Leicester-Shire

Music Education Hub

Business Plan

2016 – 2017

Final Draft V.7

24 February 2016

Action Plan (Appendix 5) Reviewed by LSMS Strategy Group

Monday 6 June 2016

Leicester-Shire Music Education Hub

Business Plan 2016 -2017

Contents

Page
1 / Introduction / 3
2 / Background / 3
3 / The Leicester-Shire Music Education Hub (LMEH) / 4
4 / LMEH Structure and Accountability / 4
5 / Key Drivers 2016-2017 / 6
6 / Strategic and Delivery Objectives and Actions 2016-2017 / 8
7 / Business Plan Monitoring / 9
8 / Quality Assurance / 9
9 / Marketing and Communications / 10
10 / LMEH Draft Budget 2016-2017 / 11
11 / Fundraising / 13
11 / Value for Money / 14
12 / Risk Management / 14
13 / Appendices / 16
Appendix 1 LMEH Partners / 17
Appendix 2a Core and Extension Roles for Music Education Hubs / 19
Appendix 2b How LMEH Delivers the Roles / 20
Appendix 3a LMEH Governance Group Constitution / 22
Appendix 3b LMEH Executive Group Constitution / 23
Appendix 4 LSMS Staffing and Responsibilities / 24
Appendix 5 LMEH Strategic & Delivery Objectives & Actions 2016-2017 / 26-39
  1. Introduction
  2. This Business Planis for the Leicester-Shire Music Education Hub 2016-2017. The plandescribes the background of the hub and its remit, roles and responsibilities.
  3. It sets out the structure of the hub’s governance, management, operations and the proposed budget, and proposes thekey strategic and delivery developments planned forApril 2016 – March 2017.
  4. The audiences for this Business Plan are:
  5. LMEH itself; asa key tool for driving its work and development.
  6. Arts Council England (ACE) under its requirement for all such hubs to produce an annually updated Business Planas a condition of its funding agreement with them.
  7. Leicestershire County Council (LCC), as the “accountable body” for LMEH.
  8. The wider public in the interests of information and transparency.
  9. Background

2.1.There are 123 music education hubs in England, serving every local authority (LA) area in the country. Some hubs cover a single LA area, some cover more than one.

2.2.The hubs were first formed in 2012 as a direct result of the publication and implementation of the then coalition government’s National Plan for Music Education (NPME).

2.3.The NPME is an eight year plan 2012 – 2020. At its inception itsought, amongst other initiatives, to develop a network of music education hubs in England “to build on the work of music services”.

2.4.The Department for Education (DfE) provides ring-fenced grant funding for hubs on an annual basis to support them in their delivery of specific roles and functions as set out in the NPME.

2.5.The music education hub grant is aligned to LA pupil populations and covers all children aged 5 to 18 within one or more LA areas. The allocations are calculated by the DfE according to a national funding formula. The grant is managed by Arts Council England (ACE) on behalf of DfE.

2.6.The DfE and ACE define music education hubs as:

“…..partnerships of organisations – such as local authorities, schools, other hubs, arts organisations, community or voluntary organisations – working together to create joined-up high quality music education provision, for children and young people, in and out of school. Hubs are coordinated by a hub lead organisation, which takes on responsibility for the funding and governance of the hub.”

2.7.Music education hubs are, therefore, partnerships of independent, sovereign organisations that agree to work together for the benefit of children and young people in a single LA area or in multiple areas.

2.8.The lead organisations of almost all of the 123 hubs are music services.Some of them are current LA music services, some are former LA services, now independent music service trusts and some have other constitutional status.

2.9.In all cases the hub lead organisations are accountable for the grant funding received from the DfE through ACE, for developing partnerships with schools and a range of organisations, and for ensuring good governance.

  1. The Leicester-Shire Music Education Hub (LMEH)

3.1.LMEH is a partnership of local, regional and national organisations and all schools in the local authority areas of Leicester and Leicestershire. A list of the key LMEH partners is set out in Appendix 1.

