Cultural Development Fund (CDF) Network

The Cultural Development Fund (CDF) Network is the national collective that shares best practice and generates knowledge to capture and celebrate the success of the DCMS CDF investment.

Culture

10 Oct 2022

This case study is part of a series from the LGA Culture Commission

The Cultural Development Fund (CDF) Network is the national collective that shares best practice and generates knowledge to capture and celebrate the success of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) CDF investment, which aims to further widen access to arts and culture in areas with historically low levels of cultural engagement and boost economic growth

The CDF Network acts as a forum to support the evaluation of the CDF and the link between cultural investment and local growth. The CDF is a prime opportunity to build the evidence base around culture’s impact, helping to build and amplify the evidence base at a national and local level.

The challenge

The aim of the Cultural Development Fund (CDF) is to level up through investment in culture. The fund will unlock local growth and productivity, increase access to creativity and culture, and regenerate communities through capital investment in transformative place-based creative and cultural initiatives. It will capitalise on the untapped potential for investment in creativity and culture while addressing the regional undersupply and demand for capital funding in creative and cultural infrastructure.

Although not exclusively targeted at councils as lead partners, 10 out of 12 of the successful projects receiving funding in rounds one and two are council-led, with the remaining two working in very close partnership with one or more councils. CDF has proved particularly attractive to councils since its main focus – particularly for rounds two and three – is on capital projects, which helps support regeneration of council-owned sites and projects for ongoing community use – particularly heritage properties – which may otherwise have to be sold to private developers.

This fund is also part of a number of transformative ‘place-based’ investment strategies which the Government has developed to build prosperous and proud communities – including the Towns Fund and the Future High Streets Fund. To underpin them, Arts Council and DCMS also launched innovative new work on how we can formally assess the value that culture and heritage brings to society and factor those benefits into decision-making.

Each of the CDF projects involves distinct local partnerships, often including – for example – local businesses, cultural organisations and higher education institutions working closely with the councils. The CDF Network was funded and supported separately by DCMS and Arts Council England and is delivered by Five10Twelve to connect each of these local partnerships into a wider national network and a “meta partnership” to share best practice and lessons learned throughout and across the projects.

The solution

CDF supports a range of activities, including (but not limited to):

Capital investment in physical space (construction projects) for culture and creative industries purposes Capital investment in other assets for culture and creative industries purposes Resource investment for culture and creative industries purposes

The impact

CDF Round One

Announced by DCMS as part of the Creative Industries Sector Deal to help the country’s world-leading cultural and creative industries thrive, the five first round CDF locations across England each received a share of £20 million to invest in local culture, heritage and creative industries and help drive economic growth. 

The five pilot round one CDF project locations are Grimsby, Plymouth, Wakefield, Worcester and the Creative Estuary, with the overarching project running until March 2023.

It is expected that the funding will create over 1,300 new jobs, benefit 2,000 people through skills training and leadership development, support more than 700 businesses and invest in new cultural infrastructure and production spaces across the round one CDF locations.
Through match-funding, an additional £17.5m will be invested across the five locations.

CDF Round Two

The second round of CDF projects, announced in March 2022, aims to further widen access to arts and culture in areas with historically low levels of cultural engagement and boost economic growth. Seven additional regional organisations were added to the CDF Network, with projects in Barnsley, Berwick, Isle of Wight, Middlesbrough, Rochdale, Stockport and Torbay.

The CDF Network

The CDF Network brings together each of the first two cohorts of CDF projects on a quarterly basis to update each other on progress, share best practice, identify potential areas for collaboration across LA areas/councils, identify and address common issues and solutions and connect and learn from national external partners and organisations, including but not limited to:

Centre for Cultural Value
Creative Industries Policy Evidence Centre (PEC)
Creative UK
Culture24
National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange (NCACE)
Savills
The Heritage Alliance
WhatWorks Centre for Local Economic Growth

How is the new approach being sustained?

Sustainability is a key consideration in all CDF projects. Guidance for the current application round, (round three), for example, requires applicants to demonstrate financial viability, including:

evidence of organisational buy-in by lead applicant and project partners
match funding of at least 15 per cent of the total project cost
a clear indication of the sources of match funding, plus evidence of commitment regarding any funding that has been secured from non-public sources
details of the terms of any social investment or other repayable finance including whether they are secured on the asset
value for money, an appropriate return on investment
if the project will be generating an income stream, how will that be achieved
how the financial risks have been assessed and how you plan to deal with these risks
the work you have done to assess the project’s financial impact on the organisation/partnership/consortium, both during and after the project, and how this demonstrates that your financial resilience will be improved
the contingency sum included in the project budget
what, if any, funds have been identified to support the ongoing delivery of the project
how you have assessed the financial impact of the project on its completion
that you have considered your ability to operate the buildings or equipment in the longer term, including appointing a suitably experienced operator (where relevant) and the financial impact and timings for maintaining, insuring and replacing the capital asset
that the capital asset will be financially sustainable/resilient.

CDF Network

Knowledge and case studies are shared across the wider sector, policymakers and researchers via the CulturalPlacemaking website and at national events, webinars and symposia, including:

Creative Coalition: Creating cultural centres outside London

Creative Coalition: How can culture engineer the Levelling Up Agenda?

Lessons learned

Crucial to the success of the programme - and common amongst all the successful first round CDF Network projects - is the partnerships built around the programme design and delivery, working closely and collaboratively with the council.

Example:

As one of the five first round Cultural Development Fund (CDF) projects which form the pilot CDF Network, Plymouth secured £3.5 million from DCMS, with a further £2.5m from funding partners, to deliver an ambitious programme of activity focused on delivering and supporting:

Creative leadership
Startup and innovation programmes

Immersive technologies - including the first immersive dome in Europe
Digital fabrication at FabLab Plymouth
Smart Citizens programme
Large scale creative and cultural events programme, including the city-wide Illuminate Festival, Ignite Festival and The Hatchling.

Although support and activities are focused on the creative industries, connecting the creative sector with local communities, with each other and with other sectors has been a key factor. Speaking at the Creative Coalition Festival, Hannah Harris, CEO of Plymouth Culture, explains:

“In all of the cases, one of our core priorities was thinking about a connection to non-creative sectors. A lot of the projects are about creative and cultural leadership, but the programmes have included people beyond the creative industries - including healthcare and the marine sector, which is hugely important for Plymouth. It’s been a fantastic programme for us to understand and advocate for the value of culture across all the city areas and the city sectors.”

Evaluation of the first two rounds of CDF is being conducted by Steer Economic Development and a national symposium, including round one case studies, will be delivered in December 2022.

The CDF Network has been a vital resource to help connect the LAs with each other and share the learning. Crucially, this has happened during and throughout the delivery phase, which has helped support the projects through the project evaluation and also helped flag or identify connections, potential areas for collaboration and/or solutions to common or shared issues whilst the project is still live and ongoing.

Contact

Jason Jones-Hall, email: [email protected]