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• to explore how we can best understand the value of this contribution • to build stronger shared intention between the arts, citizens, and those in local government and service delivery • to identify what needs to happen for the potential discussed in this paper to be fully realised The hope is that if we can agree a framework to capture all the value we create, learn what works, and also involve practitioners and the public – this will act as a catalyst for social productivity –encouraging more investment and experimentation in these approaches.86
Section one – towards better models of wider impact Mandy Barnett Our starting point is that the cultural sector needs to agree a single framework within which to talk about value, while disentangling the social from the cultural in the process. So fundamental to our approach is that the cultural sector should present all its value including ‘intrinsic’ benefits and especially those in the social sphere. By assessing these side by side we can understand the importance of our cultural capital (sense of identity, empathy, ability to imagine different futures, for example) as well as our social capital (relationships, community resilience, health and wellbeing and so on). Until we do so we will fail to make the case for why a cultural project offers something in addition to say, a sports project which can do all of the latter too. This paper is therefore seeking to connect to the pragmatic aim of all the papers in this report – to help remake the public and private investment case for the arts. Making this case clearly hinges around value, which not surprisingly has the full attention of the Arts Council87 where it will no doubt be central to new work on Cultural Commissioning88, DCMS, particularly through the work of Dave O’Brien and Claire Donovan89 and the AHRC’s Cultural Value Project90. But it also explores some underlying thoughts about why the case still remains to be made, and why our evaluation processes remain weak, neither appropriately framing value, not effectively helping us learn. This is why they are far from adequate to meet the needs and opportunities of our changing world described above.
86 For a fuller discussion see – From social security to social productivity: a vision for 2020 Public Services: The final report of the Commission on 2020 Public Services (2011) RSA 87 CEBR ‘The contribution of the arts and culture to the national economy’ published by Arts Council England, 7th May 2013 88 Arts Council England’s cultural commissioning grant has been awarded to NCVO, NPC, nef and MMM www.artscouncil.org.uk/ funding/our-investment/funding-programmes/cultural-commissioning-grant 89 Claire Donovan (2013) ‘A holistic approach to valuing our culture: a report to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport’. London: DCMS. www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-holistic-approach-to-valuing-our-culture 90 AHRC Cultural Value Project www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funded-Research/Funded-themes-and-programmes/Cultural-Value-Project/Pages/default. aspx