Guidance

UK City of Culture 2025: full application guidance

Updated 4 January 2022

1. Introduction

This guidance has been produced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to assist the longlisted places successful in the expression of interest (EOI) phase of the 2025 UK City of Culture competition to submit their full applications.

UK City of Culture is a UK-wide programme, developed in collaboration with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The competition is run by DCMS, inviting places across the UK to set out their vision for culture-led regeneration every four years. Derry/Londonderry was the inaugural UK City of Culture in 2013 and the competition is now a permanent fixture in the UK’s cultural calendar.

Bidding for the title in its own right can have a hugely positive impact on a place - helping to bring partners together and develop strategic cultural leadership, showcasing and opening up access to your local heritage, art and culture, and articulating your ambitions for the future. This is why we introduced the EOI stage and for the first time, we are very pleased to be able to award small grants to longlisted bidders to support and strengthen their full application.

The EOIs are being assessed by the expert advisory panel and each longlisted place will be awarded £40,000 to support the development of their full application. Following the assessment of the full application, up to four places will be shortlisted, visited by the expert advisory panel and invited to make a presentation. The panel will then submit its recommendation for the winner of UK City of Culture 2025 to DCMS ministers, and the Secretary of State for DCMS will make the final decision. Further details on the assessment criteria and process is linked.

Key dates

Announcement of longlist: late September 2021

Full application deadline: 2 February 2022

Visits to shortlisted places: expected March 2022 (to be confirmed, considering local authority pre-election period and Easter)

Winner announced: May 2022

2. Guidance

2.1 UK City of Culture aims and objectives

UK City of Culture is a transformational moment in a place’s growth and this year’s competition is an opportunity for places and communities to put culture and creativity at the heart of their COVID recovery and growth plans. The success of previous winners Derry/Londonderry, Hull and now the exciting and ambitious year unfolding in Coventry, demonstrates how the programme can drive positive economic and social outcomes, develop lasting local, national and international partnerships, and bring people together. It can also strengthen communities, build a sense of place and inspire local pride, celebrating and boosting local and grassroots arts and culture, and attract new investment and tourism.

The UK City of Culture competition is a key part of the DCMS’s broader offer to level up opportunity across the UK - using culture as the catalyst for investment in places to drive economic growth and regeneration, promoting social cohesion and instilling pride in places and making them more attractive to live and work in and visit.

The assessment criteria for the UK City of Culture 2025 competition has been developed to reflect the following aims and objectives.

2.2 The UK City of Culture 2025 will need to:

1. Articulate a vision

• which uses culture to transform a place through social, cultural and economic regeneration, making it more attractive to live, work, visit and invest in.

2. Drive growth

• Create a sustainable economic impact from the programme, through investment and innovation in culture and creativity

• Develop sustained local, regional, national and international partnerships and attract investment to unlock inclusive growth

3. Innovate

• Demonstrate cultural and artistic excellence and innovation, including using cutting-edge technology to exhibit and enable creativity and cultural engagement to flourish across the UK

• Create a cultural programme that exemplifies best practice in the UK and showcases cultural excellence though the UK’s art, heritage and creative industries

• Develop new cross-sector partnerships, including exploring collaborations between science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics

4. Reach out across the UK and globally

• Include and work with a broad range of local, national and international partners

• Strengthen and celebrate links and relationships with places across the four nations of the UK

• Actively contribute to the UK’s global reputation for high quality programmes, artistic development, and international collaboration

• Enhance the profile of the area and the UK to domestic and international audiences as a place to live, visit, work or invest in

• Promote the city as a cultural destination, attract new and returning visitors and boost tourism across the region, emphasising its particular place in the UK

• Deliver a high quality cultural programme that builds and expands on local strengths and assets and also showcases shared connections and characteristics with places in the UK and abroad

• Foster leadership and ambition in the globally competitive cultural and creative industries.

