News Andy Burnham MP for Leigh

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27/01/2009 - A new season for Midnight Football returns

A new season of Midnight Football is set to return to help tackle anti-social behaviour across the Leigh area.

Introduced last year, more than 200 teenagers participated in the ten week scheme run by the Council’s Leisure and Culture Trust’s Sports Development Unit.

Andy Burnham is supporting the initiative which provides an opportunity for 12 to 16-year-olds to play five-a-side football every Friday night at Lowton Community Sports College.

Although the games are actually played between 8pm and 9.30pm the programme derives its name from Midnight Basketball – an American initiative introduced to curb inner-city crime by giving youngsters an opportunity to become involved in constructive pursuits. Funded by The Coalfields Regeneration Trust and The Football Foundation, Game On works in former mining communities across the North West.

Andy said, “The return of the Midnight League provides our young people with an opportunity to play football, keep fit and compete against their peers from across Leigh."

“What’s more - the Midnight League is free to enter and will provide a safe environment away from possible trouble and anti-social behaviour which is a real benefit for the wider community.”

Whilst aiming to increase the amount of young people playing football in coalfield communities, Game On also aims to use the power of football to develop young people’s awareness of key social issues which affect them and their communities, such as anti-social behaviour, respect and health & well-being.

Game On Midnight Leagues begin on January 23rd 2009, running for 10 weeks and culminating in a borough finals event on April 3rd 2009. Winners can then progress on to regional and national finals.

To register an interest in taking part, please contact the Council’s Sports’ Development on 01924 404956.

26/01/2009 - Burnham announces free-to-air events review panel

A panel made up of some of the UK's top sport, broadcasting and business talent is to review which events are broadcast free to the nation, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham announced today.

The panel will support ex-FA chief David Davies who is leading a review of the list, at the request of the Secretary of State.

The panel members are:

* Dougie Donnelly
* Angus Fraser
* Professor Chris Gratton
* Eamonn Holmes
* Penny Hughes
* Colin Jackson
* Michael Pescod
* Nick Pollard
* Hope Powell

Andy Burnham said, "David Davies has assembled a panel with a considerable breadth of experience and expertise covering the worlds of sport, broadcasting and business. I am very grateful to the panel members who have offered their time free of charge to help David Davies establish which events should be protected so the widest possible audience can see them for free."

The Broadcasting Act 1996 allows the Secretary of State to draw up a list of sporting and other events of national importance, with the aim of giving them the widest possible broadcast coverage.

The current list, which includes events like the Wimbledon Tennis Finals and the Grand National, was compiled in 1998. Andy Burnham announced in December that David Davies, former Executive Director of the Football Association, will lead a review of the list.

The review will cover three main areas:

* the principle of having a list;
* the criteria against which events may be listed; and
* the content of any list itself.

The current list is divided into two groups - group A which protects live coverage, and group B which protects highlights.

The review process will include consultation with broadcasters, rights holders and the public, and is expected to report by the second half of 2009.

About David Davies

David Davies began his almost 25 year broadcasting career at BBC Wales in 1971. As a correspondent and presenter, he worked on programmes as diverse as the National News, Newsnight, Match of the Day, Songs of Praise and Children in Need. He reported on General Elections and World Cups as well as serving as a political and then education correspondent for BBC TV News. Between 1994 and 2006, he fulfilled a succession of senior roles, including Executive Director and International Development Director, at The Football Association. He served the British Olympic Association for eight years. He now works as a consultant in sport and the media, and appears regularly on Sky News, BBC News and Radio 5 Live. He was awarded an OBE in 2006.

The current list of sporting events protected under the Broadcasting Act 1996 is:

Group A (Full Live Coverage Protected)
* The Olympic Games
* The FIFA World Cup Finals Tournament
* The European Football Championship Finals Tournament
* The FA Cup Final
* The Scottish FA Cup Final (in Scotland)
* The Grand National
* The Derby
* The Wimbledon Tennis Finals
* The Rugby League Challenge Cup Final
* The Rugby World Cup Final

Group B (Secondary Coverage Protected)
Cricket Test Matches played in England
* Non-Finals play in the Wimbledon Tournament
* All Other Matches in the Rugby World Cup Finals Tournament
* Six Nations Rugby Tournament Matches Involving Home Countries
* The Commonwealth Games
* The World Athletics Championship
* The Cricket World Cup - the Final, Semi-finals and Matches Involving Home Nations' Teams
* The Ryder Cup
* The Open Golf Championship

The list was last reviewed in 1998. The events on that list were considered to meet at least one of the following criteria:

* the event and its outcome has a special national resonance, not simply a significance to those who ordinarily follow the sport concerned;

* it is a pre-eminent and popular event giving it particular potential for encouraging participation in the sport concerned;

* it is an event which serves to unite the nation; a shared point in the national calendar; and

* it involves the national team in the sport concerned in a major international tournament.

