DIGITAL GROWTH DELIVERY CONSULTANT / ANIMATEUR
JOB DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Great Place: Lakes and Dales is one of 16 pilot projects in England funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England. Funding partners also include Craven District Council (lead authority), South Lakeland District Council, Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Lake District National Park Authority.
The project is funded from August 2017 – March 2020 and is delivered and administered by two full time members of staff and a range of freelance consultants and external organisations.
Currently the Craven and South Lakeland districts have 44% fewer 16 – 34 year olds than the national average – that’s a shortfall of 10,000 young people. The main purpose of the Great Place programme is to understand the reasons for this and seek to address them, using arts, heritage and culture as the catalyst for economic, social and environmental change.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Our Vision
Our Great Place will be where a sustainable, resilient, creative community and economy exists, celebrating the distinctiveness of place, the skill and experience of creative people and a good quality of life, which in turn will retain and attract younger people to our districts to influence, support and create our future economy.
Our Mission
We want to make a step change in the perception of our place – finding new ways to work, new partnerships and new descriptors. We will pilot news ways of working and new partnerships to retain and attract young people to our Great Place. We will break new ground and be outward looking, experimental and exploratory, to see how the distinctiveness of place can both retain and attract a new generation of dynamic individuals that will drive forward the future economy of our rural communities and contribute to the resilience of our culture, economy and communities.
Our geographical focus is the rural corridor linking Skipton (Craven) in the south and Grasmere (South Lakeland) in the north, including the market towns and rural hinterlands, extending into both the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Parks. Our Great Place includes the market towns of Skipton and Kendal and the area characterised by the Yorkshire Three Peaks, the Lune Valley and the approaches into the central Lake District. The area straddles two partnering local authorities – Craven and South Lakeland District Councils and the two National Park Authorities – Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District.
Our Great Place has outstanding cultural landscapes which inspire creative people and visitors, past and present. Yet our population is ageing and our economies face fewer economically active residents. We want to continue to have new ideas, new generations’ interpretations of the past in the modern world, new value added to our great natural, heritage and cultural assets, and we need to retain and recruit younger people and fresh ideas to enable us to do this.
We need to identify the relationships and activities needed to embed this strategic direction and we know that retaining and attracting a higher number of younger creative people is a long term 5-10 year goal which will take more than the three year lifetime of this project. The Great Place programme of work would allow us to test out a range of approaches to build the foundations to capitalise on our cultural assets for the longer term.
We will capitalise on and strengthen our current flagship heritage initiatives and emerging cultural collaborations through Lakes Culture, Windermere Jetty, Re-imagining Wordsworth, and Lakes Alive in South Lakeland; and Stories in Stone and Skipton Town Hall/Craven Museum & Gallery in Craven, and embed culture, arts and heritage into strategic priorities for the future. A successful World Heritage Site designation for the Lake District brings another scale of learning and opportunity. We will identify the relationships and activities needed to embed this strategic direction. We will promote culture’s contribution to growth and build the sector’s capacity to deliver it.
We have grouped our action planning into six broad strands of activity:
1. Researching and defining our cultural distinctiveness and its offer
2. Placing culture, arts and heritage at the core of local strategies, plans and policies
3. Diversifying, retaining, attracting, supporting and growing the creative economy
4. Developing new relationships across business sectors using the Great Place message
5. Taking advantage of digital opportunities to grow the rural economy
6. Building, sharing and using learning
The first of these strands is being delivered via focussed research during the period April – September 2018.
The fifth strand is the area of work which the animateur/consultant appointed under this contract will be concerned with developing and delivering.
The project team
Management of the project is via the Consortium of Partnership Organisations, which is made up of the funding local authorities and national parks. The Creative Board, which has the strategic vision for the project, includes these organisations plus;
•Kendal Brewery Arts Centre Trust
•Lakeland Arts
•Wordsworth Trust
•Chrysalis Arts
•Grassington Festival.
You will be working closely with the project team line managed by the Great Place Programme Manager and supported by the Great Place Programme Support Officer.
Consultant Great Place programmeRemuneration / Grade PO1
Job type / Fixed term
Reports to / Programme Manager Great Place
Contract
Purpose:
The goal of this Great Place project is to address the net migration of young people from the region and use arts, culture and heritage as a catalyst for change, to attract and retain younger people and young families who might otherwise not consider remaining in, or moving to, this rural area.
The consultant will be responsible for the successful delivery of the strand of activity concerned with ‘Taking advantage of digital opportunities to grow the rural economy’.
