Purpose

Background
Information:
 
Kingston Music Service (KMS), part of the
Council’s Culture and Heritage team, is currently the Arts
Council Music Education Hub for Kingston upon Thames, providing
music education services to young people in the Borough. Arts
Council England (ACE) will provide £222,433 of funding in
2024-25 to KMS to fulfil this role.
 
In 2023 ACE (and by extension DfE) announced a change of approach for its next
round of Music Education Hub funding. The key change was that ACE
required any successful hub provider to cover a larger
predetermined geographical location. Kingston comes within a hub
area that covers South West London. The rationale behind the
changes was a desire for ACE and DfE to
reduce costs by managing fewer individual relationships with fewer
music hubs, but they are also clear that they see wider benefits to
young-people from organisations working at scale and in new
partnerships.
 
In practice, KMS already works closely with
the 6 other existing music services that, with Kingson, make up the South-West London area -
Hounslow, Croydon, Wandsworth,
Richmond, Merton, Sutton and Kingston. Therefore it was determined
that these seven services should come together to apply for ACE
funding as a consortium, each being equal partners. The services
themselves are a mixture of trusts and local authority-run services
of varying sizes.
 
In order for ACE to have one organisation to
deal with directly for distributing fund and reporting purposes,
the proposal is that the 7 partner organisations, collaborate to
set up a separate, light touch company (a Special Purpose Vehicle -
SPV) called South West London Music (SWLM), which will be owned by
the 7 member organisations (Hounslow Music Service, London Borough
of Croydon, Wandsworth Music, Richmond
Music Trust, Merton Music Foundation, Sutton Music Trust, Royal
Borough of Kingston upon Thames).
 
The key principle for the proposed new SPV is
that it will be as light touch as possible in governance and
resource terms, so that as much of the funding as possible can
remain directed at a local level by the consortium partners whilst
leveraging the benefits of partnership working.
 
The sole purpose of the new company is simply
to receive funds from ACE, distribute them swiftly to the existing
music services, and to have joint oversight for reporting purposes
of delivery against activity funded by ACE in line with the
ACE/DfE National Plan for Music. The
proportion of funding allocated to each partner/area would be on
the same formula (linked to numbers of school-age children) as at
present.
 
Importantly, music education services in
Kingston will still be delivered locally by KMS.
 
Each member will put forward a director to be
on the SWLM company board. We propose that our director for KMS
will be Scott Furlong, Corporate Head of Culture and Programme
Director for Kingston 2025. The Heads of each Service will then
form the executive of the new Company and share the day to day
running of the company. For KMS that is Tim Sandford, Music Service and Business Hub Lead
(Community Culture).
 
Costs and Risks:
 
·        
The proposal is designed to ensure that as much of the ACE funding
as possible is directed to supporting work locally, in our case
through KMS.

 
·        
The day to day running of the company will be undertaken jointly by
the Executive officers of each music service.

 
·        
A small amount from the ACE funding will be kept in the
company’s bank account (from the 7 services) to be used for
basic administration items such as Companies House and ICO annual
fees. This will also be used to set up the company. The cost to KMS
is expected to be £2,000 or less.

 
·        
The plan is for there to be minimal costs to the company, though it
is appreciated that some things may come up from time to time and
will be agreed by the partners.

 
·        
Liabilities will be minimal as the company will not be doing
anything other than sub-granting ACE funding. The main risk is
failure to meet ACE's funding requirements and the funding stopping
which is already an existing risk and can't be insured against.
 
The key risk is failing to participate in the
funding bid with the risk that we are unable to access this
critical funding for delivering music education to young people in
Kingston.
 
Reason for
Urgency:
 
The timeframes for the ACE funding process
require the 7 partners to set up the new company in order to put in
the joint bid well ahead of the bid deadline of 6 June 2024, which
is before the next Committee meeting. This means that arrangements
for the shared company need to be put in place as soon as possible,
subject to approval.

Content

a)        the Council's
participation in the setting up of a light-touch company with six
other partners (i.e. Hounslow Music Service, London Borough of
Croydon, Wandsworth Music, Richmond Music Trust, Merton Music
Foundation and Sutton Music Trust) be approved. The company will
bid for and receive Arts Council Music Education Hub funding,
distribute the funds to the partners (including Kingston Music
Service) and have shared reporting oversight to the Arts Council
for the use of the funds; and
 
b)        Scott Furlong,
Corporate Head of Culture and Programme Director, Kingston 2025, be
appointed as a Director of the company on the Council's behalf.