3.2.Leicester-Shire Schools Music Service (LSMS) is the lead organisation of LMEH. LSMS serves schools, children and young people across both the city of Leicester and the county of Leicestershire and is a traded service structured within the Children and Families Directorate of Leicestershire County Council (LCC). As such, LCC acts as the accountable body for LMEH.

3.3.LMEH’s vision is to be an innovative and enterprising body which aims to inspire and lead all children and young people towards exciting, rewarding, varied high quality and progressive musical experiences, individually and with others, that embrace and celebrate the broad and diverse cultures of the region.

3.4.The purpose of LMEH is to deliver the four core roles and three extension roles as defined by the NPME in 2011.These roles are enumerated in Appendix 2a.

3.5.Following the 2013 Ofsted report “Music in schools: what hubs must do” all hubs were also required to develop a School Music Education Plan (SMEP)to demonstrate how they will engage with schools in their local authority area(s) and what support they will provide to improve the quality of music education.

3.6.The SMEP is further described in Appendix 2a.

  1. LMEH Structure and Accountability

4.1.Governance

4.1.1.Leicestershire County Council (LCC) is the accountable body for LMEH and exercises legal, financial and some strategic governance of the hub. The council’s Children and Families Service (CFS) Directorate Management Team scrutinises, challenges and approves the hub’s annual business plan as well as undertaking day to day line management of LSMS, the lead partner of the hub.

4.1.2.External governance of LMEH is undertaken by a Governance Group whose non-executive role is to ensure that LMEH carries out its mission/vision and aims for children and young people, through support for, and challenge of hub progress.

4.1.3.The Group represents those with responsibility for children and young people, (the clients served by the Hub) including LAs, schools, parents and communities.

4.1.4.It is envisaged that young people will be recruited to this Group in 2016-2017 along with the development of a Student Council for the hub.

4.1.5.The Group sits independently of the hub. It receives minutes from LMEH meetings and reports from LMEH partners who attend Group meetings to discuss progress and strategy.

4.1.6.The Governance Group’s constitution is at Appendix 3a.

4.2.Strategic planning and management

4.2.1.An Executive Group, formed of representatives of LSMS, hub partners and schools oversees the strategic planning and the delivery of major activity areas of the hub.

4.2.2.It meets twice termly to debate and define strategy, discuss and draft business planning including hub finances, monitor and review progress in all areas of activity, and to innovate new approaches.

4.2.3.The Executive Group’s constitution is at Appendix 3b.

4.2.4.There are a number of Working and Reference Groups, with membership from a range of partners and stakeholders including schools, which meet from time to time and make recommendations for developments to the Executive Group. Current groups are focussed on Diversity and Equality, Quality Assurance, First Access Programmes, Singing Strategy, CPD and Business & Finance.

4.2.5.The day to day management of LMEH is undertaken by LSMS which plays a central role in liaising with partners, proposing policy, undertaking monitoring and evaluation, administering and monitoring finance, marketing and communications for the hub.

4.2.6.On behalf of LMEH and LCC (the accountable body) LSMS leads on commissioning to secure the services of hub partner organisations through an annual process of signed Partnership Agreements that detail responsibilities, financial matters and projected outcomes and outputs.

4.2.7.A list of LSMS staffing, describing main roles and responsibilities, is at Appendix 4.

4.3.The role of ACE, the DfE grant national fundholder

4.3.1.As a condition of the funding agreement with ACE for the DfE grant, LMEH is required to report quarterly to ACE with management accounts and minutes of Executive and Governance Group meetings.

4.3.2.A Relationship Manager is assigned by ACE to LMEH with whom meetings are held termly to discuss progress and raise issues. The Relationship Manager also undertakes an annual assessment of LMEH.

4.3.3.LMEH is required to report annually to ACE (usually in October) through the submission of a local data set against nationally agreed criteria.

