MEETING
Human Resources, Equalities and
Health and Safety Panel
AGENDA ITEM
4
MEETING DATE
13 March 2008
DOCUMENT NUMBER HRE 269SUBJECT
Review of corporate cultural events
REPORT(27.02.08) by Head of Communications Summary
A review of corporate cultural events has been undertaken in order to determine a methodology for deciding an annual programme for corporate cultural events, a strategy for mainstreaming this work and evaluation of events.
The Panel is asked to note the report including the programme of corporate cultural events planned for 2008/09 as set out in Appendix A.
Scope of review
1. The scope of the review includes:
(a) A review of the corporate cultural events undertaken in 2006/07 for any learning points (b) The role of other departments, Service Delivery (including Community Safety) and Human
Resources, in events
(c) A strategy for mainstreaming corporate cultural events
(d) A process for evaluating corporate cultural events to measure success and a methodology for deciding which events should form part of the annual programme
(e) Identifying which corporate cultural events will be undertaken in 2008/09
2. The review does not cover local borough based cultural events, but will touch on how corporate cultural events link into the borough cultural events.
3. The role of support groups is not included. There will be a separate report, outside of Communications Department, that will look into wider support group work including their involvement in events generally.
Key learning points from analysis of corporate cultural events run in 2006 and 2007
4. A short analysis of corporate cultural events undertaken in the two year period 2006 and 2007 was carried out, the following points are noted:
• 17 corporate cultural events took place during 2006 and 2007. These ranged from
London-wide events which the Brigade participated in like Diwali, Eid, Notting Hill and St Patrick’s day, to local station based events like Hanukkah and Chinese New Year
• Of the 17 events 14 were aimed at an external audience and the remaining three aimed at
external and internal audiences (e.g. Pride breakfast)
• The event where highest number of referrals for home fire safety and recruitment was
Vaisakhi
• The event where the Brigade is likely to have made the biggest impact was Notting Hill,
where we had contact with around 5,000 people and two million people attended the event
• A number of events generated positive media coverage for LFB including Vaisakhi and
Pride.
5. It has not always been clear what the role of the Service Delivery (including Community Safety) and Human Resources Departments is in events. Staff from these departments have not always been represented at corporate cultural events to, for example, promote home fire safety visits. The roles and responsibilities of other departments in the running or corporate cultural events needs to be formalised.
6. An improved approach to raising awareness of LFB’s recruitment and community safety messages should be central to deciding which events to run and the delivery of those events. 7. Focussing on methodology, mainstreaming (and sharing of best practice) and post event
evaluation, revised processes have been designed and are set out below.
Methodology for deciding the corporate cultural events programme
8. The objectives for a corporate cultural event are as follows: -
• Achieve maximum impact and awareness of the LFB brand
• Obtain press coverage and positive reputation/image for the organisation
• Build contacts with hard to reach communities
• Generate referrals for home fire safety visits and recruitment.
At least one or more of these objectives should be met in any corporate cultural event.
How will we come up with a list of events to choose from?
9. A process to decide what event should or should not be run as a corporate cultural event is needed. Before this can be done a list of possible events needs to be generated. Using a combination of two methods this list will be produced in the following way:
• The Communications Department will identify major London-wide events which bring together a large numbers of people from different backgrounds. LFB would be a participant in such events rather than leading on organising them.
• Participation in London-wide events is to be coupled with ‘corporate community events’, which will focus on attracting hard to reach communities. To bring together a list of these sorts of local events Borough Commanders will be given the opportunity to ‘bid’ for support
(from the Communications Department) to organise and run a local event as a corporate community event.
10.Working with local communities, Borough Commanders will know what support is needed in their boroughs and what the priorities for targeting groups of people and areas are. They will be equipped to use iRAT, census data, fire data to identify people or areas at risk and by having greater ownership at an early (bidding) stage. This process also ensures that there is minimum duplication of efforts by the Communications Department centrally and locally in boroughs. 11.LFB participation in London-wide major events will gain maximum impact and awareness of the
LFB brand. Corporate community events will focus on building contacts with hard to reach groups and getting referrals for recruitment and community safety.
How do we decide if it’s the right event?
12.Inevitably there will be more events than resources will allow for. Therefore, a process is needed to decide which events should be organised. In delivering a programme of events for any year, it is clear that all the objectives (see paragraph 8) should be met.
13.To decide which corporate community events should by held Borough Commanders will bid for support using a specially designed form and will have to demonstrate why their event should be supported corporately.
14.This process will be used as the mechanism for analysing which events are likely to deliver the greatest benefit to LFB and make the most of the limited resources and funding available. The form will require details such as what the objectives of the event are, which community is being targeted and targets for generating HFSV and recruitment referrals. The form will also be used to decide which London-wide events LFB will participate in.
