In the beginning... The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) issued new guidance stating that Cultural Strategies (which had to be in place in every local authority by the end of 2002) had to be subsumed with local authority Community Strategies (Nov 2002). As a result, a Cultural Strategy for the Southwest was produced with DCMS creating a 'Regional Cultural Consortium' to deliver it.
County level
In response, the County produced a document called 'Forest and Vale and High Blue Hill' (Summer 2002) with a clear 5 year vision for more people, more range of activities, more investment and more support for continuing cultural development. A countywide Cultural Consortium was then created to deliver this strategy and develop an approach that responds to local cultural strategies via local consultation.
Stroud District level
Stroud District Council's (SDC) existing Culture Strategy underwent a Best Value review (July 2001) which led to major restructuring bringing 'Regeneration and Culture' depts together into one service area. In 2002, SDC formed a Local Strategic Partnership concentrating on 'creating wealth', 'affordable housing' and 'rural transport' and later adopting a 'Community Strategy' with 9 themes (improving housing/caring for older people/creating wealth/access to services and rural transport/pockets of deprivation/healthy living/community safety /changes in the countryside/heritage) - the cultural strategy relates to a number of the these BUT (as mentioned earlier) the DCMS require the two documents to be synonymous at some point in time.
So What Did SDC do?
For the DCMS requirement to be achieved further consideration was needed and for SDC that meant creation of a new Cultural Strategy via consultation (scoping exercise Aug 03/consultation day Sep 03-'inter-connectedness-how do we measure up ? ), with a clearly defined partnership approach covering four areas:
For the Cultural Strategy to be delivered, each partnership is required to create an action plan that feeds back into SDC Cultural Strategic objectives with SDC acting as a facilitator rather than director. In time, these partnerships may merge or work together through their 'Chairs' as a 'Cultural Consortium'.
The Stroud District Council Sport and Physical Activity Forum action plan is available to download below:
PDF
Sport and Physical Activity Forum - Action Plan (PDF 64 KB)
For further information, please contact our Regeneration Through Sport Manager on 01453 754322 or e-mail jane.bullows@stroud.gov.uk