5. Maximise the social benefits of investing in culture

• Empower local communities to shape the bid and the programme, co-creating projects and legacy plans with local communities, grassroots artists and creatives, and regional and local leaders

• Promote social cohesion, engaging and inspiring local communities to volunteer

• Increase inclusive opportunities for the development of creative skills and for routes into creative and cultural careers

• Explore how culture can contribute to health and wellbeing targets

• Bring people together, build a sense of place and inspire local pride

• Develop place-based leadership, governance and partnerships that are representative and diverse

• Develop innovative ways to open up access to culture, engaging a wide range of audiences, visitors and participants

6. Maximise the legacy, and have capacity to deliver

• Present realistic and credible plans for managing, funding and delivering the programme and its legacy

• Strengthen local leadership, partnerships and capability

• Foster the development of a strong ecosystem of cultural and creative organisations rooted in the community with links to other major partners and a long term cultural strategy for the city

• Demonstrate a clear evidence-based and robust approach to maximising the legacy and evaluating the impacts of UK City of Culture, including through increased and improved data generation and capture

7. Embed environmental sustainability

• Develop realistic plans to embed sustainable practices in creative and practical programming and legacy

• Promote and inspire environmental responsibility.

3. What do we mean by culture?

We expect applicants to showcase the strengths of the cultural offer in the area, acknowledge its limitations, and its ambition and potential to improve. We do not want to prescribe what constitutes culture and we encourage each bidder to define their own culture. It will be up to you to make the case for which activities are included in your proposed cultural programme and articulate the step changes you aim to achieve. We expect programmes to be able to appeal to a wide range of audiences and to increase participation in cultural activities as well as contributing to economic growth, regeneration, community cohesion, health and wellbeing.

Applicants are encouraged to include activities encompassing a broad definition of culture and its creative industries as well as exploring the creativity across science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics sectors. This includes but is not limited to: visual arts, literature; music; theatre; dance; combined arts; architecture; crafts; design; heritage and the historic and natural environment; museums and galleries; libraries and archives; film, broadcasting and media; video games; animation, visual and special effects; photography, and publishing.

4. Which places can bid?

The expert advisory panel is assessing the EOIs submitted by 20 places across the UK. They will recommend a longlist of places to the Secretary of State for DCMS to approve. These places will be invited to submit a full application in line with this guidance.

5. ‘UK City of Culture 2025’ title, trade mark and branding

The successful applicant will be designated as ‘UK City of Culture 2025’. While we will award grants to all longlisted cities successful at the EOI stage, the title itself does not come with automatic funding. However, DCMS is keen to maximise the winner’s success and impact and will provide advice, support and convening power. This includes brokering relationships across government and with arms-length bodies from the BBC to Arts Council England. A memorandum of understanding will be put in place outlining the partnership between DCMS and the winning place.

Due to COVID-19, Coventry’s year in the spotlight is running from May 2021 - May 2022. There will be a handover ceremony at the end of Coventry’s year in May 2022 and the new winning bidder will be able to use the title and trade mark of ‘UK City of Culture’ from May 2022 until the next winner claims it at the end of the 2025 title year. Winning places usually have three years to prepare for their title year and therefore, UK City of Culture 2025 may wish to have the flexibility, for this competition, to start their cultural programme at any point between January and May 2025 and continue into 2026 accordingly.

We have issued branding guidance to all bidders to outline how bidding, winning and legacy places are able to use the title and trade mark in the years running up to and after 2025.

6. Media and publicity

We expect there to be significant publicity associated with the selection process, with coverage at a local and national level. We will develop a communications plan around key milestones such as longlisting, shortlisting and final selection processes.

7. Data sharing and transparency

We want the UK City of Culture 2025 competition process to be as transparent as possible and encourage you to think about how you consult, engage and communicate with residents throughout.

The UK City of Culture programme and its evaluation is crucial to our developing understanding of the social and economic impacts of cultural investment. Every four years we receive an incredible volume of information and data. Once the 2025 title has been awarded, we will deposit all bids (initial EOIs and full applications) in the National Archives, the official public archive of the UK Government, to allow researchers and the public free access to this wealth of detail. We understand that some data may be commercially sensitive, so we will work with all bidders to provide redacted versions as necessary, with full versions becoming available after 20 years in line with the Public Records Act 1958.

We want all bidders to benefit from the process and we know that many previous bidders have gone on to realise elements of their bids despite being unsuccessful in this competition. DCMS will work with unsuccessful bidders, DCMS arms-length bodies and other key organisations involved in the UK City of Culture programme to identify areas where we can offer support.

8. Funding

We realise that there are costs associated with developing and submitting a full bid and that COVID-19 has put significant pressure on local resources. For the first time we will award grants of £40,000 to all longlisted bids. Successful longlisted places have 4 months to develop a robust economic analysis, a credible delivery and governance plan, particularly for any capital project plans, undertake research and consultation, and gather data. The full applications should be scalable so that - in principle - elements can be taken forward and impacts realised to a certain extent regardless of success in this competition.

