LGA submission to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry on Grassroots music venues

Wednesday 20 March 2024

1. About the Local Government Association (LGA)

1.1 The Local Government Association (LGA) is the national voice of local government. We work with councils to support, promote and improve local government.

1.2 We are a politically-led, cross party organisation which works on behalf of councils to ensure local government has a strong, credible voice with national government.  We aim to influence and set the political agenda on the issues that matter to councils so they are able to deliver local solutions to national problems.

2. Key asks

2.1 A long-term, sustainable and multi-year financial settlement for local government, which allows them to invest in vital community infrastructure and support a thriving grassroots music scene.

2.2 More coordination between Government departments and their arms-length bodies to reduce fragmentation of funding pots for culture.

3. The role of councils in supporting a thriving music scene

3.1 Councils sit at the heart of a healthy cultural ecosystem. They run a nationwide network of local cultural organisations, which in England includes 3,000 libraries, 350 museums, 116 theatres and numerous historic buildings, parks and heritage sites. This core funding keeps the civic infrastructure of culture running within places. For councils, cultural spend is a small part of what they do, but they remain the biggest public funders of culture nationally, spending over £1bn a year on cultural services in England alone and £2.4 billion a year when you include wider spend on leisure and green space.

3.2 Some of the functions a council can play in supporting culture in an area include:

• Leadership of place: setting the context for a culturally thriving area by publicly championing culture.
• Strategy setting: coordinating the development of a place-led strategy for culture, which sets out how local assets and resources will be mobilised to meet local needs
• Advocacy: working with partners inside and outside the council to ensure culture is reflected in the work of health, education and economic development teams
• Convening: bringing together partners to develop a shared approach to supporting local culture
• Community voice: understanding and working with different communities and ensuring that a diverse range of voices are heard when decisions are being made
• Planning: ensuring culture is integrated in their Local Plan so the historic environment is protected and enhanced, and prioritising cultural spend as part of contributions from developers
• Licensing: setting the context in which cultural venues and creative businesses operate through licensing system
• Equalities duties: meeting their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 including the Public Sector Equality Duties (PSED), with implications for how they approach cultural service delivery and their wider strategy for cultural place shaping
• Evidence gathering: on the local economic, social and cultural contribution of their services and interventions in the local area.

3.3 UK Music have developed a report and toolkit titled, ‘Here There and Everywhere’, which makes five specific recommendations for councils to embed music in their local strategies:

• Use data to ensure music is at the heart of planning and licensing policy
• Regenerate empty spaces as hubs for music, culture and community
• Enshrine music and the local community in regeneration and development
• Create a music advisory commission with local business leaders, stakeholders and tourism boards
• Engage with the music industry to establish partnerships and spur local investment.

3.4 Councils want to protect and maintain the live music venues in their communities and the LGA has previously supported changes to planning rules that help achieve a fair and balanced solution between the obligations of housing developers and protecting our vital grassroots music scene.

4. Local authority pressures

4.1 The situation facing councils on cultural investment is a significant challenge, given that half of councils are facing pressures on  libraries, museums, theatres and galleries, and over half to their leisure provision. Two thirds of councils we surveyed ahead of the Spring Budget warned that their communities will see reductions to local neighbourhood services this year – such as waste collection, road repairs, library, and leisure services – as they struggle to plug funding gaps.

4.2 Demand and cost led pressures on services such as adult and children’s social care, home to school transport and homelessness services are rising. Protecting these services is having a knock-on effect on the wide range of other council services that residents expect and rely on.

4.3 In recognition of the acute funding and demand pressures facing councils, the Government provided £600 million extra funding in 2024/25 to help protect services and support councils to try and set balanced budgets this year. However, our survey shows most councils said the extra money would help to some extent, but the majority (58 per cent) said this impact would be “small”. Eighty-five per cent of councils said they would still have to make cost savings to balance their 2024/25 budget.

4.4 More than half (55 per cent) with responsibility for the services reported that cost savings would be needed in their sport and leisure service provision with 48 per cent reporting that cost savings would be needed within their library services.

