Success for our sector increasingly relies on demonstrating the value of what we do - and that means measuring outcomes and impacts.
As CLOA's support partner and an IDeA framework consultancy, we're heavily involved in the key 'Passion for Excellence' element that looks at the impacts of providing culture and sport services. For several clients, including Wigan and Rochdale, we're advising on sets of outcome measures that will help to do this and also designing and delivering insight packages that gather the data.
David Albutt, Leisure-net Director and Policy Officer of CLOA, says: "The Improvement Partners nationally are looking at mechanisms that will standardise how we measure impacts and outcomes. This is crucial in maintaining budgets, let alone looking for further investment through strategic commissioning. We're hoping to help councils and their agents to keep ahead of the game here"
People in the industry probably have lots of data nowadays - but this is mainly about 'inputs'. Of course we need to know how many visits people make and what they pay and this relates directly to the 'bottom line' in a business sense. But many, if not all of us, need to do a great deal more. If income from users is your only or even main income, then great - but most operators need revenue and grant support from an increasing variety of sources, all of them needing good reasons to invest.
The National Improvement Partners for Culture and Sport (including IDeA, CLOA, Sport England and the other NDPBs) have established a set of initiatives based on 'A Passion for Excellence' and this includes a team looking at measuring impacts and outcomes; this is important of itself but is very much aligned to the concept of Strategic Commissioning, which requires the case to be made for funding from new partners, such as health, education, police etc.
Wigan and Rochdale are leading on this and we've been advising them. The first step is to decide what outcome measures are needed and then how they can be gathered. "Leisure-net is uniquely placed to help with this" says David Albutt; "we can make sure that the structures required comply with the national work but also that local circumstances are taken on board. Just as importantly, we have more experience than anyone in actually gathering the data and information required, so we can offer a seamless solution"
Provided by David Albutt