The £40,000 grant is intended to provide a flexible source of funding that can be deployed in a place-specific way, which will demonstrably strengthen your full application and help to develop a scalable plan, for example on: Research and development, including feasibility considerations Consultation Human resources Data gathering Commercial expertise for capital plans.

We are not able to guarantee national funding (‘prize money’) from the UK Government for the winning bid. The successful place will be expected to bid into existing funding pots. We recognise that this may shape the bids, and there may need to be a phased approach to the programme, dependent on a successful fundraising campaign. We would expect you to align your own local resources and budgets to deliver your programme, and you will need to consider how to make best use of other potential sources of funding, such as sponsorship or ticket sales.

9. Learning from previous UK Cities of Culture

The UK City of Culture programme was developed by the UK Government in consultation with the devolved administrations to build on the success of Liverpool as European Capital of Culture 2008. Since then its positive impact has been felt in Derry-Londonderry, Hull and Coventry. Many other places have been involved in this competition and in other initiatives like Liverpool, as European Capital of Culture in 2008, the Great Exhibition of the North, the Borough of Culture competition in London and the more rotational Borough of Culture initiative across the Liverpool City Region.

The organisations and individuals supporting the UK City of Culture programme are willing to support the bidding process, but they will need to operate in an even-handed way and will not be able to make an exclusive commitment to any one place. You can expect to receive consistent, strategic advice from these organisations. This includes the interactions you can expect to have with the panel members.

Any conflicts of interest must be declared and all interactions between the panel and bidding places will be even-handed. Members of the panel will not be able to support or advise any one bid in any capacity, including on social media.

We continue to work with Coventry to convene all those with experience and expertise in bidding, organising and driving culture-led change over the past decade to share their knowledge and advice. A technical workshop on the full application process will be held for longlisted bidders in the autumn of 2021. Details to follow, please contact [email protected] with any questions.

You may also be interested in viewing the Coventry Cultural Policy and Evaluation Summit, which was held online on 24-25 June, run by the AHRC Cities of Culture Network in partnership with the Coventry City of Culture Trust and Warwick, Coventry and Hull universities. All sessions from the Summit can now be viewed.

10. Contributing to our net zero and environmental objectives

Tackling climate change is the one of the most urgent shared endeavours of our lifetimes, demanding bold action from us all. Our towns and cities are on the front line of climate change and culture is a powerful tool in tackling environmental challenges. Bids for UK City of Culture 2025 should be able to demonstrate a contribution to net zero objectives or wider environmental considerations across the UK. Programming should be based on low or zero carbon best practice, adopt and support innovative clean tech where possible and support the growing skills and supply chains in support of reaching net zero where possible.

Bids should also consider how the programme can work with the natural environment to achieve its objectives, considering the programme’s impact on our country’s natural assets as a minimum.

We want all bidders for the UK City of Culture 2025 title to connect cultural and environmental policy and strategy, and embed environmental sustainability in their plans - from events and transport to creative programming and promoting environmental responsibility. Julie’s Bicycle, partner of Arts Council England, has collaborated on a range of resources, reports and case studies showcasing cities across the world becoming more sustainable with culture as their driver.

Alignment with other government initiatives

The competition complements other UK Government place-based initiatives, such as the Levelling Up Fund, the UK Community Renewal Fund, as well as the England-only programmes like the Towns Fund and the Cultural Development Fund, to create opportunity in all parts of the UK and help cities and their surrounding areas build back better. Bidders from Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland may wish to consider alignment with respective specific initiatives in those nations, for example the aims and ambitions of A Culture Strategy for Scotland, and the Welsh Government Programme for government and Well-being statement.

We encourage bidders to demonstrate how their bid aligns with or builds on funds and initiatives as well as how it can be integrated in local and regional inclusive growth plans. Bids should actively complement, rather than duplicate or compete with existing or planned funding in their areas. Areas should not consider the UK City of Culture competition as an opportunity to plug any gap in funding not realised by other government funds. Nor should places that have not received support through other funds feel that they are at a disadvantage for applying to the UK City of Culture competition.

