Promoting participation with the historic environment (House of Commons papers) Book

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) met only one of its three targets to reach new audiences by increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups who visit the historic environment by 2007-08. The targets were challenging and DCMS and English Heritage had limited levers to influence more people to visit historic sites. DCMS did, however, meet its target to increase the number of people from black and minority ethnic groups visiting the historic environment, by delivering a 3.4 per cent rise over the period 2005-06 to 2007-08. The National Audit Office sets out a number of conclusions and recommendations, including: English Heritage was a key player in the DCMS strategy but there was a weak link between DCMS' policy objectives to broaden participation and the targets agreed with English Heritage. The method of measuring progress against the target was not designed to assess English Heritage's or the DCMS' contribution. Although English Heritage had a number of competing priorities during this period, the number of free educational visits to its sites has been in decline since 2005 and English Heritage will miss its target to increase these visits to 650,000 by 2010. The English Heritage outreach team is well respected by the sector for its work with hard to reach groups but English Heritage has not evaluated the long-term impact of its outreach projects. DCMS needs to review its performance management practices to ensure that the bodies it funds are working with it towards shared objectives.Read More