Spotted at last night’s creative industries debate – a document called Birmingham’s Cultural Capital (PDF) and referred to by the Hippodrome’s Stuart Griffiths as Birmingham’s arts manifesto. Apparently it was produced in October 2009 and was produced by the Birmingham Arts Partnership.

The BAP (who are presumably distinct from the Birmingham Cultural Partnership) includes:

Birmingham Hippodrome, Symphony Hall/Town Hall, The Drum, The Rep, Ikon, Fierce, mac, Birmingham Royal Ballet, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Opera Company, sampad and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

Their aims are:

1. To work with key partners in the city and region to ensure that culture plays a central part in the development agenda for Birmingham
2. To support and strengthen the brand recognition and ranking of Birmingham as a culturally rich regional capital
3. To ensure high and growing levels of participation and engagement in culture and the resultant flow of intangible personal, social and societal benefits throughout the city
4. To demonstrate to policy-makers and decision-influencers that investment in culture brings significant regenerative benefits

There’s an explanation of how that’s going to work but it’s the standard arts measurement/engagement/excellence waffle so I’ll spare you.

Other than a statement of intent, what can BAP be credited with thus far? There are two things that I can find:

• a commissioned Cultural Impact Study on the impact of the arts in Birmingham (PDF) from Sept 09 which, having skimmed though it, seems to set out the terms for BAP’s engagement but also looks suspiciously like an exercise in stating the bleeding obvious (culture is good, etc)
• a response to the Big City Plan back in Feb 09

Worth a skim through if you’ve got the time and it’ll be interesting to see what comes of it all.