At present the UK list contains only sporting events, however the list is not solely about sport and non sporting events could be included.

The review will take into account emerging broadcast policy, particularly Lord Carter's Digital Britain Report and Ofcom's review of Public Service Broadcasting.

12/01/2009 - ‘Five Lessons from Liverpool: reassessing the place of culture and creativity in a changed world’

Speech by Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport at the University of Liverpool - 7th January 2009.

In January 2008, I was handed the kind of opportunity in life that is an unimaginable twist of fate: to be Culture Secretary in the year when my family's home city took the spotlight as European Capital of Culture.

For me, the personal and professional will never again be in such close alignment.

In 2008, as I was forced to admit in a recent Parliamentary Question, I visited the city more times than in any year since I was born here, on this day 39 years ago. Hansard records 19 official visits which, by the end of the year, had become 25.

Well, what can I say? There's been a lot going on! But in a northern, chip-on-the-shoulder, kind of way, I might also gently point out to my Parliamentary inquisitors that I am yet to see a PQ quizzing any Culture Secretary on how many cultural events he or she has attended in London.

You’ve seen a lot of me because, like many others in this room tonight, I have been gripped by a feeling inside – is it too grand to say destiny? – that everything possible had to be done to make this year Liverpool’s turning point. There will be many verdicts on Liverpool ’08. But let me tonight give you the official Government one – Liverpool has risen to the challenge, exceeded all expectations. In short, it has taken the European stage and done this country proud.

But in typical fashion, success at times hung by a thread – inviting this city’s sneering critics – never something it has lacked – to sharpen their knives. The scouse wedding, as Phil Redmond described it, could have gone either way. In the end, it was secured by the cultural organisations working together under the leadership of Phil, Bryan Gray and Warren Bradley – with tremendous support from the council, the Arts Council and from so many people with vision, passion and a shared sense of mission. Not least Sir Bob Scott who led the original bid, and the Professors, Peter Toyne and Drummond Bone, the first chairs of the Liverpool Culture Company.

Back in the beginning, it was the members of the judging panel – and the then Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell – who saw Liverpool’s hidden cultural depth and believed in its people’s capacity to surprise and prove the cynics wrong.

Economic difficulty has been the backdrop to the year. That it has been a success is a tribute to all concerned, but also makes the point that is my central argument tonight – that culture and creativity are part of the answer to tough economic times.

The year as Capital of Culture is barely over – and yet voices can already be heard saying that a focus on culture and creativity is a luxury or a distraction in times like these.

To take that approach is, in my view, to misunderstand what has happened in Liverpool – and how Britain needs to play to its strengths in a changed but highly-connected world. A glorious British strength is our reputation for creativity. A vibrant cultural base – and commitment to staging world-class culture – is vital to sustaining that reputation.

The world in January 2009 is a fundamentally different place to what it was in January 2008. Right now, it is centres of financial power that are being shaken. But centres of cultural and creative power are shifting too, as the decline of old media quickens and digital communications diminish the influence of place.

In a highly-connected world, high-quality content in English will be at a premium. Creative skills will be more, not less, important in the new economy. But there is no guarantee that the competitive advantage will fall to England or Britain.

So, tonight, I wish to make the argument for culture and creativity – important in their own right in a civilised society. And more, not less, important in a changed world. The question on my mind is: how do we capture – on an on-going basis – the essence of Liverpool’s success and unlock the power of culture for the whole country?

In 1990, lessons about the power of regeneration led by culture emerged from Glasgow’s year as European Capital of Culture. But, back then, they were not widely embraced, absorbed and made mainstream because the government then cut arts funding in the years that followed.

I know from friends in the arts world that the arts still bear the scars of the mistaken policy of the government in the last recession in the 90s where their blanket policy of 'equal misery for all' produced demoralised and ineffective arts organisations. When you cut a theatre, it can't cut the cost of running the building – the electricity bills and the rent and the rates still have to be paid. What you cut is what goes on the stage, what goes out to the schools and community centres. The point of the organisation in other words. I am determined that that mistake will not be repeated.

