Need to Know

Q: Funders are talking more and more about “public engagement”. Why? Isn’t it just another word for audience development?

A: You’re right: public engagement has become a recurring motif in politicians’ and policy makers’ rhetoric about culture. It is a key driver of current government policy right across the public sector. So what is it? The Scottish Arts Council says that public engagement incorporates participation, audience development, marketing, education and learning, and is a way of achieving an arts organisation’s artistic, social and financial objectives. Arts Council England talks about engagement as attendance in both formal and informal settings and as participation in a creative process. So far, it sounds remarkably like audience development. But there’s a big difference: power.

Public engagement aims to increase trust in the quality of public services. Many arts organisations have been listening and responding to audience feedback for years. But this is about the public getting involved in shaping those services. It’s not the same as community engagement and civic engagement, either. They centre on partnerships with gatekeeper organisations and strategic bodies, but public engagement is about involving individual members of the public. It’s serious stuff. Local councils now have a duty to involve local people in key decisions, including what gets funded. So do police authorities. And so do key arts and sports organisations, including the Arts Councils. How will this affect you and your colleagues? Community arts organisations will be wondering what the fuss is about. They’ve always taken this approach. But the rest of us will need to get to know our communities so much better. We need to understand how different individuals respond to our work, what they find relevant, what they value. We need to give them the information and support they need to consider, question and debate. The theory is that together, we’ll make better decisions. Public engagement is not audience development, it’s supposed to be democracy in action.