4.5 Around half (48 per cent) with responsibility for the services reported that cost savings would be needed in their parks and green spaces service provision with over a third (34 per cent) reporting the need for cost savings in their provision of museums, galleries, and theatres. Unfortunately, once these services and facilities are lost, they are unlikely to reopen.

4.6 While councils have made huge efforts over recent years to reduce costs and make savings by transforming the way services are delivered, 2024/25 is the sixth one-year settlement in a row for councils which continues to hamper financial planning and their financial sustainability. 

4.7 Council’s remain the biggest public investors in culture, but their spend reduced by 40 per cent in the ten years preceding the pandemic as a result of budgetary pressures. One of the biggest areas of loss was in staffing capacity, particularly in relation to arts development officers, whose role formerly included much of the convening function described by UK Music as important in supporting grassroots venues.

5. Policy interventions

5.1 Fundamentally, councils remain the most important core funder and convener for a local cultural ecosystem, including setting an environment in which grassroots music venues can thrive, but their ability to perform this role is being affected by funding challenges, service pressures and the uncertainty of local government finance.

5.2 Councils need a long-term, sustainable, multi-year funding settlement in order to have the certainty of funding they need to invest in their local cultural environment and support growth in the creative industries.

5.3 We need Government departments and the cultural arms-length-bodies to work together with councils to reduce waste and fragmentation in funding for culture and coordinate funding and governance initiatives around a whole place.

5.4 The LGA has joined forces with other sector bodies to launch the new National Alliance for Cultural Services to make sure all partners are working together to help councils minimise the impact on residents.

5.5 We have also published 7 new think pieces on how devolution can support the changes that councils need to make.

5.6 We have a guide to councils on growing their local creative economy, called Creative Places.

5.7 The LGA supports licensing fees being set locally by councils so that capacity can be increased in Licensing Departments. This would have a positive impact on the night time economy as the process of dealing with licensing applications will ultimately be quicker, supporting grassroots music venues with licenses for sale of alcohol and entertainment.

Case studies

Liverpool City Region Music Board

The Liverpool City Region Music Board (LCRMB) was established in 2018 as an independent, sector-led panel of experts and influential figures from the world of music. UK Music’s ‘Here There and Everywhere’ report features the following case study.

Liverpool is leading the way as a global music city and the LCRMB is charged with cementing the city region’s position as one of the world’s music capitals, working to ensure music businesses and communities have a stronger voice in local and regional decision-making. The LCRMB is pursuing a number of skills, training and talent development projects supported by £1.6 million of Strategic Investment Funding awarded by the combined authority.

The budget is allocated to mapping the entire sector and supporting the music ecosystem. Since the 1980s, culture has been central to the Merseyside’s renewal and regeneration strategies, with the music sector generating almost £100 million of turnover per annum and music tourism contributing a further £100 million. Music has created a distinctive sense of place, grown the visitor economy, boosted the city’s image, and developed the creative industries, as well as addressed problems of inclusion and deprivation.

Several members of the Board were instrumental in bringing Eurovision Song Contest to Liverpool in May 2023, playing key roles in devising and pitching the proposal to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the BBC, plus devising and delivering a host of fringe events and Eurovision-associated activities. The resultwas a supersized Eurovision, smashing records with the most watched final globally in the competition’s history, and demolishing visitor targets of 100,000 with over 500,000 additional

people arriving in Liverpool.

The Eurovision Legacy Group (ELG) was established to ensure a lasting impact of positive change across Liverpool, especially after the honour of staging the event for the people of Ukraine.

The ELG’s primary legacy aims are to:

• Maximise Liverpool’s UNESCO City of Music Status with the launch of Liverpool Music City, an online hub for the music industry in Merseyside.
• Improve the region’s night-time transport infrastructure to support a sustainable and strong regional live music economy.
• Secure a commitment from companies that sponsor Eurovision in Liverpool to establish amusic education foundation.
• Work with Marketing Liverpool and Visit Liverpool to emphasise the region’s vibrant and diverse live music ecology.