15.Currently the Human Resources Department organise and run LFB participation in a few London-wide events (e.g. Rise and Notting Hill). Such events will be subject to the same
process as above with the Communications Department having overall responsibility for them in the future.
Mainstreaming events
16.There is currently an informal process for mainstreaming corporate cultural events back into the organisation to ensure that boroughs build on the achievements of events. Mainstreaming relies on Borough Commanders actively engaging in corporate cultural events and maximising on opportunities to build further links with the community, organising future similar events where appropriate and so on.
17.The Vaisakhi event is a good example of a corporate community event which has been mainstreamed. The borough has built up good contacts with community leaders and is now involved in the planning of the festival with the community. The borough has also used this experience to participate in other local community events, like the Ganesh Festival.
18.The revised methodology (above) to formulate a list of corporate cultural events places Borough Commanders at the heart of the planning and delivery of these events. Setting and
communicating clear expectations to Borough Commanders (of their central role in planning and running events) is key to mainstreaming this work.
19.Mainstreaming will be achieved in three ways: -
(a) As part of the event bidding process, Borough Commanders will be asked to set out how they plan to mainstream the event. If their bid is successful, the Borough Commander will complete a post event evaluation form detailing their mainstreaming activities.
(b) Deputy Assistant Commissioners will discuss mainstreaming and sharing of best practice at regular scheduled meetings with their Borough Commanders.
(c) Borough commanders will also use their partnership forums to discuss mainstreaming of events externally and identify areas where there could be greater collaboration and partnership working on future events.
20.An events and initiatives database has been designed by Service Delivery Department to record and share information on events and initiatives. This database allows sharing of knowledge between boroughs.
21.It is likely that as the Communications Department assist boroughs in organising and running corporate community events and with effective mainstreaming and sharing of best practice, there could be less need to organise corporate cultural events in the future and instead focus on London-wide events.
Evaluation and review
22.Currently, numbers of referrals and post event activities are used to show how successful an event has been. However, the evaluation of events can be improved and examined against clearer success criteria.
23.Evaluation of events will feed into forthcoming years to inform the decision making process of deciding the future programme of events.
Responsibility and ownership
24.The Head of Communications will have overall responsibility for all corporate cultural events, in consultation with the Service Delivery (including Community Safety), Human Resources and Equalities departments.
25.For agreed corporate community events, the Communications Department will work with the relevant Borough Commander to organise and run the event. The Communications Department will retain responsibility for the event, though ownership will rest with the Borough
Commander.
26.The Head of Communications will decide which bids succeed as corporate community events, in line with agreed budgets. The Head of Communications will consult the Service Delivery (including Community Safety) and Human Resources departments in deciding the annual programme and obtain advice from Head of Equalities on matters of relevance.
resources (including financial and staffing in particular) and support from the Service Delivery (including Community Safety) and Human Resources departments.
28.The Head of Communications will report annually to the HRE and HS Panel with the programme of corporate cultural events for forthcoming year.
Financial implications
29.The annual programme of corporate cultural events will be delivered within agreed
Communications Department budgets, Service Delivery (including Community Safety) and Human Resources departments will contribute any additional financial resources, as appropriate to the annual programme of corporate cultural events.
Environmental Impact
30.There are no environmental implications associated with the contents of this report.
Equalities impact
The methodology for deciding events has been designed to make sure we target the right communities for either recruitment into the fire service and/or for community fire safety advice. Also, through establishing a strong forum working with Human Resources, Service Delivery (including Community Safety) and Equalities departments in the planning of cultural events, a thorough assessment of equalities impact in built into the annual planning process.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ACCESS TO INFORMATION) ACT 1985
List of background documents
List the documents here
Proper Officer: Head of Communications
Contact Officer: Sukhvinder Kaur, Interim Head of Corporate Management Board Secretariat 020 8555 2000 x30022
Appendix A - Corporate cultural events for 2008/09
For 2008/09 the following cultural events will be undertaken. The Chair of the Human Resources, Equalities and Health and Safety Panel will be invited to lead on these events, in line with the agreed ‘Members and Events Protocol’:
Event Notes
Chinese New Year Participation in this London-wide
event with a stand in Trafalgar Square
Baishakhi Mela Participation in this festival at Brick
Lane in Tower Hamlets
Pride Breakfast event at Soho fire station
with LFB participation in the parade
Rise Participation including a stand at this
event celebrating London’s diversity and opposing racism.
Black History Month Local event to be organised in South
London (borough to be confirmed)
Eid on the Square Participation in this London-wide
event with a stand in Trafalgar Square
Diwali Participation in this London-wide
event with a stand in Trafalgar Square
Notting Hill Carnival Participation in Notting Hill Carnival