Something important and significant has happened here in the last 12 months that has implications for cultural policy in Britain, but more broadly for regeneration, education, skills and the new economy.

But, in defending cultural investment for the wide-ranging benefits it brings to society, I will make at least a nod to the sceptics by accepting that we could unlock greater value around the country from the investment that the country makes in its cultural sector - and that is where I will end.

So here are my five lessons from Liverpool – lessons that I hope can help shape cultural policy – and wider public policy – as the Government considers its response to the changed world economy.

Lessons from Liverpool

Lesson number 1 – A vibrant cultural base has economic benefits – particularly for the visitor economy. Regeneration led by culture and cultural projects can be the most successful and durable – unlocking investment and stimulating a new creative economy.

Increased funding in Britain’s cultural base over the last ten years has created a network of vibrant, confident and outward-looking cultural organisations capable of making a real economic contribution. That decade of investment planted the seeds of Liverpool’s success by building organisations ready to rise to the challenge. Culture creates interest, adds quality and value – spearheading regeneration or maintaining a buoyant visitor economy.

Ten years ago, the ‘Bilbao model’, a notion that culture could lead the regeneration of a run-down former industrial area, was a somewhat untested idea and seen as fanciful by some. Now we have countless examples across the country from Hay-on-Wye to Folkstone, from Brighton to the Manchester International Festival. An early pioneer was the Lowry Centre in Salford, later followed by the Imperial War Museum of the North. Now, close by, the £3 billion privately-funded Media City scheme is rising from the ground – itself a symbol of the cross-over between the new digital economy and a vibrant, well-funded arts and cultural scene. It is a powerful symbol of the real potential of cultural activity, cultural events and cultural organisations to stimulate the local and regional economy.

To make this case is not to go back to the old argument about instrumentality or to take a perfunctory view of the arts. I have made it clear over the past year that the primary responsibility of public funding for the arts is to support culture that strives for excellence for all. Instead, it is to say that by allowing excellence to flourish, the economic and social benefits that flow will be multiplied and magnified.

When Franklin D Roosevelt created the New Deal that saw America through the Depression, it was he who insisted on creating the Federal Art Project at the same time. The Federal Art Project that found jobs for thousands of artists and sowed the seeds for the flowering of American culture in the decades that followed.

When John Maynard Keynes was designing the model for post war reconstruction in Britain, it was he who saw the creation of the Arts Council as one of the building blocks of the new world.

I see it as my job to fight the good fight for what a creative Britain should look like. To give, as John Maynard Keynes said, ‘courage, confidence and opportunity’ to the cultural world. And as we plan how to see through this economic downturn, we can learn from him and from others who have had the courage to invest more, not less, in culture in such times.

Lesson Number 2 – Placing culture centre stage also has wider indirect benefits – more elusive, but adding quality and value that cannot easily be replicated by other investment. And, crucially, turning perceptions on their head.

Liverpool ’08 has been a catalyst for successful physical regeneration. But more valuable has been its success in regenerating belief, hope and human spirit. Capital of Culture has changed the way people feel about Liverpool – and how Liverpool feels about itself. Culture can change perceptions of a city, a region, a country, by bringing an association with aspiration and social mobility. That is difficult to achieve by other means.

It is now well-established that culture can drive successful physical regeneration. But its potential to regenerate a sense of hope and confidence, to instil new ambition and possibility, is a revelation for some.

That is part of culture’s power as an economic force - the association with the best things in life, with those who aspire, with social mobility. To fail as a capital of culture would confirm negative impressions. To succeed shows that it is possible to turn perceptions on their head – that talent and passion for quality art, music, film and theatre are to be found anywhere and everywhere.

Lesson Number 3 – The ability of culture to contribute to the delivery of world-class public services – most particularly education and health – is under-developed in Britain.

One of the more interesting developments in Liverpool has been the extent to which other public bodies have begun to consider how cultural projects can contribute to improvement in the delivery of public services.

One example of that is how the Liverpool Culture Company, the Primary Care Trust, Mersey Care and others have come together to involve patients and others in need of medical help in a whole range of creative activities.

A focus on culture can add value to the delivery of public services. It can add value and drive improvement where top-down, traditional or formulaic solutions run their course.

But it is in schools where the potential is richest. Cultural opportunities can unlock imagination, raise self-esteem and nurture hidden skills and talents. One of the legacies of Liverpool ’08 should be a new level of imagination and ambition in cultural education in state schools in England. As a Find Your Talent pilot area, Liverpool has an opportunity to create in its schools the finest cultural and creative education in the state sector. This opportunity comes from the sense of momentum and the extent to which the region’s arts and cultural organisations are prepared to work together to use culture to drive permanent social change.

