The Kent Filming Partnership recognises the importance of attracting filming to the local economy and understands the significant impacts filming can bring to the county through local employment, training opportunities, tourism and direct location spend.

The Kent Filming Partnership recognises that, by ensuring that Kent citizens benefit from any filming in their area and that disruption during filming is kept to a minimum, it fulfils its duty of care to local residents.

It is the purpose of the Kent Filming Partnership to develop Kent as a film friendly county and showcase this to the creative industries. It is the responsibility of the partners to proactively take positive action to promote, support and enable film-making to be attracted to and take place in Kent.

The partners recognise the importance of this document alongside the Code of Practice, the A-Z Guidelines of Filming and the Best Practice Guide and endeavour to work together to make Kent a film-friendly region.

The Partnership Pledge

• The Kent Film Office will strive to ensure that the partnership is able to work together as an effective body and that the lines of communication between all partners remain open.
• The creative industries agree to abide by the A-Z Filming Guidelines and the Kent Filming Partnership document, in addition to the legal requirements imposed on filming.
• The local public and private bodies of Kent, including local authorities and police, pledge to make Kent a film friendly region by working within the guidelines of the Kent Filming Partnership and the Best Practice Guide.

The Kent Filming Partnership as a whole agrees to:

• work to the values as outlined in this document, the Code of Practice, The A–Z Filming Guidelines and the Best Practice Guide.
• act in a professional, honest and open manner in all our communications.
• be flexible in our approach to the needs of others.
• be accountable for our own actions.
• ensure that we instil trust in one another so that this is reflected in our dealings.

Key Stakeholder Actions 2008-2012

The Kent Filming Partnership will develop an understanding of each other’s roles with regards to location filming and continually strive to improve the relationships between the signatories.

The Kent Film Office aims to:

• be the main point of contact for all filming in Kent in order to minimise administration and deliver a timely, consistent, first class service to the creative industries
• ensure the county’s offer in terms of locations, crews and facilities receives maximum exposure
• collate data from all the partnership organisations and visiting production companies regarding filming activity and production spend in the county for the purposes of providing statistical information to funding agencies, and government reports, enhancing Kent’s standing in the film industry and encouraging support from the private sector
• actively promote the Kent offer to the industries to increase filming in county
• act as a go-between creative industries and private and public bodies in case of dispute
• seek permission from production companies to initiate and co-ordinate PR opportunities, including credits, arising from any significant filming in the county, particularly during the time of first release

The local public and private bodies of Kent acknowledge that working together within the partnership will ensure the maximum benefits to Kent in terms of attracting and managing filming. They will thus aid the Kent Filming Partnership by:

• fully committing to, actively encouraging and supporting the creative industries in Kent
• communicating effectively with the partners
• providing relevant data to the Kent Film Office
• maintaining confidentiality regarding filming in the region where appropriate

The creative industries recognise the significant impact that filming has upon an area for the duration of their stay and how this impacts on a variety of organisations both public and private. They will thus aid the Kent Filming Partnership by:

• communicating effectively with the partners
• providing relevant data to the Kent Film Office
• allowing the partnership to share in PR opportunities whenever possible

The Kent Film Office agrees to be the main point of contact regarding the distribution of information concerning the partnership. The Kent Film Office will therefore organise an annual meeting between all the Partnership organisations. The group will explore best practices and will primarily be an open forum. Matters arising from the main meeting will then be devolved into smaller task force meetings deliberating specialist subjects.

Additionally the Kent Film Office will produce an e-mail bulletin containing partnership matters as well as film production information.

The Kent Filming Partnership document will be reviewed in 2012, with the aid of the partnership organisations.

If you are a production company, an agency, facilities company or have a location based in Kent and would like to join the Kent Filming Partnership; please download and sign a copy of Kent Filming Partnership and email to filmoffice@kent.gov.uk along with a jpg copy of your logo.