We want to support all bidders to realise culture’s contribution to recovery and renewal. The Cultural Cities Enquiry Recovery Plan examines the impact that Cultural Compacts have had and demonstrates the benefits of developing strategic leadership and coordinated action. The Boundless Creativity Report released by DCMS and the Arts and Humanities Research Council in July 2021 also makes recommendations for a post-pandemic pathway to recovery and sustainable growth for the cultural and creative sectors, capturing and capitalising on the innovative and ingenious ways of working that have and continue to characterise cultural life during COVID-19.

11. The bidding and selection process

The selection process is intended to ensure that the best possible bid from across the UK is selected for UK City of Culture 2025. The selection process should lead to the selection and designation of an area that has an ambitious and unique vision for what it will achieve in 2025 and afterwards; but also one that has credible and realistic plans to be able to turn its vision into reality.

The bidding process itself will bring wider benefits. Although only one area will be designated for 2025, the process of developing the bids will foster the development of ideas and partnerships that can carry on irrespective of whether a bid is successful. We encourage you to think about how you will build on the process and which elements of your bid you will be able to take forward, even if you are not selected as UK City of Culture 2025.

Stage 1

1. DCMS received EOIs from places across the UK to become UK City of Culture 2025. These EOIs are being assessed by our expert advisory panel against the assessment criteria published in the EOI bidding guidance.

2. The panel will recommend a longlist of applicants to the Secretary of State for DCMS for decision. We aim to announce the longlist in late September 2021.

Stage 2

3. The places on the longlist will proceed to the second stage and be awarded a grant of £40,000 each to strengthen their full application.

4. The longlisted places will be asked to complete a full application, which asks the EOI questions in more depth and requires data relating to social, cultural and economic impact as well as a credible, detailed delivery and funding plan, particularly for any capital project plans. Applicants will have up to four months to complete the full application. Details of the full application and the templates to use are set below.

5. The panel will assess the applications of the longlisted places against the core criteria in Table 1 below and recommend a shortlist to the DCMS Secretary of State.

Stage 3

6. The panel will visit the shortlisted places. The shortlisted places will also be invited to present to the panel and engage in detailed discussions about their vision and plans.

Stage 4

7. The panel will submit their recommendation for the winner of UK City of Culture 2025 to DCMS ministers, and the Secretary of State for DCMS will make the final decision. We will provide feedback to all longlisted places.

8. DCMS aim to announce the UK City of Culture 2025 at the end of Coventry’s programme in May 2022.

12. Summary timetable

Stage	Dates
Longlist	Announced: late September 2021 Technical Workshop: Autumn 2021 Deadline for full application: 2 February 2022
Shortlist	Announced: March 2022 Visits Expected: March 2022 (to be confirmed, considering the pre-election period and Easter)
Winner informed and announced:	May 2022

13. The expert advisory panel

The purpose of the expert advisory panel is to assess the UK City of Culture 2025 expression of interest and full bids against the published core criteria, and provide independent expertise and objective advice to the DCMS Secretary of State. In convening this panel the intention is to benefit from a wide range of experience across the UK and internationally in investing in culture to achieve multiple cultural, social and economic outcomes. This will ensure the most successful UK City of Culture 2025 and provide support and constructive feedback to all bidders for the title. The panel will also undertake visits to successful shortlisted places in 2022 and act as a critical friend to the winning city.

Membership

• Sir Phil Redmond (Chair)

• Claire McColgan (Deputy Chair)

• Lynne Best (representative for Northern Ireland)

• Nick Capaldi (representative for Wales)

• Roberta Doyle (representative for Scotland)

• Martyn Henderson (representative for England)

• Andrew Barnett

• Rebecca Matthews

• Aideen McGinley

• Tateo Nakajima

• Jamie Njoku-Goodwin

DCMS and all members of the panel are committed to ensuring absolute fairness in the competition process. Any conflicts of interest as they arise will be declared and all interactions between the panel and bidding places will be strictly even-handed and involve the DCMS panel secretariat. Members of the panel will not be able to support or advise any particular bid in any capacity, including on social media.

14. How to submit your full application

Please email [email protected] your full and final bid by 23:59 on 2 February 2022.

15. Format requirements

Your full and final bid document must follow the below guidelines:

• Bids must be in PDF format.

• Bids must be no longer than 30 A4 pages excluding the tables and appendices, which should not exceed 20 A4 pages in total.

• Bids may include pictures and graphics to enhance the material, but these will be included as part of the page limit.

• Bids must be written in no smaller than 10-pitch font.

