5-8 October. This is actively supported by the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, John Hayes, and will create opportunities for young people to ‘have a go’ at a range of heritage skills and to learn more about our work.
It will obviously take time for other results to filter through and not all outcomes are in the hands of the HLF or Radcliffe Trust. Several issues raised on 24 March and at the previous RT Round Table relate to areas where the sector itself needs to take the lead, such as better joint working, pooling of resources and sharing of good practice. Both our organisations will do what we can to support this work so please keep us informed of any new initiatives of this type. In this context, we would like to flag up to you the new Catalyst scheme announced jointly by HLF and Arts Council England (ACE) on 17 July, aiming at helping heritage and arts organisations to become more self-sustaining. (For further details see: LINK ).
Most participants said they would appreciate more events like this one. This was an unusual partnership and, unfortunately, neither HLF nor the Radcliffe Trust is in a position to repeat an event on the scale of 24 March. However, we are aware that many connections were made on that day and that these have already led to new relationships being established. We hope that this was just the beginning and that much more will develop from it.
Thank you again for your participation and your support for the Heritage and Crafts sector…
