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This autumn 150 National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) and Major Partner Museums (MPMs) will be given an opportunity to take part in a free, nationwide test phase of the Quality Metrics evaluation framework. This is designed to offer arts and cultural organisations greater insights into what people value about their work.

This sector-led initiative has been in development since 2013, when a consortium of arts and cultural organisations took inspiration from a project developed by the Department of Culture and the Arts in Western Australia. The framework uses self, peer and public assessment to capture the quality of arts and cultural work.

This 360-degree approach provides arts and cultural organisations with an important opportunity to build a greater understanding of the quality of the work that they produce and people’s views on it – not just from an audience perspective, but also from fellow professionals. It also gives organisations an opportunity to benchmark their work against other organisations and identify if and how they might develop their work further.

The Quality Metrics themselves are a core set of statements. They describe the components of quality artistic and cultural work and were developed by arts and cultural organisations during the initial pilot phase of the project. They are administered through a digital platform called Culture Counts.

The free trial, which is supported using public funding by Arts Council England, will offer participating organisations the opportunity to evaluate three events, exhibitions or performances between November 2015 and March 2016.  The investment by the Arts Council will support National Portfolio Organisations and Major Partner Museums to maximise the opportunity presented by the Culture Counts platform.

150 organisations will be selected - the group will be representative of the portfolio in terms of artform, geography and size of organisation. Organisations that are not selected for the pilot will be offered a limited free trial of the framework later in 2016.

An additional 10 organisations will be invited to develop and test a set of metrics suitable for participatory work, particularly involving children and young people.

The intelligence gained from Quality Metrics is designed to complement, rather than replace, the rich data already collected through Audience Finder. NPOs and MPMs, including those taking part in the Quality Metrics trial, will continue to use this to understand more about their audiences.

Throughout the testing phase, the Arts Council will explore the feasibility of rolling the framework out across the wider portfolio in 2016/17. We will also consider the possibilities for integrating it into our monitoring and decision making processes in 2017/18.

We will also commission an independent evaluation to determine how well the Quality Metrics work for different organisations and how willing the sector is to embrace the framework.

Organisations wishing to take part in the free trial should submit an expression of interest through the Culture Counts website by 23 October.

More information on how National Portfolio Organisations and Major Partner Museums can apply