• Bids must follow the structure set out in Table 2 but do not need to answer the questions in order so long as all the required content is covered either in the main document or the appendices. The assessment criteria prompts do not need to be answered directly, rather they are a guide as to what the panel will be looking for.

16. Assessment criteria

The full applications will be assessed by the expert advisory panel against the same criteria used for the EOI process, as set out in Table 1. The criteria has been developed on the basis of the aims and objectives of the UK City of Culture programme. The score range below is only a guide to help the assessment. The panel will make recommendations to the Secretary of State for DCMS. Feedback will be provided to all longlisted bids.

Eligibility: A clear central focus and cohesive identity to the area, with sufficient existing cultural, digital and social infrastructure (or credible plans to develop them) to provide the critical mass for a year-long programme to be successful.

Placemaking: A strong and unique vision, which celebrates heritage and uses culture to bring communities together, build a sense of place and inspire local pride.

Recovery and growth: Investment in culture and creativity to stimulate recovery and renewal and to unlock sustained local inclusive growth.

Levelling up: Bids should demonstrate the need for social and economic regeneration and how the UK City of Culture seeks to address it, making a place somewhere people want to live, work, visit and invest in.

Innovation: Cultural and artistic excellence and innovation, including using cutting-edge technology to exhibit, enable creativity and reach new audiences.

UK and international collaboration: A celebration of the links between places across the four nations of the UK as well as abroad, and the active pursuit of new partnerships and collaborations.

Partnership: A partnership of local government, cross-sector organisations and individuals supporting and contributing to the bid, including across science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Opening up access and participation in culture: Strategic, place-based leadership, governance and partnerships that are diverse and empower local communities to shape the bid and the programme. Develop innovative ways to open up access to culture, engaging a wide range of audiences, visitors and participants.

Legacy: An ambitious and credible plan to sustain the impact of the programme beyond 2025.

Sustainability: Realistic plans to embed environmentally sustainable practices in programming and legacy, demonstrate contribution to the UK’s net zero objectives, as well as publicly inspiring environmental action.

