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Creative Torbay / News / Tue 20 Sep 2016
Arts Council England to impose quantitative measures
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Arts Council England to impose quantitative measures of arts quality on NPOs
ACE is forging ahead with plans to impose a standardised system for measuring artistic quality on its NPOs, despite a lukewarm sector response and warnings that this will require a “quantum change” in organisational attitudes to data. A national system for evaluating the quality of artistic work is to become compulsory for many of ACE’s National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) despite an evaluation of a pilot scheme revealing wide-spread concerns about the approach.
An independent evaluation of the scheme has found arts organisations to be sceptical about the value of a standardised approach to measuring quality, and to have serious concerns about the administrative burden associated with it. ACE is pressing ahead with a roll-out of the scheme despite the feedback. Organisations across all artforms will be “required to use a specified system to complete an agreed number of evaluations each year and support each other by providing peer reviews”. This will be mandatory for NPOs receiving more than £250k a year in regular funding, while those funded below this level will be encouraged and supported to use it.