Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director of Culture, Strategy and Communities. To be presented by the Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure

The Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure introduced the report.

It was explained that being the host borough of culture in London was an opportunity to showcase the rich creativity and culture which was at home in Haringey, showed that the Borough was a home for creatives and artists and enabled young people to see that the creative industry was a place for them to build and have a fulfilling career.

However, the Cabinet Member stressed that there were financial and reputational risks involved and that the Council had worked to mitigate these with a detailed review and planning of delivery options. It was explained that research into previous models used by other boroughs highlighted the need for a bespoke, sustainable, and agile delivery mechanism suited to Haringey’s ambitions and context. The proposed charitable company limited by guarantee model provided and set out the governance arrangements to enable the delivery of London Borough of Culture in Haringey in 2027 aligned with the borough's cultural and community ambitions. It was explained that it also supported legacy-building beyond 2028, allowed for external partnerships and funding not readily available to a Council-hosted programme, and ensured continued Council control through sole membership and board appointment rights, while maintaining appropriate independence and public benefit safeguards.

It was explained that the Articles of Association and Master Collaboration Agreement provided the legal and operational framework for effective partnership and governance between the Council and the Charity and allowed flexibility to wind down or repurpose the Charity following programme completion, subject to the outcome of the 2028 evaluation.

In response to comments and questions from Councillor Cawley-Harrison, the following information was shared:

• Officers explained that the independent members of the Board of the proposed Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee (CCLG) would be supportive and have the expertise to adequately scrutinise the work of the CCLG.
  
  
• It was explained that £800,000 of match funding had been committed by the Council to the project. It was noted that this was new funding, which would not take away from other cultural event funding.

RESOLVED:

That Cabinet:

1. Noted the research and development that had been conducted since the London Borough of Culture 2027 award in March 2024
   
   
2. Approved the implementation of an alternative delivery arrangement, in the form of a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee, for the delivery of the London Borough of Culture 2027 programme for Haringey.
   
   
3. Approved the Council as the sole and founding Member of the Charity.
   
   
4. Approved the adoption of the Articles of Association for the Charity and the Master Collaboration Agreement between the Council and the Charity, set out in Appendices 1 and 2 respectively.
   
   
5. Delegated the mobilisation, deployment and operations of the Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee to the Corporate Director of Culture, Strategy and Communities.
   
   
6. Agreed to evaluate and assess the realisation of the co-designed objects of the Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee, via regular monitoring through the proposed governance outlined in this report, and to receive a report no later than December 2028 enabling a decision to be made as to whether to retain or close down the CCLG following the completion of all LBoC-related activities.

Reasons for decision

Haringey had the unique benefit of a longer lead-in time than previous London Borough of Culture (LBOC) boroughs, as this was the first time the GLA had announced two consecutive awards for the biennial programme. This allowed LBH to scrutinise processes and explore potential new approaches to:

- Deliver the LBoC programme successfully

- Fulfil the ambitions of the original proposal

- Create a sustainable and robust legacy for LBoC for the borough

Having conducted research into delivery options used by previous LBOC award winners, their approaches were not felt to be viable options for Haringey, for reasons set out in section 6. Over the previous 18 months, LBH had worked closely with partners and sector experts to develop the recommendation of creating a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee (“CCLG”) to deliver the LBoC programme.

A CCLG was a specific not-for-profit organisation, registered with both Companies House and the Charity Commission. Members guaranteed a nominal amount of the company's debts, whilst the company had no shareholders or profit distribution.

The CCLG was established to achieve specific charitable ‘objects’, which were outlined in the CCLG's governing document, the Articles of Association attached as Appendix 1. These objects had to align with the requirements set forth in the Charities Acts, as did the general operation of the charity. If it fulfilled the criteria for doing so, an organisation that had been set up as a CCLG had to apply to the Commission to be registered as a charity and the Commission would confirm this and provide a charity number. Charity registration was public domain evidence that the CCLG was, by legal definition, a public benefit organisation, and that status had a high level of public recognition. The Council therefore applied to the Commission for charitable status for the CCLG.

