Some arts leaders have hit back at accusations that quality metrics – data about the perceived quality of institutions’ work – might form a biased and incomplete picture.
Arts Council England (ACE) has been funding quality metrics since 2012.
In February, the organisation published an invitation to tender for a monitoring system to measure the quality of artistic output from its National Portfolio Organisations’ (NPOs).
The system will be mandatory for NPOs receiving more than £250,000 a year, though ACE has stressed that it will be one of “a number of evaluations” used.
ACE’s announcement on metrics was greeted with consternation within the sector last year, with fears that the data might be open to manipulation, or could be used to construct league tables.
Andrew Bishop, the director of commercial operations at London’s Battersea Arts Centre, said to the Guardian: “How does the arts council intend to use it for future funding? How does it intend to compare results across venues?”
Dave Moutrey, the director and chief executive of Home, Manchester’s centre for contemporary art, theatre and film, led a consortium of arts bodies in the city that received funds to pilot quality metrics.
“Show me a way of polling that’s scientific,” he says. “I could point to Brexit, I could point to Trump. I talk to people in our foyer regularly about what they’ve seen and done. Metrics is one tool. It’s not a tool that’s going to be used to beat me with, it’s a tool I’m going to use to inform the practice of this organisation.”
Moutrey says that the upset within the sector has been caused by the perception of metrics “as a challenge to professional elites”.
Tony Butler, the executive director at Derby Museums Trust, says metrics might be a democratic solution to giving the public what they want, and are unlikely to have an impact on funding.
“If you look at the pilot project that went on in Manchester, there was fairly good support from cultural professionals in that programme,” he adds. “In principle, we should be making culture for audiences. If the making is good, our audiences should respond to it. It’s a good democratic approach to include audience reaction.
“At the moment, there is peer review work that goes on, and that’s a fairly bland
assessment of what we do. I don’t get the impression that it has a massive impact on funding decisions. This puts the onus on museums and arts organisations to make sure their work is relevant.”
Others gave a more muted response. Janita Bagshawe, the director of Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, says: “The whole thing of measuring quality is a tough one – it’s incredibly subjective. The pilot schemes, which were impressive from what I have read, don’t seem to have picked up on some of the things museums do. They did seem very artist participatory based. But until we’ve tried it, we won’t know. We will be working through how to apply them to evaluating the work we do.”
ACE director of research Andrew Mowlah says: “These metrics haven’t been designed by the arts council; they’ve been designed by the sector, for the sector.”
He stresses that metrics will not have an impact on funding decisions at present. “They might contribute in the future,” says Mowlah.
“This will be part of a whole suite of evidence we use to judge whether an organisation is worth future funding or not.”
Arts Council England (ACE) has been funding quality metrics since 2012.
In February, the organisation published an invitation to tender for a monitoring system to measure the quality of artistic output from its National Portfolio Organisations’ (NPOs).
The system will be mandatory for NPOs receiving more than £250,000 a year, though ACE has stressed that it will be one of “a number of evaluations” used.
ACE’s announcement on metrics was greeted with consternation within the sector last year, with fears that the data might be open to manipulation, or could be used to construct league tables.
Andrew Bishop, the director of commercial operations at London’s Battersea Arts Centre, said to the Guardian: “How does the arts council intend to use it for future funding? How does it intend to compare results across venues?”
Dave Moutrey, the director and chief executive of Home, Manchester’s centre for contemporary art, theatre and film, led a consortium of arts bodies in the city that received funds to pilot quality metrics.
“Show me a way of polling that’s scientific,” he says. “I could point to Brexit, I could point to Trump. I talk to people in our foyer regularly about what they’ve seen and done. Metrics is one tool. It’s not a tool that’s going to be used to beat me with, it’s a tool I’m going to use to inform the practice of this organisation.”
Moutrey says that the upset within the sector has been caused by the perception of metrics “as a challenge to professional elites”.
Tony Butler, the executive director at Derby Museums Trust, says metrics might be a democratic solution to giving the public what they want, and are unlikely to have an impact on funding.
“If you look at the pilot project that went on in Manchester, there was fairly good support from cultural professionals in that programme,” he adds. “In principle, we should be making culture for audiences. If the making is good, our audiences should respond to it. It’s a good democratic approach to include audience reaction.
“At the moment, there is peer review work that goes on, and that’s a fairly bland
assessment of what we do. I don’t get the impression that it has a massive impact on funding decisions. This puts the onus on museums and arts organisations to make sure their work is relevant.”
Others gave a more muted response. Janita Bagshawe, the director of Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove, says: “The whole thing of measuring quality is a tough one – it’s incredibly subjective. The pilot schemes, which were impressive from what I have read, don’t seem to have picked up on some of the things museums do. They did seem very artist participatory based. But until we’ve tried it, we won’t know. We will be working through how to apply them to evaluating the work we do.”
ACE director of research Andrew Mowlah says: “These metrics haven’t been designed by the arts council; they’ve been designed by the sector, for the sector.”
He stresses that metrics will not have an impact on funding decisions at present. “They might contribute in the future,” says Mowlah.
“This will be part of a whole suite of evidence we use to judge whether an organisation is worth future funding or not.”