When you strip everything back to the core, that, in the end, is what I think unites us all – using the power of politics, the power of culture to change the life chances of the young people of this city.

Lesson Number 4 – Centres of power in culture and creativity can shift just as quickly as in finance. And creative skills will be more important – not less – in the economy of the future. It is vital to understand the links between a vibrant cultural base, culture and creativity in schools, and the digital economy.

One of the most interesting developments in Liverpool is how well these links were appreciated and how Capital of Culture has created a strong cultural base linked to skills, new jobs and education.

The NWDA sees digital jobs as part of Liverpool’s future, linking to the new Media City development in Salford. This isn’t about raising false expectations of jobs in the media. This is recognition that creative skills will be more important in the future, not just in an expanded creative sector but all parts of the economy.

In culture and creativity, place has always been important. Capital cities have historically been where all the gate-keepers to these worlds live – commissioners, producers and editors. Capital cities have historically been where the only truly world-class cultural events take place. But this is changing. Just as centres of power in finance are shifting, so are centres of culture and creativity shifting in a digital age when anyone can offer their music, poetry, film or comedy to the world.


Lesson Number 5 – Investment in a strong cultural base should be maintained – more so, not less, in tough economic times. But more can and should be done to unlock the full value around Britain of the investment the country already makes in it cultural organisations.

One clear conclusion from the year in Liverpool is that the benefits a focus on culture can bring need to be captured on an on-going basis by other cities across the UK. (And one of the clever steps Liverpool took was to make assessing the impact an important part of the programme right from the start.)

Too much of Britain’s cultural world is still exclusively focused on London. People expect London to stage world-class culture and art. But when those prestigious events take place outside the capital, the impact can be more powerful and inspiring. A statement is made by the host city and perceptions are invited to be challenged.

London is a truly world-class cultural centre – perhaps the world’s leading – and we should cherish it as such. But that status need not in any way be threatened by London-based cultural organisations and events operating across the UK as truly national organisations.
All British cities are full of talent and cultural enterprise. And yet, like with Liverpool, there is a casual perception that nothing much of cultural value takes place there. We've got to change those casual perceptions and make sure that our regional cities think nationally and internationally in what they can do culturally. The time has come to play to our fundamental strengths as a creative nation and unlock the cultural and creative potential in the whole of the UK.
One way to achieve this is to encourage national cultural organisations to be clear about their national role and purpose, and what they can do to work with culturally ambitious cities. This is a principle that the DCMS is already encouraging through a series of specific proposals, such as the proposed Royal Opera House Manchester and the V&A in Blackpool. And of course there is the work of the RSC across the country, of Opera North and the South Bank Centre through the Hayward. But we can do more - and must continue to build the kind of national and international ambition in the regions that Liverpool has shown in its year as capital of culture.
British City of Culture

I’d like to finish with a new proposal – one that is inspired by my five lessons of Liverpool and which would create a worthy legacy, capturing the benefits seen by Liverpool and offering them to other places around the country on an on-going basis.

As with so much of Liverpool ’08, the trail leads back to Phil Redmond. It is a permanent British City of Culture prize.

By receiving national recognition as a city of culture, every city in the UK could be given an opportunity to bring out the creative skills, talent and enthusiasm of its people – to showcase itself on the national stage. And change people’s perceptions of how the city sees itself and how it is seen by the rest of the country.

I wish to invite Phil to chair a panel to consider the feasibility of a British City of Culture prize beginning in 2011 how it may complement the Cultural Olympiad. It would consider how frequently it would be awarded, but a working assumption could be a four-year cycle. It would also need to consider a core list of events that the winning city would gain the right to host – events such as the Turner Prize or the Brit awards and a range of others. I’m delighted that the BBC has already indicated its enthusiasm to play a central part in making Cities of Culture a reality. Each winning city would be the one promising not just to do the core events well, but the one with the best vision for how it will use the award to inspire its citizens and transform its prospects.

As the Cabinet of the British Government gathers this evening for its first-ever meeting in this city, indeed in this region, it is a moment in time for Liverpool to bask with pride in the national spotlight. But the long-term test of success is not whether the events ran smoothly - or grabbed attention - but whether going forward it changes the life chances of the people of this city. That’s our social mission; that’s the job we all start together after our well-earned final celebrations this weekend.