Coronavirus (COVID-19) business support: equality impact assessments

Creative Communities Programme

Name of Grant:

Creative Communities Programme

Policy Lead

Lucy Simpson

Legal power used:

National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985

Grant Overview:

Creative Communities is an initiative which was announced as part of the culture strategy in 2020. The programme is led by Inspiring Scotland and distributes funds to support communities to develop new initiatives involving culture and the creative arts. In addition to community-led arts projects, Creative Communities provides a number of organisations with development support to progress early stage ideas. The programme is jointly funded by the Culture and Justice portfolios

Executive Summary:

To support delivery of its Culture Strategy: A Culture Strategy for Scotland, the Scottish Government have launched the Creative Communities programme. This is a new initiative to support and empower individuals and communities to further develop their own cultural activity. The programme is administered by Inspiring Scotland, with policy direction from the Scottish Government. The programme seeks to empower communities to take the lead in providing sustainable opportunities for more people from areas with limited opportunities and lower levels of cultural engagement.

The Scottish Government understands the impact Covid-19 has had on culture organisations, communities and individuals. This is why emergency funding was provided to Creative Communities, delivered by Inspiring Scotland, as a top up to their grant funding. Scottish Government grant funding, including the emergency Covid-19 funding, has supported community-led, participatory arts activity which positively contributes to the lives of people and communities across Scotland.

The total funding for Creative Communities from Scottish Government has been £2 million:

• Phase 1: £900k (£600k from culture and £300k from justice portfolios)
• Phase 2: £500k (£300k from culture consequentials and £200k from business support funding)
• Phase 3: £600k (£300k each from culture and justice portfolios)

The emergency business support provided £200k funding, which has helped ensure communities are able to benefit from the projects, as well as secure jobs, safeguard organisations and to alleviate hardship.

The Creative Communities programme, has supported 36 projects each of which had to meet the following criteria:

• Community led
• In Scottish communities where social or geographical circumstance have made engaging with cultural activities challenging
• Involve culture or the creative arts
• Comply with Scottish Government social distancing guidelines
• Not part of ongoing programming or activity

The programme seeks to support activity where communities are empowered to take the lead to provide sustainable opportunities for more people from areas with limited opportunities and lower levels of cultural engagement. Creative Communities provides the opportunity for people to engage in the creative arts that they would not have otherwise. The programme brings people together, builds connections and aims to reduce loneliness as well as helping participants develop a wide range of improved skills around creativity, digital engagement and skills for life, learning and work. Match-funded by the justice portfolio, through the proceeds of crime, the programme also aims to provide a diversion away from criminal activity for adults and young people.

Each project is of high artistic quality, covering both the artistic output and the process of community engagement, and allow for new and different creative activities to take place, supporting new models of collaboration across the subsidised, amateur, voluntary and commercial.

Community engagement and learning programmes are crucial in reaching out to people across the range of protected characteristics, many of whom have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19.

The Creative Communities programme created employment opportunities for artists, community support workers and trainee interns. Artists reflected that the programme not only provided employment but strengthened their experience in working with service users and communities.

Evaluation in 2021 highlighted how valuable the Creative Communities programme had been for the organisations in receipt of funding in enhancing their skills and knowledge, helping them to be responsive to community needs, develop ideas into deliverable projects and access training and networking opportunities.

Within the context of needing to react quickly, there was limited opportunity to gather evidence on the possible impacts of the grant top up in isolation from the overall grant funding.

However, Creative Communities is an existing programme, with known outcomes supported by evaluation. This has enabled us to distribute the funding top up in a way which recognises the importance of assessing new and revised policies against the needs of the general equality duty as set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. The Scottish Government also considered whether the measures could constitute direct and/or indirect discrimination.

Key Findings - impact assessment of benefits and/or disadvantages.

Age: Older People and Children and Young People

There is no evidence to suggest the Older People, Children or Young People would be disadvantaged by the projects within the Creative Communities programme. The independent evaluation report, published in December 2021, demonstrates that Creative Communities projects are open to people of all age groups.

Many of the projects within Creative Communities provide opportunities for children. Examples are the Good Shepherd Centre’s creativity hub which provided music tuition for young people and the Tullochan Furniture Fix project which provides an opportunity for young people to engage and improve their wellbeing and motivation where a classroom environment has been challenging. The programme has increased opportunities for young people throughout Scotland and may therefore have a positive impact for children and young people.

Creative Communities also fund projects which aim to support older people by reducing isolation and promoting connections. For example, the An Lanntair Creative Connections project in the Western Isles which delivered workshops to strengthen the connections between older residence and connect activities to the place they live.

Sex: Men and Women

We are not aware of evidence to suggest that Creative Communities will have a negative impact or create inequalities for this protected characteristic.

Creative Communities projects are open to both men and women. From the 2021 evaluation, 63% of participants were female, 36% were male and 1% identified as neither male nor female. While female participants are greater, there is no evidence to suggest that men are negatively impacted by the programme or that men face increased barriers to participation. National evidence shows women are more likely than men participate in cultural activities^[209][210]

Programme evaluation showed the almost all participants had worked with both males and females, with one notable exception which was a project based in a young offenders’ institution which involved young men.

Race

We are not aware of any evidence to suggest that the Creative Communities programme will have a negative impact or create inequalities for this protected characteristic.

8% of Creative Communities participants were minority ethnic and there are projects, like the Now You See Me project which offer artist led workshops for ethnic minority children and young people.

Disability

We are not aware of any evidence to suggest that the Creative Communities programme will have a negative impact or create inequalities for this protected characteristic.

In terms of positive impacts, there are a number of projects which support participants with disabilities. These include:

• the Common Wheel MultiStory project which delivers writing packs to patients in mental health wards to support creative writing throughout the pandemic;
• the Bridge2Creative who created a Saturday Art Club for autistic young people; and
• Me, My Community, My Story which allowed children and young people with complex physical and sensory needs to take part in theatre activity and attend community events, both in person or online.

Religion and Belief

Potentially offering this group the opportunity to pursue employment or social contact, but little evidence of a differential positive impact from other groups.

Sexual Orientation

Potentially offering this group the opportunity to pursue employment or social contact, but little evidence of a differential positive impact from other groups.

Pregnancy and maternity

Potentially offering this group the opportunity to pursue social contact, but little evidence of a differential positive impact from other groups.

Gender reassignment

Potentially offering this group the opportunity to pursue employment or social contact, but little evidence of a differential positive impact from other groups.

Marriage or Civil Partnership

Potentially offering this group the opportunity to pursue employment or social contact, but little evidence of a differential positive impact from other groups.

Socio-economic disadvantage: any people experiencing poverty

There is no evidence to suggest those who are experiencing poverty would be disadvantaged by the Creative Communities programme.

In terms of positive impacts, while reducing poverty is not one of the key objectives of the Creative Communities programme, projects such as the Tullochan Trust work with individuals furthest away from the labour market offering participants a chance to develop their skills. Participants reflected that the project had helped them “realise their potential” and gave them a sense of belonging. One participant who gained experience through the Clydeside Initiative for Arts Yardworks project utilised the skills and confidence developed as part of the programme to gain full time employment at a local hotel.

Stakeholder Engagement:

We liaised extensively with Inspiring Scotland, who deliver the Creative Communities programme. Engagement with individual projects is managed by Inspiring Scotland.

Mitigations –

No direct actions were taken specifically to mitigate any adverse impacts identified.

Next Steps (if any)

Declaration and Publication

I have read the Equality Impact Assessment and I am satisfied that it represents a fair and reasonable view of the expected equality impact of the measures implemented.

Signed: Rachael McKechnie

Date: 25 February 2022