The People, Culture & Inclusion Committee of the Barbican Centre Board scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, 23 September 2025. The agenda included a progress update on external member recruitment, and approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. Some items, including a quarterly update on people, culture, and inclusion, were marked to be discussed in the non-public section of the meeting.

External Member Recruitment

The committee was scheduled to receive an update on the recruitment of external members to the Barbican Centre Board, the Barbican Renewal Working Group, and the Barbican Centre Trust.

The Barbican Centre Board is responsible for the activities and services of the Barbican Centre, and is composed of up to eight City of London Corporation members and up to eight external members, plus the Chair of the Barbican Centre Trust. One external member position is currently vacant, and any new external members must be approved by the board, with at least two drawn from the arts world.

The Barbican Centre Trust supports fundraising for the Barbican Centre. Following the retirement of its previous chair, the Trust currently has an Interim Chair, and there is a need to recruit a new chair and four new trustees.

The Barbican Renewal Working Group was established to support the Board in its decision making around the Barbican Renewal project. Recruitment is required for three external positions on this working group.

The report pack noted that a skills audit of the Barbican Board had identified gaps in:

depth of experience in arts management and executive leadership skills in an arts organisation (Art Form Expertise, Arts Policy & Advocacy, Curatorial & Artistic Direction), Health & Safety, People – Human Resources, and Sustainability.

The report pack stated that recruitment to the Barbican Board was scheduled to begin in November 2025, with the aim of completing the process in time for the Board meeting on 28 January 2026. The recruitment process would be informed by an Equalities Assessment.

The aim was to complete recruitment for the external members of the Barbican Renewal Working Group by November 2025.

Recruitment of a new Barbican Centre Trust Chair and Trustees was scheduled to be revisited at the beginning of 2026.

Previous Minutes

The committee was asked to approve the minutes and non-public summary of the previous meeting held on 23rd June 2025. During that meeting, the committee:

• Approved the reappointment of Michael Asante as an external member on the Barbican Centre Board for a second three-year term.
• Recommended that the Barbican Board use feedback from anti-racism training to inform themes for reflection during the next Board away-day.
• Recommended that the Barbican Board embark on an adapted version of the 90-minute people manager training module to strengthen their anti-racism leadership.
• Approved that the committee continue to receive a separate EDI Strategy update report annually, rather than twice a year, and receive high level EDI updates embedded as part of PCI strategy Reports.

Exclusion of the Public

The committee was asked to approve a motion to exclude the public from the meeting for certain items. The reason given was that these items involved the likely disclosure of exempt information as defined in the Local Government Act 1972.