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The Policy Studies Institute (PSI) has published a damning indictment of the quality of government statistics about the impact and value of cultural activity. Based on their study of activity across the whole of the cultural sector, PSI raises key questions about the outcomes from the subsidy received by the sector, and concludes that an absence of reliable and consistent data amongst official bodies as to how money is spent, together with a serious lack of analysis, is having a detrimental effect on decision-making and policy outcomes.

Published this week, ?The UK Cultural Sector: Profile and Policy Issues?, is the most comprehensive piece of research ever to be undertaken into the subsidised cultural sector. It was sponsored by the Monument Trust, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, with additional funding by a range of charities and public bodies. Researchers found that there is no one agency responsible for gathering data on the cultural sector in the UK, and no single source of information about local authority funding, European funding, or even Lottery funding. Official data is described as ?broad brush, and [is] of little use in building up a picture of specific areas of cultural activity.? Data held by national and regional agencies were found to be invariably incompatible, and whole tracts of data commissioned by publicly funded bodies are unavailable for use by outside agencies. The study also questions the extent to which the objectives of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are being delivered. It argues that the degree to which the relationship between policy, funding and the achievement of strategic objectives is discernible is unclear, and points out that, in spite of numerous initiatives, no evaluations of the extent to which grant funding is delivering policy objectives have yet been established.

Other sections of the 600-page report include an analysis of the largest survey of cultural sector organisations ever undertaken in the UK. The survey reveals that organisations that receive support from the arts funding system in England are more likely to have received Lottery grants than those with no such financial cushion. They are also more dependent on their funders as their main source of income; they spend more on their administration and have higher overheads; and have larger numbers of staff and higher staff costs than organisations with no such support.

According to the report?s editor, Sara Selwood, the research findings ?... question many assumptions, dearly-held by the cultural community, about its own value. Is it really the case, for example, that subsidised theatre is more innovative than commercial theatre? How reliable is the evidence for arguing the economic impact of cultural venues and events? And what precisely is the nature of the relationship between the subsidised cultural sector and the creative industries? What we need is evidence to substantiate these assumptions. Policies whose effectiveness we can?t judge are little more than political rhetoric.?

For further information, contact the publications department at the Policy Studies Institute t: 020 7468 0468 e: pubs@psi.org.uk