Cultural policy indicators: reflections on the role of official statisticians in the politics of data collection

Abstract

Cultural policy indicators are being constructed in many countries today as a consequence of reforms in public governance aimed at increasing cost-effectiveness and general efficiency as well as transparency and accountability. Drawing upon a project of the Finnish Ministry of Education, the article discusses the responsibilities of official statisticians in regard to the collection and processing of data to be used as “evidence” of the outcomes of cultural policies. Official statisticians are bound by an ethical code that emphasises the objective and independent production of information on different aspects of the economy and society. Direct involvement with the construction of cultural policy indicators may threaten the integrity of official statisticians, because such work would require close collaboration with administrators and decision makers who have their own particular interests in the cultural field. Moreover, the system of cultural statistics, which was established internationally at the turn of the 1970s, has a history of providing justification for public cultural policies. The Finnish project, in which two officials from Statistics Finland functioned in the role of commissioned experts, was officially about societal effectiveness indicators but was extended to encompass arguments for cultural policy. The final report even went as far as to propose that cultural considerations could be mainstreamed through indices and evaluation schemes covering all policy sectors. The article shows how easily official statisticians are drawn into the politics of data collection in the field of culture even when precautions are in place. The article concludes that the code of ethics of official statisticians serves as an indispensable buffer against partiality, but, to put this ideal fully into action, cultural statisticians need to develop reflexive practices that combine an applied approach and critical discourse. Such practices are similar to those outlined recently by cultural policy researchers.

Keywords:

• cultural statistics
• policy indicators
• evidence
• performance management
• societal effectiveness
• statistical ethics
• critical practice

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable comments.

Notes

In May 2010, the name of the Ministry of Education was changed to Ministry of Education and Culture.

An English translation of the final report was released in March 2011 (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2011). (See http://www.minedu.fi/export/sites/default/OPM/Julkaisut/2011/liitteet/OKM16.pdf?lang=en)

The project was launched at a time when there were three units: the Arts and Cultural Heritage Division, the Culture and Media Division and the Cultural Export Division. In February 2009, the units were reorganised and reduced to two: one for art policy, and the other for cultural policy.

The 20 main indicators were as follows, by effectiveness domain: 1) Volume of cultural supply, State support to culture, Cultural education, Cultural heritage and cultural environment, Digital preservation and availability of national culture, International mobility and exchange in culture; 2) Grants and other support to artists, Cultural labour force; 3) Time used on culture, Cultural practices, Visits to cultural institutions and occasions, State support for culture in relation to the number of visits, Cultural participation in information networks, Access to culture by region; 4) Cultural GDP, Household consumption expenditure on culture, Cultural enterprises, Balance of cultural trade, GDP share of copyright industries.

Arts Council England, for instance, is an exception to this rule. In April 2009, it became a provider of official statistics under the extended scope of the Statistics and Registration Act 2008. When producing, managing and disseminating official statistics, the Arts Council strives to abide by the Code of Practice for Official Statistics published by the UK Statistics Authority in January 2009. (See http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/about-us/research/arts-council-official-statistics)

Besides, from a strategic point of view, specific indices might not be the best choice for advancing the case for culture. Alternatively one could push culture-related themes through among the general welfare indicators, which would accord with Mercer's (2005) idea of infiltration by means of central policy catalysts. The Finnish Prime Minister's Office was much inspired by the report of the Stiglitz Commission published in 2009 (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009), and the following year it set up a project on developing tools to complement the GDP in the measurement of welfare. The cultural dimension was ignored completely when nominating the project group.