4.4.LMEH Delivery

4.4.1.The range of strategic and delivery partners shown in Appendix 1 all contribute to the delivery of services and provision to and in schools and other settings, and/or directly to children and young people and their parents or carers. This is described more fully in Appendices 2a and 2b. Partners deliver according to signed Partnership Agreements which set out key responsibilities, projected outcomes and outputs, and financial arrangements with the hub

  1. Key Drivers for the LMEH Business Plan 2016 -2017

There are a number of key drivers that influence and affect LMEH’s business plan 2016 – 2017.

5.1.Review of LMEH Business Plan 2015-2016

5.1.1.Key achievements so far

  • Drawing in non-government funds through partnerships, particularly that with otherEast Midlands Hubs in order to leverage Youth Music funds.
  • Establishing a new charitable body, the Leicester-Shire Music and Cultural Trust, to maximise opportunities for fundraising and for future-proofing the governance of the Hub.
  • Diversification of the whole class ensemble teaching offer, including SEN-focused projects – Taikodrumming project with Bullfrog Arts and iPad project – and non-Western classicalinstruments including tabla and sitar.
  • Engaging with partners to support core roles and deliver extension roles
  • Participating in the delivery of the Trinity Certificate in Music Education across the East Midlands group of hubs
  • Leicester-Shire Schools Symphony Orchestra performs at the Schools Prom, Royal Albert Hall (November 2015)

5.1.2.An interim review of theBusiness Plan’s very large programme of activities was begunin late November 2015. Analysis reveals that a range of targets have been fully met whilst a number, primarily relating to WCETs and Area Centre development have not yet been fully met.

5.1.3.A further review will take place towards the end of the financial year. In the meantime those targets not yet met (and on balance not likely to be met) figure more clearly in LMEH’s business objectives for 2016 – 2017.

5.1.4.Underdeveloped marketing strategies and communications processes that are not yet strong appear to contribute to emerging evidence that LMEH is not sufficiently well known or understood by some schools.

5.2.ACE Annual Assessment (December 2015)

5.2.1.Based on its interrogation of the annual hub data return, along with locally held knowledge and information on LMEH and its work, ACE has recently assessed the hub as a “moderate risk” (uprated from “low risk” the previous year). This is primarily attributed to the turnover in senior staff of LSMS, a continuing need to engage all schools across the city and county, and a longer-term necessity to build income from private and philanthropic sources. ACE acknowledges that the foundation and launch of LMCT, the new charity, will play a significant role in addressing this.

5.2.2.The “turnover” described by ACE is a combination of the long-term sickness absence of the full-time LSMS Service Manager, the departure in December 2015 of the part-time LSMS Deputy Service Manager (who was acting up as Service Manager). This hascreated turbulence and some uncertainty within LSMS as well as temporarily reducing the service’s leadership and management capacity.

5.2.3.At the time of writing, there is a part-time Interim Service Manager in place, pending the successful return to work of the full time manager and a recently appointed part-time Deputy Service Manager role. (Both began duties in January 2016 and have landed “feet running”.)

5.2.4.In addition to a number of key strengths identified in ACE’s assessment of LMEH, the following areas for development were enumerated:

  • Maintaining progress in delivery of Whole Class Ensemble Teaching (WCET)
  • Data collection with schools delivering WCET independently of the Hub.
  • Making the most of the newly formed charitable body to enable direct fundraising
  • Effectively managing transitions in leadership of LSMS
  • Development of strategies to address the decrease in attendance at Area Centres.
  • Continuing to enable partners to play a key role in informing and developing Hub strategy, future planning and decision making – particularly enabling the partners to have a role in how finances are allocated.

5.2.5.These areas for development are addressed with actions in the 2016-2017 business plan as are the factors that have contributed to the “moderate risk” rating and that are within the control of LMEH.

