Agenda item

To consider the report of the Executive Director, Innovation & Growth.

The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director, Innovation & Growth.

On section 15 (proposed criteria for applications to join City Envoy Network), the Committee formally proposed an amendment to the recommendations around the City Enjoy appointment, expressing the strongly-held view that the Member appointed to the position should have their main residence in the City in order to ensure that resident views were clearly articulated.

The motion was proposed and seconded, and a majority of Members voted in favour of that amendment.

Some Members commented that the Envoy role (created to lean on industry expert advice) encompassed a clear requirement to represent collective resident views that could be achieved via a residents’ panel or group that could also include school engagement, noting also that Destination City’s governance structure already took into account local community engagement and that both the Barbican Centre and the Museum of London already worked closely with schools.  The Committee also noted the view that any Member who was also a resident would need to ensure that the entire City was represented properly rather than the Member’s area. A Member noted that some non-Member City residents would be well-suited to the position of Envoy.

Some Members commented that not all residents felt that appropriate consultation had taken place and that there was merit in exploring current community engagement structures to assess their effectiveness.     

In response to a question on how Golden Key attendance figures were calculated, the meeting noted that plans were under way to deliver a more coherent overview to bring together the various datasets, and that TfL and O2 mobility data was currently used to estimate footfall. 

A Member asked whether the figure for Saturday visitors to the City was known, and whether the 30K figure represented the number above the usual figure. The meeting noted that further supporting data was available.

A Member expressed concern around the resources devoted to measuring and considering a single day’s visitor figures, rather than considering broader time periods and more overarching initiatives. The meeting noted that focus areas in future would encompass durational programmes and elevation of the everyday offer, to be taken forward by the newly-appointed Destination City team.

A Member sought clarification on costings, highlighting the need to achieve value for money and ascertain Golden Key event participation. The meeting heard that more detailed costings information was available, and that the cost was around £1M (as set out by an independent organisation). 

On a question around the sample set used for the qualitative data, the meeting heard that The Audience Agency had been contracted to handle that work and had dealt with around 500 people, in line with industry practice.

A Member commented on the potential for greater use of data-sharing as part of BIDs. The meeting noted that BID steering groups were meeting monthly and that those meetings encompassed data-sharing capability. 

The Committee noted that the Golden Key event organisation pre-dated the current Destination City team, and that future events would cover a longer duration. The Committee also noted that part of the remit of Destination City programme was to nurture partnerships.

A Member commented that the Advertising Value Equivalent was an old-fashioned metric, commenting that there might be merit in finding alternative ways of measuring PR value. 

RESOLVED, That Members

1.    Approve the process to appoint a Member to join the City Envoy Network with this amendment: That the Member have their main residence in the City; and

2.    Note the evaluation results for The Golden Key event.