A new model for arts & culture infrastructure

Context

Barking and Dagenham is the most deprived borough in London, ranking 5th in England according the Index of Multiple Deprivation. There is a long legacy of both tragedy and triumph with the borough being well known as the site of a prominent Ford factory. The workers here led the charge for equal pay, with their strike starting a chain reaction that culminated in the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, a clear example of the borough's contribution to wealth redistribution. At its height, 100,000 residents were either directly employed by the factory or working in a supporting industry, so when the factory announced a drastic downsizing at the start of the 21st century, it tore a huge hole in the borough's social fabric akin to the impact of coal mine closures on mining towns. The double blow of austerity in the 2010s and the pandemic in the 2020s has meant the borough has never recovered from this initial disruption.

Scale

Today, it has one of the smallest voluntary, community and social sector in London, as seen in this comparison of charitable income and expenditure, which greatly effects the ability of the borough to attract funding.

Even though the borough has been identified as a priority place by a number of national funders, there is still a systemic issue around local people being able to access these resources. Using public funding data from 360Giving, we can see a £20m deficit in funding received by the borough between 2019 and 2023 compared to the east London average in that time. Just looking at the last financial year we have data for, the borough clearly lags behind with regards to grants:

Despite this uneven playing field, there is a huge enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit in the borough with residents delivering incredible work despite working with about half the amount of money per person compared to their east London neighbours.

Looking at the arts and culture sector in isolation, we see even deeper issues as there are only a handful of arts organisations, with fewer than 5 having an annual income above £100,000. This falls well short of the infrastructure needs of a thriving arts and culture sector. There have also been a number of other issues that have made things even more difficult. In the last two years, two large arts and culture venues closed abruptly in short succession with little warning and work has only recently began to reactivate these much-needed spaces. While some differences between boroughs is to be expected, the drastic contrast between our borough and other East London boroughs suggests a more radical and innovative approach is needed to better understand exactly why the borough is underperforming to such a degree.

With community tensions on the rise, the arts and culture sector is sorely needed as a way to bring together people from across the borough to celebrate through creativity. The recent arrival of film studios that bring with them the likes of Disney and Apple TV offers potential opportunity for the arts and culture sector, but only if there is the infrastructure to support the development and management of building relationships.

Impact

In 2021, Barking and Dagenham was announced as one of five London boroughs identified as a Priority Place for Arts Council England, meaning they felt it was a place where "cultural engagement and our current investment are too low, and where, as a result, opportunities for creative and cultural engagement are underdeveloped."

This lack of cultural engagement is contributing to a borough where residents feel disenfranchised and lack the feeling that they have a future in the borough. Despite being the youngest borough in London, with about half the population being under-18, there are few opportunities for young people to express their creativity and feel part of their community.

This slow drain of energy and potential threatens to put the borough into a death-spiral, with one of the only mid-size arts organisations recently announcing they will cease to exist at the end of November due to a lack of funding. Without urgent action, this trend can only go one way, making any hope of recovery and growth more difficult by the day as artists understandable look to move to places that can support their ambitions, their careers, their passions.

In order to meet these challenges, there is a strong desire to strengthen the borough’s Cultural Partnership Group.

The Cultural Partnership Group (CPG) has been operating for several years as a network for cultural organisations in the borough and as a forum connecting the local authority with those organisations. In the last eighteen months the local council commissioned two independent consultants to work together as the strategic facilitator and the project co-ordinator for the CPG.    

Starting in June 2025, the co-ordinator has been joined by two local organisations (Creative Barking & Dagenham [CBD] and Barking & Dagenham Giving [BDG]) who are offering joint strategic support. Their work will build on the exploratory work and successes of the initial 18 months to successfully deliver the CPG's next set of objectives. The trio have been actively trying to transition towards a more participatory structure that can provide much needed services that can support local practitioners to tap into the substantial resources.

The partnership combines BD Giving’s infrastructure expertise with CBD’s embedded role in the local cultural sector and its leadership on the development of the Galleon Arts Centre.

Both organisations are data-led, resident-driven and committed to strengthening collaboration in Barking and Dagenham’s social and cultural sectors, achieving national attention for their innovative and bold approaches to community participation, such as a Closed Collective model of funding and a Citizens' Panel. This joint approach to strategic support will enhance the effectiveness, sustainability, and community alignment of the CPG’s work.

Approach

Over the last five months, the partners have been doing community engagement to better understand what the local arts and culture sector needs from a CPG. Through online surveys and drop-ins, as well as in-person meetings, we engaged over 50 local arts and culture practitioners, most of them independent artists.

They have helped lay the foundation for where the CPG should start, but for a lack of funding the ambition risks fading away. While cultural groups in other boroughs are largely led by institutions, the dearth of them in this borough means we feel our CPG needs to look like the arts and culture sector of Barking and Dagenham.

Through participatory action research and systems thinking, we want this new iteration of the CPG to develop and test a clear service delivery plan that can support funding to move more effectively in Barking and Dagenham. We intend to make full use of our existing participatory practices but feel we need support to effectively prototype an alternative stakeholder governance approach that is appropriate for our borough's remarkable character and genuinely transformative for those who take part.

Our commitment to participation gives us confidence that connecting people to much needed resources will help start a wave that changes the story of the borough from one of deprivation to one of prosperity.