Cultural Planning
Cultural planning is not about planning for culture. It is about taking a culturally sensitive approach to planning and policy making.
For example, it is recognised that cultural resources can help deliver solutions on a range of issues across such sectors as housing, crime, health, education and urban planning. Cultural planning allows for this contribution to be recognised and to be built in at the point where services and solutions are planned.
Many Scottish local authorities have already recognised and embraced the contribution which culture makes to achieve their wider policy goals. As part of a broader cultural offering, museums are also increasingly contributing their services to provide solutions to local issues.
Examples of how this works in practice have been tested as part of the Scottish Government funded Cultural Pathfinder Programme. This has recently been independently evaluated and the report can be found on the Scottish Government website.
How to get involved
The challenge if you are not already involved is to identify what you can contribute locally. You could do this by looking at the local Community Plan or Single Outcome Agreement and identify how your work contributes to the local priorities found there. You then need to find ways to express your offering in terms of potential outcomes, for example by looking at the National Performance Framework.
It might help to consider finding partners with whom you can strengthen delivery of services and have maximum impact. Where museums present themselves as part of a broader cultural offering they can sometimes find a stronger voice.
The Scottish Government is producing guidance on cultural planning for Scottish local authorities and this will be available shortly.