17. Full application questions

Section	Questions	Assessment criteria prompts (you are not required to answer each of these directly as some may be covered across different sections - it is an indication of what the panel will be looking for)
Where and why: the vision for your area	- What is the overall vision for a UK City of Culture programme in your area? - Why does your area need to see the sort of regeneration that could result from being UK City of Culture? - How and why is culture a key mechanism for achieving regeneration in your area? Please complete Tab 1 of Appendix A to specify the location where the projected impact of UK City of Culture will be felt and demonstrate the level of need in more detail.	- Does the area have a clear identity, or the potential to establish one? - Is the chosen area cohesive, with a central focus and credible as host of a focused, year-long programme of cultural events? - Is the area accessible as a visitor destination? For example, how might events be clustered in order to make visiting easier? - Does the bid demonstrate why the area needs the UK City of Culture title and how it could benefit from it? - Is the vision ambitious, distinctive and clearly linked to the heritage, nature and character of the area?
What: your plans in detail	- What are the main themes and components of your UK City of Culture programme? - What are the main cultural assets in your area that you will be building on and how will you maximise your existing assets? - What are the main gaps, weaknesses and under-developed opportunities in your cultural offer and how will you use UK City of Culture to address these? - Which local, national and international cultural organisations, networks and partnerships will be involved in delivering your programme? - Which local, national and international artists and cultural practitioners will be invited to participate in your programme? - Describe your plans to embed environmental sustainability in your activities. Please include as Appendix B (i) and (ii) to your bid an indicative outline programme for 2025 (and the lead-up period if you wish) and the principal venues in your area.	- Do the themes and components provide sufficient scope for a varied programme with broad appeal to a wide range of audiences? - What is distinctive about the plans? - How do they demonstrate innovation, including using cutting-edge technology, and cultural excellence across a range of arts forms, creative industries and cultural activities? - Are there plans to champion the role of culture on a national level and deliver moments of national attention, connecting citizens and audiences across the UK? - Will the programme strengthen and celebrate links and relationships with places across the four nations of the UK? - Will the programme actively contribute to the UK’s global reputation for high quality programmes, artistic development, and international collaboration? - Will the programme enhance the profile of the area and the UK to domestic and international audiences as a place to live, visit, work or invest in? - Have a range of cross-sector partnerships been identified, including across science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics? - How realistic and effective are plans to embed and promote environmental sustainability in the creative and practical programming and legacy? Do plans promote and inspire environmental responsibility? - Are there plans to achieve a good balance between external and local, including grassroots artistic partners? - Does the bid include plans for a volunteering programme?
Track record	- What previous track record in organising and delivering significant programmes of cultural events do you and your partners have (please give examples indicating the nature, duration, success measures and approximate cost of events/activities)? - Is the bid building on a demonstrable track record of achievement in using culture to deliver regeneration, community cohesion, health and well-being? - How have you used what you have learned from this track record in developing your UK City of Culture bid? Please include as Appendix C to your bid a list of past events and activities that have been managed by you and your partners over the last 5 years.	- How strong is the track record in delivering significant programmes of events - How wide-ranging is this experience? Or are there clear plans to recruit and plug any gaps in expertise? - How recent is this experience? - Has the bid team drawn on lessons from major events either in their area or elsewhere? - Has the area benefitted from previous government investment? What were the outcomes?
Impact	- What cultural, economic and social step changes will UK City of Culture help you to achieve in your area? - How will you rank or prioritise these step changes? - What impact would UK City of Culture have on the cultural and creative sectors in your area? - Is it clear how culture will contribute to overall economic growth in the area during the year and beyond? - How will you use the power of culture and creativity to lead to lasting social change? Please supplement your description by completing tabs 2, 3 and 4 in the economic and social datasheet at Appendix A.	- How does the bid use this opportunity to put culture at the heart of their mid to long-term economic and social recovery from COVID-19? - Is the anticipated impact credible, deliverable and measurable? (For example, is there evidence or a Theory of Change to support it? Opportunity to include at Appendix E) - Does the current cultural and creative economy in the area provide a sufficient base on which to build? - Are there plans to strengthen place-based cultural leadership in the area; increase private investment, including social investors, in the creative and cultural sectors; enhance collaborative networks of organisations; or develop creative talent. - Will plans stimulate tourism demand; boost the visitor economy; increase opportunities for experimentation, innovation and skills exchange; create opportunities for strategic skills programmes and local talent; drive growth through interaction with other sectors like hospitality; create and safeguard jobs; drive growth in creative businesses? - Are there plans to develop innovative ways to open up access to culture, engaging a wide range of audiences, visitors and participants, including through volunteering? - Will plans improve the attractiveness of a place and its physical fabric; increase social and community cohesion; pride/satisfaction in an area; or civic activity and cultural engagement? - Will culture contribute to the environmental, health, and wellbeing targets of the place and surrounding region?
Who	- Who is leading your bid? - Who else is involved in developing and supporting the bid? - What steps will be taken to broaden the diversity of leadership, governance and partnerships? Please include as Appendix D to your bid a list of all the organisations and individuals who have been involved in the development of the bid and indicate their role in the development. - Option to include the results of any consultation undertaken.	- Is there a designated accountable organisation leading the bid? - Is there clear evidence of a range of cross-sector organisations and individuals supporting and contributing to the bid, including the local authority? - What are the plans to attract wide sustained support and investment for the bid from the private sector? - How will the bid ensure it represents the residents of the area? - What role will the community and third sector have in shaping and delivering the programme for their area? - Does the bid align with existing culture, tourism or growth strategies for the area? - Is it clear how the bid will open up access by ensuring the diversity of leadership, governance and partnerships?
Legacy	- How will UK City of Culture 2025 leave a lasting legacy for your area? - How will you retain and re-use the expertise from managing a successful UK City of Culture programme in future years? - How will you maintain and develop the funding and delivery partnerships established for UK City of Culture in future years?	- What evidence can you provide to demonstrate a clear understanding of where you are, where you intend to be in 2026 and a commitment that you and your partners have clear plans to commit resources not only to maintain but also to respond to the cultural growth likely to be generated by your tenure as UK City of Culture in the subsequent years? - Does the bid identify the role of private sector support and investment in legacy planning? - Are plans and expectations for legacy ambitious, credible and realistic? - Are there timely plans to put a team in place to develop and deliver the legacy strategy?
Evaluation and Monitoring	- How will you measure and evaluate the impact of UK City of Culture 2025? Please attach a Theory of Change as Appendix E.	- How will you build on the work Coventry and other previous title holders have done to evaluate their impact as UK City of Culture? For example, how would you approach data collection so that we continue to better understand what place-based cultural interventions can achieve? - Have plans been set out for dissemination of research outputs? - Is there a Theory of Change to support evaluation and monitoring, including an indication of metrics?
Readiness and Risk	- Is your UK City of Culture bid included in any local or regional strategies? - Do you have the capacity to deliver the UK City of Culture? What is your delivery structure? - What are your plans for managing visitors, ensuring sufficient capacity and meeting access and other requirements? - What are your key risks and mitigations? Please include as Appendix F your project management and governance documents, including a risk assessment. This need be no longer than 3 pages.	- Is the bid integrated in local growth plans? - Does the bid outline how proposed activity aligns with other government funds and initiatives that are focused on place-making? - Is there a well connected cultural sector, existing partnerships and clear leadership? Or plans to improve? - Is the digital infrastructure in place or in development to realise ambitions? - How will you ensure that your tourism and transport infrastructure has the capacity to deal with visitors to your area and can meet the access and other requirements of all visitors? - Are there plans to put a team in place quickly to prepare and deliver the strategy? - Are there clear project management and governance arrangements? - Has the process for developing the programme been thought through clearly? - Have the key risks been identified? - Are the proposed mitigation measures realistic and credible?
Funding and Budgeting	- How much do you expect it to cost to deliver your proposed programme? - How much additional funding do you expect to require over and above existing levels of support for culture in your area? - Where do you expect to get this funding from and how much do you expect to raise from each source (e.g. public bodies, individual and corporate sponsorship and donations, sales revenue for events)? - What commitments have you already secured for funding for your UK City of Culture programme? - Who would act as financial guarantor for your UK City of Culture programme? Please include as Appendix G (i-iii) to your bid an outline budget for the programme/year.	- How realistic are the cost estimates? - Is there a credible fundraising and sponsorship plan? - What evidence is there of commitment to meet the funding gap and act as guarantor? - Is the budget plotted by financial year including allocation for evaluation and legacy planning? - Does the budget include clear objectives and milestones in each financial year? - Does the budget include evidence that optimism bias has been factored in (particularly for capital works), as well as contingency in budget forecasts?

