Agenda item

With reference to Article 7 of the minute of meeting of 8 October, 2009, the Committee had before it a report by the Director of Education, Culture and Sport, which sought the Committee’s endorsement of the final draft of Vibrant Aberdeen -  the Cultural Strategy for Aberdeen (2010 – 2015) and also sought approval to develop an Aberdeen City Council action plan.

By way of background, the report highlighted the work that had been undertaken with regards to the draft cultural strategy and noted that consultation had been undertaken in various forms, including public surveys, question and answer sessions and individual feedback meetings, and provided the highest and most detailed level of engagement and feedback the city had delivered in relation to the issue of cultural development.  It was further outlined that 320 members of the public had provided feedback through online surveys, while the question and answer sessions had been well attended and had included a session delivered in partnership with Transition Extreme and Creative Cultures Scotland which attracted an audience of over 50 representatives from the cultural sector.  In addition to this, Creative Cultures Scotland, as a partner within the Cultural Forum, had also utilised social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook to receive extensive feedback on the consultation draft.  The consultation draft had also been presented to key national cultural partners, and this had resulted in extensive feedback from senior officials within the Scottish Government, Visit Scotland and Museums and Galleries Scotland.

The report went on to advise that following feedback from the draft version, the final draft was written and presented a vision of Aberdeen becoming a “Vibrant, Creative and Ambitious City”.  The final strategy presented five overarching objectives of Vibrant Aberdeen, refined from the nine which were contained in the consultation draft.  They did however remain representative of the key cultural requirements that were identified during the development of the strategy.  The five objectives were (1) to establish a cohesive cultural sector; (2) to increase community engagement in cultural activity; (3) to improve the city’s cultural profile; (4) to increase investment in culture; and (5) to effectively monitor and evaluate the impact of culture.

Attached to the report was the executive summary of “Vibrant Aberdeen - a Cultural Strategy for Aberdeen.”  It was proposed that the final graphic design for the final version would be developed in line with the design used in the consultation draft, and would then be made available in various formats.

The report also highlighted that “Vibrant Aberdeen” was a partnership document, and while it did not provide an action plan for each partner, it did however provide a framework for the development of individual action plans.  It was noted that should the final draft be endorsed, this would include approval for the development of an Aberdeen City Council action plan around the “Vibrant Aberdeen” framework.

The report recommended:-

that the Committee -

(a)       endorse the final draft of “Vibrant Aberdeen” – The Cultural Strategy for Aberdeen (2010-2015); and

(b)       provide approval to develop an Aberdeen City Council action plan based on the Cultural Strategy and instruct officers to bring this to the appropriate committee for consideration.

The Committee received a short video presentation which highlighted cultural development within the city and outlined an increase in partnership working.  The Committee agreed that the clip was very positive and informative and congratulated officers on their work regarding this issue.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)                  to request that officers make the video clip about the cultural strategy available to view on the Council’s website; and

(ii)                to otherwise approve the recommendations.