Innovations in the measurement of cultural value. The British Museum

In recent years the process of managerialisation in the museum sector has become more and more intense. This is the result of challenging forces which include: increased competition in the arts sector; more sophisticated and demanding stakeholders and greater accountability required by legislation. All these things are placing pressure on museums to adopt managerial principles in order to measure and control what appears immeasurable: the creation of cultural value. The implementation of a new Performance Measurement System (PMS) at the British Museum (BM) has led to the emergence of a control model of the modern conception of cultural value. The principal aim of this PMS is to measure the effectiveness of BM policies and actions, in terms of the creation and distribution of cultural value in the community, both for purposes of internal control and accountability. Founded in 1753, the BM is today one of the oldest, largest and most famous museums in the world. It aims to promote universal understanding of culture. The BM holds artefacts dating from the 7th millennium BC to the present day. A user-focused approach progressively developed over the last few years has gradually led the BM to plan its activities in order to attract a larger audience from all parts of the world, irrespective of cultural background. This, together with the need for greater accountability, and hence the need to evaluate strategic programs, has shaped the development of the important managerial innovations described in the course of the present chapter. The event that triggered this evolution occurred in the year 2000 when the Museums, Galleries and Cultural Property Division of the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) requested the application of 17 key performance indicators to set the accreditation process of museums (DCMS, 1999). In 2005, a few years after the DCMS indications, the BM decided to formulate and implement a new PMS, which became fully operational in 2007. The PMS devised by the BM aims to measure the BM’s effectiveness in terms of cultural value production and distribution. The production of cultural value is measured using outcome and output indicators to evaluate the cultural enrichment of the visitors with regard to four aspects: emotional, spiritual, educational and leisure. With regard to the distribution of cultural value over time, the conservation processes (safeguarding, preservation and study/research) are determined using another set of non-financial indicators.