These are suggestions of how to measure the contribution of culture and sport to better outcomes for strong communities.
Not all of these suggestions will be relevant to your local outcomes. You should select a small number of indicators from across the different levels that together best measure the contribution of culture and sport to your service, intermediate and overarching strategic outcomes. You should draw on available data from existing sources within your local council and elsewhere wherever possible.
Overarching strategic outcomes
These are high-level, non-cultural or sport indicators that you want to demonstrate, and can evidence, that culture and sport contribute towards. Your overarching strategic outcome indicators should reflect those found in high level documents that set out the overall responsibilities of your local council and its major partners.
Examples include:
- Percentage of local authority budgets delegated to local decision making
- Percentage of people involved in social action in their community
- Percentage of people who feel they can influence decisions in their local area
- Overall and or general satisfaction with local area
- Percentage of people who believe people from different backgrounds get on well together in their local area.
Some of these indicators may be drawn from non-council data sources.
Intermediate outcome indicators
These should include indicators that reflect the specific contribution of culture and sport to the intermediate outcomes.
Examples include:
- Percentage of participants who agree that participation in a culture or sport project, activity or event has:
- helped build positive relationships between local people
- helped them meet and mix with local people or make them feel part of their community
- helped increase their understanding of how they can influence decisions in their neighbourhood or get involved in local decision making
- made them want to get more involved in community social action or volunteering
- helped make their local area a nicer place to live and or contribute to local identity and pride - Percentage of local public culture and sport assets and facilities run by local community organisations.
Intermediate outcome indicators may also include non-cultural or sporting indicators that are short to medium term ‘proxy' measures for the overarching strategic outcomes.
Examples include:
- Percentage of residents participating in regular volunteering
- Percentage of local public assets and facilities run by civil society organisations or small and medium enterprises
- Number of new mutuals and cooperatives created to deliver public services
- Number of community organisers trained
- Number of people involved in the process of the production of neighbourhood plans
- Social connectedness
- Percentage of 16-year-olds that have undertaken National Citizen Service.
Service outcome indicators
These are indicators specific to culture and sport.
Examples include:
- Percentage of residents:
- regularly participating in culture and sport
- regularly volunteering in culture and sport
- participating in formal or informal culture and sport learning opportunities
- gaining recognised culture and sport accreditation or qualifications
- satisfied with culture and sport provision in their local area
- who agree they have influenced culture and sport provision in their area
- who agree that participation in a culture or sport project or event has been fun - Percentage of local culture and sport civil society organisations giving a positive rating of the council's influence on the success of their organisation.
Where possible indicators should be broken down further, for example, by geographic area or target wards or by specific groups, including different age groups or disadvantaged and or vulnerable groups. Indicators can also be broken down to differentiate in-house, commissioned or external.
Service output indicators
These indicators are also specific to culture and sport.
Examples include:
- Number of people:
- participating in cultural and sport activities, project or events
- participating in cultural and sport outreach activities
- regularly volunteering in culture and sport
- participating in organised informal cultural and sport learning activities
- gaining a recognised culture or sport accreditation or qualification - Number of:
- attendances, visits or participants in culture and sport (per 1,000 population)
- local civil society cultural and sports organisations supported to gain skills - Percentage of:
- the population living within 'x' miles radius of specific facilities
- culture and sport facilities and services achieving nationally or internationally recognised accreditation standards or design awards
- users satisfied with specific culture and sport facilities, services or events. - Comparability of culture and sport facility, activity or event user profiles with resident profiles
- Take up of the local leisure card
- Net expenditure on culture and sport provision per head of population.
Where possible, indicators should be broken down further, for example, by geographic area or target wards or by specific groups, including different age groups or disadvantaged and or vulnerable groups. Indicators can also be broken down to differentiate in-house, commissioned or external.