Making a meal of arts evaluation: can social audit offer a more balanced approach?

Abstract

Statistical performance measures are increasingly being used to evaluate the output of arts organizations. These inevitably measure such economic indicators as user take-up and earned income/subsidy gearing. The consequent diminishing attention paid to the artistic work has meant considerable frustration for managers of arts organizations who feel that the true breadth of their work is not being taken into consideration. Thus the inevitable question arises of whether there may be more appropriate ways of evaluating arts organizations which will not only take into account those elements that are important to artists but will also satisfy funders. The approach taken by the Social Audit (SA) movement offers a possible methodology which is explored in this paper. SA seeks to encompass not only financial accounts but takes a broader perspective by also examining social and economic impacts for a variety of stakeholders. The paper refers to pilot work undertaken for the Arts Council of England and concludes that SA may represent improvement but it might not resolve the tensions between the expectations of the artists and their public.