Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said
today:
"The Department for Culture, Media
and Sport has met one but missed two of its targets to increase the
number of people from underrepresented groups who visit heritage
sites in England. While the targets were challenging, they should
have been underpinned by a performance framework that more clearly
matched the priorities and activities of English Heritage with the
Department’s strategic objectives. The Department needs to review
its performance management practices to ensure that the bodies it
funds are working with it towards shared
objectives."
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport
(DCMS) met only one of its three targets to reach new audiences by
increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups who
visit the historic environment by 2007-08. The targets were
challenging and DCMS and English Heritage had limited levers to
influence more people to visit historic sites. DCMS did,
however, meet its target to increase the number of people from
black and minority ethnic groups visiting the historic environment,
by delivering a 3.4 per cent rise over the period 2005-06 to
2007-08.
As the leader of the heritage sector and a
custodian of historic sites, English Heritage was a key player in
the DCMS strategy to increase the number of people from
underrepresented groups visiting the historic environment. A
National Audit Office report to Parliament has today revealed that
there was a weak link between DCMS’s policy objectives to broaden
participation and the targets agreed with English Heritage.
The method of measuring progress against the target was not
designed to assess English Heritage’s or the DCMS’s
contribution. As a result, whilst one of the DCMS’s three
participation targets was met, it is unclear the extent to which
the actions of DCMS or English Heritage contributed to this
result.
English Heritage had a number of competing
priorities during this period. Government funding fell in
real terms and English Heritage prioritised income generation at
its sites. English Heritage successfully increased the
revenue generated from its properties by 5 per cent annually in
real terms over the past four years and has increased its
membership by 15 per cent. However, the number of free
educational visits to its sites has been in decline since 2005 and
English Heritage will miss its target to increase free educational
visits to its sites to 650,000 by 2010.
As part of its strategy to help DCMS meet
the target of increasing visitor numbers from three priority groups
(people from black and minority ethnic groups, people with limiting
disabilities and people from lower socio-economic groups), English
Heritage concentrated funding on ‘outreach’ projects largely based
in the community. The outreach team is well respected by the
sector for its work with hard to reach groups, but English Heritage
has not evaluated the long-term impact of its outreach projects. As
a result, the evidence base on which English Heritage makes
decisions about how it broadens the diversity of visitors to its
own sites is weak.
DCMS has a target to increase participation
in culture and sport between 2008 and 2011. It is currently
discussing with English Heritage how the effectiveness of English
Heritage’s contribution to this policy objective will be
assessed.