Museums and Public Value

Dr Carol Scott

29th April 2014

Principles• The role of government in society –‘not just as a rule-setter,

service-provider and social safety net, but potentially as a

creator of public value and a pro-active shaper of the public sphere

(politically, economically, socially and culturally)’ (Moore and

Benington, 2011,3)

• The role for leaders of public sector agencies as ‘proactive stewards of public assets’, (Moore and Benington, 2011,3) directing those assets purposefully to make ‘a positive difference in the lives of individuals and communities’ (Moore and Moore 2005, 17) and working with governments to discover what difference that could be.

 • The public as citizens who are recipients of Public Value but who

are also co-producers and authorisers of it.

 • The creation of public value as proactive and intentional.

Strategic triangle

Components

1. Authorising environment

2. Operational environment

3. Public value ...the source of legitimacy for public funding as being

the public itself, overturns the concept of centrally driven, top-down delivery and replaces it with systemic, grass roots value creation (Holden, 2004:10)

Public value

Additional

Intentional and proactive

Public sphere

Social needs

Citizens

Institutional value

Purpose

Uniqueness

Difference

Impact

Feasible

Evaluating public value

To what extent do the museum’s activities

• enhance public awareness and understanding of civic issues?

• increase participants’ sense of self-efficacy and collective efficacy to take action?

• enhance quality of, and capacity for, civic dialogue?

• contribute to understanding and appreciating multiple perspectives? (Munley, in Scott 2013)

 

Abolition of slavery 2007

• We cannot change the horrible things we have done in the past but we can make up for it in the future (Spence et al in Scott, 2013, 108)

• We’d look at objects, slave whips…I was quite shocked, I knew it was cruel but I didn’t know how cruel, I never could imagine… I thought about it in a different way. We actually got to see it and experience what it would have been like. I did know quite a lot but I wasn’t able to picture it (Dodd et al, 2004, 29)

 

The public in public value

If organisations are to create public value in their practices and use evaluative standards to measure their performance, then those values and evaluative standards must be authorised by the public (Blaug, Horner & Lehki 2006:7)

Strategic triangle 1995

Strategic triangle 2014 (Scott)

THANK YOU