The CCLG, founded solely by LBH, had independent operational systems, which could be more inclusive, agile and responsive to the immediate needs of the programme, and leaned into the expertise and background of the Council’s Culture team.

The CCLG could also reduce the demand on LBH resources by bringing in external support through strategic partnership and sponsorship, which would not all be available to a council-hosted function.

LBH retained control of the charity as the sole corporate member, with power to appoint the charity board and could pass company members’ resolutions directly as written resolutions. LBH made appointments in the best public benefit interests of the CCLG and the strategically aligned public benefit interests of LBH and these included at least two trustees who were not directly connected to LBH, to ensure the CCLG had a means of managing the potential for conflict of interest, within the overall collaborative public benefit interests of LBH and the CCLG.

External legal counsel had been commissioned to develop and draft the constitutional document for the CCLG – Articles of Association and a Master Collaboration Agreement as a contractual framework to govern the operational partnership relationship between the CCLG and LBH in the delivery of the programme. The Master Collaboration Agreement was key to the success of this model as it dictated the relationship, influence and constitutional control that LBH had over the CCLG.

The Master Collaboration Agreement provided a framework for a collaborative working relationship to promote and deliver the LBoC project. It covered the various means by which and the conditions upon which LBH supported the CCLG, the payments the CCLG made for services provided by LBH, and provided for effective communication between LBH and the CCLG in the planning and delivery of the project. The framework allowed for more specific detailed agreements on specific areas within the collaborative LBoC project. This agreement was attached at Appendix 2.

The CCLG was included as part of the master evaluation of LBoC and provided valuable learning for the Council and the Borough. Dependent on evaluation and monitoring of realisation of the charitable objects, the CCLG could be wound up after the LBoC delivery year, which ran from April 2027 to April 2028, or sustained as a new model of cultural infrastructure, advocacy and support. The CCLG could develop from delivery of the specific programme into a post-programme legacy as a charitable Haringey community organisation and the proposed report to Cabinet in 2028 enabled the Council to take an informed decision at that point.

Alternative options considered

Total restructure of internal delivery model: An alternative approach would have been to work with leaders from across the council to redevelop internal infrastructure to include dedicated, allocated resources via a multi and inter-departmental approach. The Council would have explored how the delivery team could better understand and utilise systems to feasibly deliver the programme, and where efficiencies and/or alternatives might have been possible.

LBH would have sought to develop a new structure; a multidisciplinary, dedicated team of leaders from across the council - including (not limited to) Culture & Creativity, Project Management, Communications, Business Support, Procurement and Children & Young People. LBH would have built out the core team and then brought in additional producers/directors and other professionals/experts from the arts and culture sectors to produce a world-class programme and maximise external funding and investment.

The long-term ambition would have been for LBH to strengthen and expand its network of partners, building on the momentum created by community networks etc. In this model LBH would have created an advocacy and partnership board with partners to develop collaboration with funders, external organisations and individuals to facilitate promotion, and delivery of the programme safely and efficiently.

This would have presented the following challenges:

- Front-loaded new, and full financial and resource cost, and risk, to the council;

- Reduced opportunity to leverage external support, infrastructure and funding;

- Systems would have required scrutiny and adaptation - organisation-wide redevelopment likely not feasible, which might have caused multiple systems being needed to do the same thing for different services - time, capacity and workforce issues;

- Required council-wide buy-in and offering of resources at a time of financial pressure across all services, including statutory ones;

- Sustainable legacy models would have meant a longer period of higher investment.

Do Nothing: Current framework, capacity, resources and infrastructure would not have supported the delivery of the ambitions of the programme, and would have required significant, if not total, reprofiling of the LBoC programme.

Outsource to an external partner: Would not have delivered the borough-wide ambition and transformation as outlined in the bid, and would have required flexibility, capacity and scale that was not available at that time in the borough.