Evaluation of the three year programme Growing Audiences North East Brief Aberdeenshire Council and GANE project partners are looking for an independent consultant to evaluate the three year programme, Growing Audiences North East, to confirm activity, impacts structure and governance and identify future needs and to assist in developing a partnership way forward for audience development in the North East of Scotland. Partners and background SAC offered funding to Aberdeenshire Council to commission, in partnership with Aberdeen City Council, a three year programme of audience development called Growing Audiences North East (GANE). The GANE project was established as a response to an initiative of the Scottish Arts Council, ‘Beyond the Central Belt’, which had identified the North East of Scotland as a target area for audience development, acknowledging that the area recorded lower than average levels of participation in the arts. This opportunity was then advertised, and the contract to develop and deliver the programme was awarded to HI~Arts. As HI~Arts had been delivering a similar programme in the Highlands and Islands, their proposal was to adapt this programme for immediate delivery in the North East, and only in the second year to recruit dedicated staff based in the North East, and employed and mentored by HI~Arts staff. Aberdeen University and Robert Gordon University have both engaged in the project linked to their community outreach programmes. Head of School Robert Gordon University Aberdeen has recently become chair of GANE. In the summer of 2011 Creative Scotland initiated a process of dialogue with the Scottish Audience Development Network (of which both GANE project and HI~Arts are members) to develop a single, integrated future approach to audience development throughout Scotland.
The evaluation will involve: Desk research considering all relevant GANE documentation, including appropriate strategic documents from the three key stakeholders-- SAC/Creative Scotland, Aberdeenshire Council, Aberdeen City Council – and the results of the client survey Interviews with GANE and HI~Arts staff, and with key officers of the three stakeholders, and of selected members of the GANE steering group (these can be done by telephone) A focus group with key clients and users of GANE services. The aim of the evaluation is to consider: How far the GANE programme has met the original recommendations and tasks of both ‘Beyond the Central Belt’ and of the commissioning brief in rural and city contexts. To present analysis and detail of NE audiences as identified by GANE project work and organisations supported by GANE to ascertain future need for an audience development service in the North East. (This might include hard to reach new audiences in Moray, Angus as well as Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City). To consider and make links with Aberdeenshire and City tourism initiative. How effective GANE has been in supporting organisations to use social media and analysis of audiences. A short desked based evaluation of the Go Local programme to date and its future potential would be helpful. How effective GANE has been in responding to radically changing environments and exploring/providing recommendations for future delivery models.
To provide recommendations What are the future needs of partners and organisations in north east to enable them to grow audiences Explore possible GANE project merger with existing ne institutions and what potential might we have to maximise university involvement in any future projects linked to knowledge transfer agendas, audience statistical archives. Taking into consideration creative Scotlands proposed and make recommendations re what structures are needed in the future to support audience development in the North East of Scotland. Establish key partners for future, what potential is there to take this forward as a rural model of audience development support for Moray, Angus and Aberdeenshire?
Timescale: a draft report for all partners should be submitted by 31st July, 2012. To Carol Leathley, Aberdeenshire Council, Principal Arts Officer, Education Learning and Leisure, Cultural Services, Woodhill House, Westburn Road, Aberdeen. AB16 5GB Fee: a fee of ÂŁ3,000 + VAT is available for this study
APPLICATION PROCESS: To apply please provide a CV, methodology statement, breakdown of stages with timescales, daily rates, the form the evaluation will be presented in by 23rd May, 2012. Address application to Carol Leathley, Aberdeenshire Council, Principal Arts Officer, Education Learning and Leisure, Cultural Services, Woodhill House, Westburn Road, Aberdeen. AB16 5GB
FURTHER CONTEXT Growing Audiences North East (GANE) was established as a response to an initiative of the Scottish Arts Council, ‘Beyond the Central Belt’, which had identified the North East of Scotland as a target area for audience development, acknowledging that the area recorded lower than average levels of participation in the arts. The SAC offered funding to Aberdeenshire Council to commission, in partnership with Aberdeen City Council, a three year programme of audience development. This opportunity was then advertised, and the contract to develop and deliver the programme was awarded to HI~Arts. As HI~Arts had been delivering a similar programme in the Highlands and Islands, their proposal was to adapt this programme for immediate delivery in the North East, and only in the second year to recruit dedicated staff based in the North East, and employed and mentored by HI~Arts staff. GANE therefore launched in April 2009, with a programme of roadshows and training opportunities, marketing health checks and the development of a dedicated website for tip sheets and other documents. At the end of 2009 two staff were recruited by HI~Arts, a fulltime Manager and a part-time Administrator . These two staff members then took over responsibility for driving and delivering the GANE programme, with continued support from HI~Arts staff based in Inverness and Edinburgh. The original intention of the HI~Arts proposal had been to establish GANE as a separately constituted entity by the second year. However, the major changes taking place nationally (with the establishment in July 2010 of Creative Scotland) and regionally, in terms of changing strategies within both Councils, led to agreement with the GANE Steering Group (an informal, unconstituted network), and officers of the two Councils, that HI~Arts should continue to manage the GANE project directly for the full three years of the programme, while exploring the potential for longer term partnerships with other NE bodies. In the summer of 2011 Creative Scotland initiated a process of dialogue with the Scottish Audience Development Network (of which both GANE and HI~Arts are members) to develop a single, integrated future approach to audience development throughout Scotland. This culminated in an independent Options Appraisal, commissioned by Creative Scotland and completed in February 2012. This study recommended that GANE should continue, but as a regional hub of a new national agency, and that it should be a model for other potential regional interventions, eg in the south of Scotland.
In October 2011 the GANE Manager went on maternity leave, and HI~Arts’ own Audience Development Manager took on some of her role for the remainder of the three year programme while the HI~Arts Director of High Arts, took on the remit of strategic discussions. At the same time GANE and HI~Arts launched a second phase of the ‘Go Local’ campaign, an initiative intended to build closer links between local arts organisations and local businesses. At the end of 2011 GANE undertook an online survey of its clients. The purpose of the present brief is to complement and build on the results of that survey.