Note: The pilot stage for this project has come to an end and the mapping section is no longer updated. The page below is for information only.

The various layers and datasets that can be mapped on CultureMap are explained here. Click on a topic or scroll down the page:

Note: The London Wide map does not include all of the detailed layers that can be found in the Regional Maps.

Facilities

This database is maintained by Audiences London and is a unique listing of cultural facilities in London. It has been checked against a number of sources, and with the lead culture officer for each local authority. If you have any amendments to make to the facilities represented, please contact info@audienceslondon.org.

Facilities Primary Purpose

Every facility has a primary purpose. This label describes its main use and will be mapped as one of the following:

Arts Venue
Cinema
Visual Arts
Agency
Production
Museum

Heritage
Library
Archive
Community
Education
Other

The characteristics of each of these Primary Purpose labels are described here. It is worth looking through this page because some, such as Education, have a specific definition (in this case only Schools with an Arts Specialism or Artsmark are included).

Facilities Sub Type

Sub types describe a facility in a little more detail. They are used for two reasons:

To take into account these issues CultureMap uses a large number of sub type labels that can be assigned to a facility.

It is important to note that although a facility only has one Primary purpose label it can have many sub type labels.

For further info on how Facilities Sub Types work and examples click here

Mapping the Primary Purpose and Sub type labels

To cover the different ways that Primary purpose labels and Sub type labels can be presented there are different layers on the map. The features of each layer are explained in turn.

• Primary Purpose layer - Simply shows each facility with a symbol according to its primary purpose.

  If you open up the legend you will see the top item called ‘All’ displays all the categories together on the map. Alternatively you can turn on categories individually using the other layers.

• Facilities Sub Type layer - Allows the user to select all the facilities with a specific Sub Type (for example Visual Arts Type) and then to display the more detail coding, such as Commercial, National, Independent and so on.

To see an illustrative example that you can follow on the interactive map click here.

Open Air Festivals

This is a database of occasional cultural events taking place in parks and other public spaces (festivals taking place either in arts venues or in other buildings are listed under Facilities).

This database is maintained by Audiences London and drawn from a number of sources, and all Local Authorities have been asked for their input, as this is an area of growing interest and public spending.

However, we are aware that the listing is not yet complete - further research will be undertaken, and additions to the list would be gratefully received

SNAPSHOT Organisations

Snapshot London is a data bank based on box office data from 33 London venues. A high percentage of ticket sales to these venues, which include the largest and most high profile of the subsidised performing arts venues, have information about the address of the purchaser, which can be used to analyse where arts attenders live.

Snapshot provides a very good representation of some artforms - including theatre (except West End), classical music, opera, dance and ballet, but poor representation of non-ticketed artforms, and those for which data collection is not usual, including visual arts (and museums), cinema, participatory and free festivals.

The analysis following covers attendances taking place between January 2004 and December 2006, from the following venues:

Albany
Almeida
Artsdepot
Barbican
Battersea Arts Centre
Broadway Barking
Bush Theatre
Croydon Clocktower
English National Opera
Greenwich Theatre
Hackney Empire
Hampstead Theatre
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith
National Theatre

Open Air Theatre
Philharmonia Orchestra
Polka Theatre
Queens Theatre, Hornchurch
Royal Court
Royal Festival Hall
Royal Shakespeare Company
Sadler's Wells
Shakespeare's Globe
Soho Theatre
The Drill Hall
The Place
Theatre Royal, Stratford East
Young Vic

Although this is not a comprehensive list of venues in London (as the mapping illustrates) it includes the majority of large and mid-scale subsidised venues, and provides a strong representation of audiences for some artforms (such as classical music, opera and subsidised theatre) though poor representation of others (including Cinema).

SNAPSHOT venues are plotted on the map as points. CultureMap also contains a number of thematic layers that display the audience attendance data from these venues.

SNAPSHOT Layers

SNAPSHOT is a useful indicy of attendance that can be used to compare the likelyhood of arts attendance in different areas.

There are three main layers in CultureMap that display SNAPSHOT information:

SNAPSHOT Penetration (Jan 04 - Dec 05)

This shows the percentage of households in each super output area that have attended a SNAPSHOT venue in the period Jan 04 to Dec 05.

This is based on box office records received from all of the SNAPSHOT venues.

SNAPSHOT 2005-6 Season Household Penetration

This layer shows the household penetration for a later period than the first layer - notably the 2005-06 season. It is the most recent SNAPSHOT dataset on CultureMap.

There are a number of sub layers in this section that break the household penetration down. These are Plays/Drama, Children/Family, Dance, All Music, Classical Music, Non Classical Music.

SNAPSHOT 2005-6 Season Average Ticket Yield

Selecting this layer enables the user to compare the price of tickets purchased by attenders from different areas.

It can be used as a useful indicator to distinguish between different areas and is particularly powerful when show alongside demographic variables.

Similar to the previous section, there are a number of sub layers that allow the user to look at Plays/Drama, Children/Family, Dance, All Music, Classical Music, Non Classical Music.

BVPI Layers

This data comes from the Best Value Performance Indicator survey conducted every three years in each Local Authority. The summary figures are publicly available, in this case from the Audit Commission via their Quality of Life Indicators.

It is important to remember that this is survey and the answers given are opinions not facts – thus if there is a rise in the number of people who say that they have used the council’s cultural services, there may not have been a corresponding rise in the number of users; residents may express a high level of satisfaction with their council’s cultural services, even when those services are very few.

