Section 2
What difference does our work make to communities?
Using the GSOs is a way of pinning down what you do in both terms and language that make sense to local and national government departments.
The National Picture
All local government departments currently have targets selected from 198 National Indicators (NIs) set out by central government. The funding delegated to local authorities is linked to meeting these targets through Local Area Agreements (LAAs).
The GSO indicators cover common ground with the national indicator set, but set out the indicators in a way relevant to the cultural sector. For example, both the NI set and GSOs have an indicator for stronger and safer communities.
In the national indicators for stronger and safer communities, the second level indicators are quite broad e.g.
- NI9 The Use of Public Libraries
- NI17 Developing Thriving Third Sector Organisations
- NI13 Migrants’ English Language Skills and Knowledge.
Within the GSO for Stronger and Safer Communities an example of a second tier indicator is ‘supporting cultural diversity and identity’. This then breaks down into a further third level of indicator e.g. 1.2.6 People from a range of cultural backgrounds felt that they were consulted and were able to contribute to planning and development.
A community food exhibition with a Polish community group for instance might contribute to all of the above national indicators. Starting with the GSO indicator as a tool for planning and measuring the impact of work with communities, however, means that, from the planning stage, museum, library and archive staff build in conversations and processes to demonstrate and record evidence of working closely with communities to build sustainable and lasting impacts. To retain funding and support, museums, libraries and archives need to work with our communities to demonstrate the difference our work makes to peoples lives, for example by asking the imagined Polish Community exhibition partners:
- How do you think you were included in this project?
- How did you influence the plans for this project?
- Was working with this organisation a positive experience in making things happen?
The current round of LAAs comes to an end in 2011. The Government has announced that the new system of setting priorities and measuring delivery of outcomes will focus on locally defined needs, with councils held to account at a local level. Although the way in which priorities and targets are identified will be changing, delivery of positive outcomes for local people will increasingly be at the core of how local authorities operate.
Services which can evidence that they are helping to meet key local priorities will be best placed to secure investment from their local and central government funders. Keeping your core organisational values about how and why you serve the public interest at the heart of planning will ensure that your activities are focused and effective.