This work will involve working with the Economic Development teams of Craven and South Lakeland District Councils, and the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District National Park Authorities and local creative producers to introduce innovative new digital technologies to engage and attract new audiences and young residents to our Great Place.
Outputs will include:
- Development and implementation of pilot projects in creative media, providing opportunities for young/emerging talent and promoting new possibilities to existing producers of our creative offer, so that new audiences are engaged
- Delivery of innovative new approaches and events to work towards changing the perception of our Great Place
- Improved convenience at our retail and catering venues by promoting new technologies to local businesses, thus making the area more attractive to younger people
- Enhanced offer at village halls with streaming capabilities to exploit the possibilities of engaging new audiences at these venues through the use of immersive visual and audio technologies, working with local providers
- Production of marketing and promotional products to help raise the profile of our Great Place and its cultural offer on social media and other suitable channels to engage younger people
- Identify and develop opportunities for young creatives with an interest in following a career in digital technologies, web development, photography, gaming, film, animation etc to gain experience and advice to inform their future decisions
- Legacy guidance documentation for economic development officers and businesses concerning the opportunities digital technologies provide, including using and promoting the existing infrastructure to their best advantage to encourage young people/families to live and work in the two districts, which will exist beyond the lifetime of the Great Place project.
There is a budget to deliver these outputs which will be agreed with the Programme Manager once the scope of the events has been determined.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities
You will
- Take overall responsibility for all aspects of this part of the programme’s delivery, with the assistance of the Programme Support Officer, reporting to the Programme Manager
- Be aspirational for what the programme can deliver and communicate your vision effectively and persuasively to a wide range of stakeholders
- Be innovative in the use of digital technologies to deliver the economic and social objectives of the programme and make the case for their inclusion in a range of strategic documents
- Implement ways of ensuring a legacy of the Great Place project in terms of digital infrastructure
- Effectively and authoritatively disseminate findings from the programme to stakeholders.
- Make a case for improving provision of broadband and 3G/4G across the two districts using the results of the Great Place research commission currently underway and evidence collected by consulting with young people and creative businesses
- Digitally engage young/ emerging talent with project products to increase ownership of the Great Place brand and creative products
Other requirements
The consultant will be:
- Required to work within Craven and South Lakeland districts but be based at Craven District Council’s offices and/or home based
- Expected to work/be available outside normal office hours ie in the evenings and at weekends as occasionally required
You will need your own professional indemnity insurance for £5m and public liability insurance for £5m and be expected to provide evidence of this at start of contract.
You will need to have a full driver’s licence and access to your own car. Mileage will be reimbursed at 45p per mile on receipt of the appropriate paperwork and VAT petrol receipts.
Application Process
Timeline
The deadline for applying for this role is midday on 16 April 2018.
Interviews expected to take place W/C 30 April 2018.
The duration of this contract is May 2018 – March 2020.
Applications
Applicants should complete the attached application form. Please refer to the guidance notes for assistance in completing the application form. Candidates need to include a covering letter stating the methodology they will use to deliver this element of the project. Both should be emailed to before midday 16 April 2018.
Applications submitted after midday on 16 April 2018 will not be considered.
Contact
Any enquiries about the role should be directed to Manon Keir, Great Place: Lakes and Dales Programme Support Officer at direct dial 01756 706207.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Consultant Great Place programmeRemuneration / Grade PO1
Job type / Fixed term
Reports to / Programme Manager Great Place
Experience / Essential
Desirable / Verified by
Application Form
Interview
Test
Qualities
You will be
- A great communicator, able to listen, inspire, influence and persuade
- A self-starter, able to act on your own initiative and remain self-motivated
- Able to think innovatively and see ways of delivering the project’s aims
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Knowledge
You will have
- At least three years of relevant postgraduate (or equivalent) experience in marketing, digital communications, graphic design, audio-visual production or a related field
- Up to date knowledge of digital technologies
- Up to date knowledge and experience of digital communication platforms and their trend analysis
- Up to date knowledge of social media channels and their management
- Experience of working in rural areas
- Excellent IT skills
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Abilities
Your abilities will include:
- Managing successful multifaceted partnership programmes, with demonstrable project management skills
- Ability to promote a vision that generates enthusiasm for the programme
- Collaboration with people and organisations to achieve shared objectives
- Graphic design, photography and film editing
- Working to deadlines and delivering within budget
- Organisational skills, including the ability to finish and complete
- Working with a wide range of partners and businesses at a senior level
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Qualifications and Training
Educated to first university degree or equivalent / E / AF
Other requirements
You will have
- Access to a car, a current valid driving licence and appropriate car insurance
- Professional indemnity insurance of £5m
- Public liability insurance of £5m.