This can be partly attributed to the difficulty in ensuring that residents are only taking into account services provided by their council.

Despite these caveats, this is the only consistently available data on cultural usage at a detailed level (i.e. more detailed than London overall, which is available from the Taking Part survey).

CultureMap contains 3 BVPI layers:

• BVPI 06-07 - This is the most recent dataset that has been released. There are a number of sub layers in this dataset.
• BVPI 03-04 - For comparison we have kept the earlier dataset in CultureMap.
• BVPI change - This layer shows the change between the 03-04 data and the 06-07 data.
  

CIPFA Statistics

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounting conduct surveys of Local Authorities collecting their key financial and other information on services, which are then published and used for comparing the provision and performance of public services.

The Public Library report is a well-established and reliable source of information on the sector, with 100% response rate (in London).

The Culture, Leisure and Recreation Services report is newer, not all local authorities have responded (70% in London) and the understanding between and within Local Authorities about how the questions should be answered is still being improved. However, it has been agreed to include these statistics here in order to demonstrate the statistics currently available, and to improve their collection.

CultureMap contains 4 CIPFA layers:

• CIFA Libraries 07-08 - This is the most recent CIPFA dataset and includes a number of sub layers.
• CIFA Libraries 06-07 - For comparison we have kept the earlier dataset in CultureMap.
• CIPFA change - This layer shows the change between the 06-07 data and the 07-08 data.
• CIPFA Culture 06-07 - Contains a number of layers that focus on cultural investment, capacity and attendance across different areas. It is worth noting that the lighest blue colour on the map marked 'Null' refers to Local Authorities who have taken part in the survey but not provided info for that specific question.

London Councils Funding Users

London Councils provides funds certain cultural organisations and activity in London, and requires recipients to report the number of users for the funded activity, and from which Local Authority they came. This map shows the percentage of users from each Local Authority from all their funding recipients for 2005-6.

Tourism

Tourism data is all taken from the Local Area Tourism Impact Model reports supplied by the LDA.

Quantification of the impact of tourism on each borough, and across London, is from their:

• Local Area Tourism Impact Model reports, which combine information from the three major UK tourism surveys.

• The International Passenger Survey (carried out by the Office for National Statistics through interviews with over 250,000 passengers entering and leaving the UK).

• The United Kingdom Tourism Survey.

• The Great Britain Day Visits Survey (undertaken by a consortium led by the Countryside Agency, with a sample of around 7,000 individuals).
  

Ethnic Group Projections

These are calculated by the Data Management Analysis Group at the GLA. It should be emphasised that Ethnic Groups are amalgamated from the entire 16 Groups of the 2001 Census to just 10 groups, due to the small sizes of some of them, and that the Mixed groups disappears entirely, and each is allocated to the non-White Ethnic Group of the Mix – so that Mixed White and Black Caribbean is allocated to Black Caribbean.

Census

This data is from the 2001 Census and is available from the Office for National Statistics.

Each resident of the country (in theory) is represented, and whilst the data is now slightly out of date (particularly in relation to most recent immigrant communities) it is the only source of such comprehensive information about the population and households.

Data included here falls into the following categories (to find out more about each of these click here):

Age Group
Ethnic Group
Limiting Long Term Illness
Qualifications
Socio-Economic Classification

Mosaic

Mosaic is a method of profiling neighbourhoods in the UK based on analysis of data at postcode level.

It is created by Experian from data including the 2001 Census, Land Registry, Electoral Roll, credit records and consumer surveys.

Cluster analysis reveals 11 different groups of neighbourhoods (one of which, Rural Isolation, does not exist in London). To see a summary of these groups click here.

Transport

Public Transport Accessibility Index: This is calculated by Transport for London based on the public transport access points within walking distance for each Output Area.

Walking distance means 640 metres or 8 minutes walk for bus stops, and 960 metres or 12 minutes walk for rail stations, including London Underground and DLR. This is weighted by the number and frequency of services at those access points.

As with deprivation, the number itself is meaningless, but Audiences London has calculated quartiles for these scores.

Deprivation

The 2004 Indices of Multiple Deprivation were commission by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and are comprise data in seven different domains:

• Income (households receiving means-tested benefits)

• Employment (includes elements of the 'hidden unemployed' such as those out of work due to illness and disability)

• Health Deprivation and Disability (those with poor health, disabled and low life expectancy);

• Education Skills and Training (low educational attainment among children, lack of skills among the working age population)

• Barriers to Housing and Services (access to housing and key local services, such as GPs and Post Offices)

• Crime (rates of recorded crime)

• Living Environment.
  

All the data is the combined (though the domains don’t have equal weighting) to produce an overall deprivation score.

Note that the score itself does not say anything about the area, so normally a ranking or grouping of areas according to their score is used for analysing and presenting the data.

In order to provide meaningful comparisons Audiences London has divided the areas in London into four groups, based on their score, from most deprived to least deprived. Each group contains 25% of London. These groups are known as quartiles, and they are then used to determine the colours on the map.

CultureMap contains 3 Deprivation layers:

• Deprivation 2007 - This is the most recent dataset that has been released. There are a number of sub layers in this dataset.
• Deprivation 2004 - For comparison we have kept the earlier dataset in CultureMap.
• Deprivation Change - This layer shows the change between the 2004 data and the 2007 data.
  

Background data

This part of the legend allows the user to add and remove background context information from the map as appropriate.

The layers in this section are as follows:

• Regional boundaries
• Borough boundaries
• Ward boundaries
• Development zones
• Open spaces
• Major roads
• Water