Ms Chandrika Narayanan Mohan:

Skein Press did an evaluation of a recent programme and one of its findings was that consultation with potential participants is key to good programme design. Rather than reinventing the wheel, it would make sense to improve the consultation processes with local authorities and with existing funding structures, and make sure there is a proper way of inviting people in; for example, there is no way of helping people for whom English is not their first language to apply for funding pots. All of these things could be done with a lot better support within these existing structures. Local authorities are very important because they are already on the ground, they already know their local communities and they are already working with those groups and empowering those groups to be in decision-making positions and, specifically for non-EU workers and those from minoritised backgrounds, to be moved from service user artist into decision-making positions. That would really help those consultancy processes and help to make the outcomes of so many of these funding and reporting structures more sustainable and take those results into the future more, essentially bolstering what we already have with better consultancy processes and involving the people for whom it is supposed to be working.