5.3.LMEH operates across two Local Authoritiesboth of whose councils have strategic aims and strategies for children and young people:

5.3.1.Leicestershire County Council Children and Families
Strategic objectives –“that children and young people are safe, achieve well, enjoy good health and wellbeing and live in thriving communities” and strategies including:

  • Moving from control to influence and promoting independence;
  • Collaborating through partnerships;
  • Proportionate support: the right help at the right time;
  • Local coordination of service delivery close to users;
  • Effective and evidence based commissioning;
  • Active involvement of service users

5.3.2.Leicester City Council’svision is “to improve the lives of Leicester City children by working in partnership to raise aspirations and build achievements” and has established priorities including:

  • To raise achievement in Leicester to national averages and higher, and narrow the gapbetween the lowest achievers and other children and young people
  • To reduce and mitigate the effects of family poverty on children’s life chances in Leicester
  • To protect and promote the welfare of all vulnerable children and young people.
  • To intervene early and improve outcomes for particularly vulnerable groups of children andyoung people

5.3.3.It is envisaged that the LMEH Business Plan 2016-2017 will both explicitly and implicitly support the two Local Authorities in their strategic aims and priorities through its activity planning. In particular the plan’s actions will focus on the two LA’s priorities for supporting the needs of those young people in the care of the local authorities.

5.4.LMEH Needs Analysis

5.4.1.A process of analysing needs of schools and of children and young people across the two local authorities operates on a rolling programme basis through the work of the SMEP, a range of written communications and surveys and through the intelligence gathered through contact between LSMS and partners and schools.

5.4.2.Information gleaned from 2015-2016 so far, particularly in relation to WCETs, continuation and progression after WCETs, and the role and operation of Area Centres has fed into the coming year’s plan.

5.4.3.A significant research report “Musical Pride” commissioned by LMEH, in partnership with Luton and Slough music education hubs, from the Institute of Education at University College London was published in February 2016. The report focusses on music education in “plural communities” (where no one ethnic background forms a majority of the population). It makes a number of recommendations, some of which are so strong as to be applicable to all schools. Actions to address the recommendations feature in the business plan.

5.4.4.Needs analysis, particularly with schools in the secondary sector will be further sharpened in the forthcoming business plan year 2016 – 2017.

5.4.5.The views and needs of LMEH partners and LSMS staff were sought through consultation in the drafting of the 2016-2017 plan

  1. Key Strategic and Delivery Objectives and Actions 2016 - 2017

6.1.The core of LMEH business plan for 2016-2017 defines the key developments that are planned to take place over the coming year.

6.2.These key developments are articulated through fivestrategic objectives and fivedelivery objectives along with the intended actions to be undertaken in order for the objectives to be achieved.

6.3.They have been formulated as a result of careful consideration of the key drivers, through other intelligence and reflection, and through consultation within LSMS and with the LMEH Executive Group.

6.4.The key objectives and actions do not attempt to describe every activity that the hub undertakes in its normal course of business, nor should they.

6.5.They are set out as the substantial Appendix 5.

  1. Business plan monitoring

7.1.Each of the objectives has a named lead officer who is responsible for overseeing the implementation, outputs and outcomes of the intended series of actions

7.2.In turn, each action also has a named LSMS lead officer who is responsible for the delivery of the action and its outputs and outcomes. As further detailed planning is undertaken each named lead officer will be charged with short and medium planning including milestones and further refinement of Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

7.3.There is a named monitor officer who, through LSMS supervision meetings, LCC PDR conversations and other channels will support the lead officer in monitoring and reviewing of progress in the implementation and delivery of each action.

7.4.Each of the objective lead officers will provide progress reports through the LSMS Service Manager to the LMEH Executive Group for regular scrutiny and ultimately to the LMEH Governance Group.

  1. Quality Assurance (QA) of delivery and activities
  2. The key features of LMEH QA are:

8.1.1.Annual audit of all aspects of Hub provision including overall participation in all activities, numbers from all minority groups, and then in each of these attendance and success rates (achievement in exams and rates of movement to higher levels of lessons and ‘bands’). This will include participation in sign posted activities, financial progress and reports from all partner organisations. Audit to work from records at Area Centres as well as central base.