Table 3: Score Range

Score range	Description
Met (strong) - 4	The application meets the criteria and shows potential to make a significant contribution to the aims and objectives
Met - 3	The application meets the criteria
Partially met - 2	Only some of the criteria met
Potential - 1	The application does not meet the criteria but shows potential to do so
Not met - 0	The application does not meet the criteria

17.1 Appendix A

Appendix A explanatory notes

The datasheet (see attached spreadsheet) is split into five tabs – Level of Need, Economic Impact, Engagement Impact, Visitor Economy and Skills Impact. Please address the questions in all tabs but the templates themselves are a guide only to be completed where the information is available and relevant. We recognise that these numbers are estimates and indications only and are complementary rather than central to your bid.

Tab one - Level of Need

The information and supporting evidence requested in this tab will allow you to specify the location where the projected impact of UK City of Culture will be felt. We recognise that places may not fit neatly into local authority areas so will take a nuanced approach to understanding local economies.

This section will also allow you to provide information and supporting evidence to help you demonstrate the economic and social conditions in your target area that are relevant to the aims of your proposals.

Examples of possible economic and social indicators you might want to consider could include: deprivation (using the relevant index for England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland); low productivity (Gross value added per hour worked), skill gaps (Proportion of the working-age population with no qualifications at RQF level), low cultural engagement, large COVID-19 impacts, etc.

Tab Two - Economic impact

17.2 Part A: Business and organisations supported

This question allows you to provide both further quantitative and qualitative evidence in addition to the number of direct jobs and organisations supported asked in the following sections that help you demonstrate how City of Culture will help support local growth.

Here, you may include evidence about indirect or induced jobs created as a result of the direct jobs that you are being asked to record in the table of the section below.

You may also want to make a link to local growth strategies. In addition, you may want to highlight how the cultural sector, including the supply chain may benefit from City of Culture.

The questions in the datasheet have been asked so we can ascertain the number, type and size of businesses being supported. Table 4 below sets out business classification by employment size. Applicants should be clear on the type of businesses being supported. A comprehensive answer should: Set out the size and footprint of the local creative and cultural organisations that already exist in the area and how UK City of Culture will help those organisations. Align with existing creative and cultural businesses and demonstrate how this fund will improve the growth of the local creative and cultural sector.

