Creative Torbay / News / Tue 20 Sep 2016
Arts Council England to impose quantitative measures
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.