Raising the standards

 Everyone working in the arts and cultural sector is only too aware of the rapid pace of change and the challenging economic environment in which we’re now working. It is therefore essential that arts professionals have the right skills and resources to make a real difference to their organisations and their audiences. We have to be even better at what we do and achieve even more for less – a tall order for an industry already known for delivering great work on tiny budgets.

 There is much to be admired about the resourcefulness of arts organisations and of the generosity of those working within them – sharing knowledge about what works and what doesn’t across the sector. However, to help the arts to thrive, to engage with a diverse range of people, to adapt and stay relevant to the public in a time of great technological and digital change, and to continue to innovate and produce ‘excellence’ within the arts, requires the whole organisation to operate to the highest professional standards.

But how many of us can say that we know what the highest professional standards actually are? The arts are unusual as a sector, because there is a clear lack of defined standards. If you work in medicine or law or research everyone knows the standards you are expected to achieve. However, in the arts, most of us don’t know what we don’t know! Pam Pfrommer, Pathway Leader on the MA Arts Management at Anglia Ruskin University, says: “In the not-for-profit sector, the establishment and sharing of knowledge about standards would enable measurement and comparability across the sector but it would also be an opportunity to provide reassurance and encouragement to enhance performance.”

Creative & Cultural Skills is working with key industry partners, including the Arts Marketing Association (AMA), to address this by developing National Occupational Standards (NOS) for the creative and cultural industries. Their aim is to ensure that you have consistent and relevant guidance on how you and your staff are performing compared with other businesses in the sector. This includes setting up a National Skills Academy for those working in technical roles within theatre and live music.

Professional standards are not the sexiest documents to try to read – to put it mildly! So how do we ensure that the arts sector develops standards and best practice which are easily understood, continuously improved and shared across the sector? The AMA is working on just this issue. We have contextualised the NOS for marketing for the arts sector. They are statements of best practice which outline the performance criteria, related skills, knowledge and understanding required within marketing. We have adapted these (with support from the Chartered Institute of Marketing) to make sure that they are comprehensive and relevant for the arts and cultural sector. This means that, for the first time, the industry will have a set of standards that explain what skills and knowledge you should have at each stage of your marketing career.

We want to work with people from across the industry to ensure that this becomes much more than just a box-ticking, bureaucratic exercise. And so we’re developing a training needs analysis survey which you can take part in whatever level you work at (assistant, officer, manager and head of department), saving bits for review as you go along. It can help you to identify which areas of the standards you have strengths in; which you should focus on developing in the short term in order to fulfil your potential within your current role and better support your organisation; and which you might focus on developing in order to achieve your future career ambitions.

As Peter Fisk, Founder of The Genius Works and former CEO of the Chartered Institute of Marketing puts it: “Standards are important in marketing because they turn intangible perceptions of marketing into more tangible ones – bringing focus, discipline and consistency; they help to demonstrate capability – and for marketers to understand where and how they can improve; and they remind you of all the dimensions which you need to bring together for effective, integrated marketing.”