Table 4:

*Size of business should be based on standard classification of employment size as defined by ONS.
Micro	0-9 employees
Small	10-49 employees
Medium	50-249 employees
Large	250+ employees

17.3 Part B: Jobs supported

To help us understand the economic impact, please provide details of the direct jobs you hope to create as a result of being UK City of Culture. The number of jobs created and safeguarded are just one way in which we can assess economic impact. To help us understand the sustainability of economic activity please provide data on the numbers of jobs created for three years after your year as City of Culture.

Information you provide in the datasheet should include only direct jobs created as a result of this investment. You may mention indirect or induced jobs created, alongside any evidence to justify your response, in the first question of the economic impact section, How will UK City of Culture help improve economic conditions and strengthen the local economy?

To ensure data is comparable all job figures should be expressed in full time equivalent terms (FTE).

The table in the template asks you to record new created jobs every year for the year preceding UK City of Culture 2025, the year itself and the three subsequent years. You should clearly identify in the table the period over which these jobs will continue. We provide an example below of how this may be done:

• Example: 1 new FTE direct job is created in the year 2024/25 and lasts at least until the year 2027/28. This should be reflect in the table as:

Number of direct jobs (FTE) created.
2024/25	2025/26	2026/27	2027/28	2028/29
1	1	1	1	0

17.4 Part C: Further detail on Jobs Impact

Data on the Creative Industries and cultural sector workforces in the UK show that young people aged 16-24, people that report having a disability, BAME people, women, and people from less advantaged socio-economic groups are significantly underrepresented. These existing disparities are likely to have been further impacted by the pandemic. The largest disparity is in socio economic background with only 8% of jobs in the creative industries and cultural sector filled by people in less advantaged socio economic groups compared to 34% in the wider workforce.

The information you provide in the datasheet will allow us to gauge how your bid will set up strategies to ensure that your programmes of job creation, business support, and skills development will address underrepresentation in the context of your place.

Tab three – Engagement impact:

This section allows you to demonstrate the engagement impact of your proposals considering both attendance, as well as wider participation. Participation refers to events where individuals that take part play a more active role, as participants, rather than pure spectators (audience).

Provide evidence that supports the number of attendances or wider participation that you expect to attract to the event/programme. In addition to the numbers you may also want to highlight if disadvantaged groups (meaning those with lower engagement in culture or other disadvantaged characteristics) will particularly benefit from your proposal.

Please use the notes section to provide details of any assumptions and please indicate the proportion of the audiences that will come from the target area.

Tab four - Visitor economy:

This section asks you to demonstrate the boost to your visitor economy that you envisage in 2025 and in subsequent years, in terms of additional visits and spend, as a result of being UK City of Culture.

Tab five - Skills:

These questions have been asked to give bidders the opportunity to evidence how the type of skills provided by the proposal will help address an existing skills gap in the area. Also, how such skills might lead to higher-skilled workers.

17.5 Appendix B (i) - outline programme - up to and during 2025 (please give information about your main events, up to 15 in total)

Theme	Description of event/commission	Location	Timing and Duration	Delivery and ticket costs	Expected Attendance	Reach - local/ regional/ UK-wide /international

(ii) Venues and capacities:

Name of Venue	Description	Capacity

17.6 Please include as Appendix C to your bid a list of past events and activities that have been managed by you and your partners over the last 5 years.

17.7 Please include as Appendix D to your bid a list of all the organisations and individuals who have been involved in the development of the bid and indicate their role in the development.

17.8 Please include as Appendix E a Theory of Change to support your bid.

17.9 Appendix F - Risk assessment

No	Description of risk	Likelihood (low, medium, high)	impact (low, medium, high)	Mitigation
1
2
3

Appendix G (i) costs - spending on hosting UK City of Culture 2025

This table should include resources devoted solely to hosting UK City of Culture 2025 and under the control of the delivery organisation

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
Admin Management
Marketing Programme
Cultural Programme
Total

17.10 (ii) Funding sources for the budget for hosting UK City of Culture 2025

This table should include funding sources that will be devoted solely to hosting UK City of Culture 2025 and under the control of the delivery organisation

Source	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
Local government
Other public funding
Trusts
Ticket Sales
Alternative investment (eg crowd-funding)
Total

17.11 (iii) Status of intended funding;

Source	Amount £m	**Conditions to meet **	Current status Not yet discussed/ discussing/ committed in principle/ committed	When and how funding will become definite	Risk that (a) amount will be less (b) of no funding
Eg Heritage Lottery Fund	£3m	Yes	Committed in principle		(a) low (b) none