Serious concerns about how the London Development Agency (LDA) manages and monitors the success of cultural projects have been raised by a draft report by the Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee of the London Assembly. The report focused on an analysis by Deloitte of six projects which received a total of £18.7m of LDA funding, including the Rich Mix Centre, the Bernie Grant Centre, The Laban Dance Centre and the West End theatre audience development project.
Deloitte raised concerns over why the LDA became involved in the projects, a lack of evidence showing whether agreed anticipated outputs had been realised, a lack of risk assessment and an inconsistent approach to monitoring, evaluation and audit. LDA Chief Executive, Manny Lewis, in his response to the report, welcomed some points but disagreed with a number of its recommendations. In a letter to Dee Doocey, Liberal Democrat Chair of the Committee, he said, “the information provided to the Committee was not provided in anticipation of it being subject to a form of audit in the absence of a discussion with the LDA”, and pointed out that the projects criticised by Deloitte preceded the publication of monitoring guidance published in June 2005. The six projects will also be under scrutiny in a national Strategic Impact Evaluation recently embarked upon by all Regional Development Agencies.