Common use of Proposed Methodology Clause in Contracts

Proposed Methodology. The methodology outlined below reflects the thoughts to date of the CASE board. We anticipate that a central element of this work will be a quantitative survey, but tenderers are invited to suggest alternative approaches to the methodology set out below to meet the research objectives. We consider that the work will proceed in two stages: Stage 1 will involve a project development phase between December 2011 and February 2012. This will include considering the existing literature, other datasets and methodological papers to: Identify from the existing literature the full range of organisational characteristics that may influence outcomes for organisations in the cultural, heritage and sports sector that receive public funding and refine our understanding of what constitutes sustainability. Consider and assess the value of any already existing data that could be linked to research findings from this project to enhance its value and avoid duplication. Identify the organisations that will make up the sampling frame.7 We consider that recruiting the sample is a key task of this project. Therefore, tenderers are asked to describe in some detail the following: How you will identify, evaluate the quality of and, if necessary, combine sampling frames to provide an appropriate sample. How you will stratify the sample. We envisage that it will be stratified by geography, organisation size, function and principal funding source but would welcome further suggestions. We envisage that the sample design will also be informed by findings from the development phase allowing so that we capture the full range of different types of business models existing in out sectors. The relative merits and feasibility of a representative versus a purposive sample. The proposed sample size. We envisage that the sample will contain a very diverse range of organisations. We wish to be able to report findings for each of the organisation types set out in Annex 3. How you will identify and recruit an appropriate respondent (or respondents) within each organisation Develop a questionnaire that can be compared with other publicly available business surveys, but will also deliver data that goes beyond what is normally included in standard returns to ALBs and government departments (information on which will be provided). We envisage that this will include data on organisational factors (as set out in Annex 2), behaviours and views. Tenderers are asked to provide a view on appropriate length and to suggest further content. Select a subset of organisations for a pilot survey and identify and add contact names and details to the pilot sample. Administer a pilot survey. Given the budget we anticipate both this and the main stage fieldwork will be an online survey. Tenderers are asked to describe how they will maximise response rates, including reflecting on whether initial contact should be made via email or other means. At the end of this stage the CASE Board will review the success of the pilot based on response rates and the quality of findings to determine if there are sufficient benefits in proceeding to Stage 2. Stage 2 (from March 2012) Main stage fieldwork and analysis to include: Identifying and adding contact names and detail to the main stage survey sample. Circulating an online survey. Follow up work to maximise response rates Collating and cleaning the data Producing initial data tables Conducting data analysis Drafting and agreeing research outputs We hope that a further wave of the survey will be contracted and administered at a later date to capture change over time. With this in mind tenderers are asked to reflect on what will be captured in the first wave, including retrospective changes and what can be captured longitudinally through one or more further waves. As we envisage that this will be a panel survey we ask tenderers to describe how they will establish the sample to allow DCMS to maintain contact with the original respondents and suggest optimum times to re-survey them. The Business Models project outputs will include: A paper describing the scoping work conducted in Stage 1 and its implications for Stage 2. Survey data. A dataset supplied to DCMS in SPSS. This should be suitable for archiving at the UK Data Archive along with a technical report describing in detail how the survey has been conducted, giving details of the sampling method, response rates, sample representativeness, fieldwork procedures, field materials, question coding frames etc. Weights will be calculated for the dataset as appropriate. A report of research findings that will meet the needs of different audiences including policymakers and practitioners plus business leaders in the sectors. All public-facing outputs should be produced with a view to being made available on the DCMS website and those of other CASE partners. A: Background and context The ‘age of austerity’ that is said to characterise our times is often thought to be concurrent with the establishment of the Coalition government in May 2010. And indeed, the Coalition has made very large cuts to government funding of the culture and sports sector – whether this is in the shape of direct cuts to the main Arms Length Bodies (ALBs) and national museums, or via the squeeze on local government finances that mean that local authority budgets for the discretionary provision of culture and leisure are under even greater pressure. However, finances for the culture and sports sector were actually hit long before this, dating back to the ‘Credit crunch’ of 2008. This precipitated, for instance, serious reductions in the value of endowments and investments made by major Trusts and Foundations that invest in the culture and sports sector, as well hitting corporate giving (Arts and Business, 2009). Policymakers in the culture and sports sector in England have also been aware of the need to make the organisations that depend on public investment in their sector more economically sustainable for some while. For instance, Arts Council England launched Thrive! to develop the organisational performance of arts organisations and build their capacity to navigate ‘a rapidly changing environment’ in 2007, while the MLA instructed the nine Renaissance Hubs to ensure that a third of their programme spend in the business plan period 2008-11 was channelled into actions that would make their organisations more sustainable.8 This concern with the increasing difficulties that some elements of the sector find itself in is also evident in the HLF’s more recent changes to its match fund criteria – loosening these in recognition that, with the death of the RDAs and very tight finances in local authorities, match funding is increasingly hard to find – or in the guidelines for Arts Council England’s new capital programme, which focuses on existing facilities and Arts Council clients to use capital investment to make organisations more environmentally and economically sustainable and resilient. Of course it is not all bad news for the sector. With the imminent arrival of London 2012, the lottery receipts that had previously been diverted into the Olympics are already flowing back into the sector. Secondly, accompanying the declining funding situation from central and local government sources, the Coalition administration is also actively supporting the generation of alternative revenue streams, particularly philanthropy (c.f. the joint DCMS and Arts Council England series of schemes to match fund donations). More generically, newer forms of ownership and governance are also being supported, following the proposals pertaining to asset transfer within the Localism Bill. Within the cultural sector, this provides added momentum to the existing interest in exploring options for moving local authority cultural assets into new models of ownership and management (e.g. MLA 2006, 2010). Of course, where this is concerned, sport has led the way with many local authority leisure services now delivered by private contractors and trusts as part of an enabling agenda rather than direct provision. Over the same period, cultural policy has also been influenced by a number of provocations regarding what makes for more economically sustainable or ‘resilient’ organisations and latterly, what kind of business models makes for the same. This is most of the literature that is referred to Annex 2 of the Invitation-to-Tender (ITT). Equally, sport has been considerably influenced by new developments in the strategic management literature, particularly around dynamic capabilities, resource-based accounts and competitive advantage9. And yet there has been little quantitative empirical research on whether different models of ownership and governance do in fact lead to better sustainability. Where it does exist – for instance in SIRC’s own analysis of local authority sports centres (Kung and ▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2010) – it suggests that the results are nuanced: non in-house controlled centres performed better financially but worse in terms of customer satisfaction, raising the issue of what kind of outcomes are most desired from publicly-funded cultural infrastructure? This highlights a number of points. First, that some secondary data that can help to answer some of the questions the tender is asking already exists. Second, that as public policy goals cannot simply be equated with efficiency alone, any analysis that looks at how ownership or business models affects ‘performance’ also needs to look for some metrics that assess other outcomes (e.g. customer satisfaction, educational goals, etc.). Third, we do not yet know why different ownership structures/business models may produce differences in outcomes (such as those observed by the Kung and ▇▇▇▇▇▇ SIRC analysis). Of course there are some a priori assumptions that we might have (e.g. traditional economic theory would posit that incentives within a private contractor would lead to a more optimal allocation of resources leading to a better financial outcome, or the fact that there are some structural advantages of a trust model over a local authority, in terms of tax and ability to access funding from a wider range of sources). But a) this is just scratching the surface in terms of the factors that might differ under differing ownership structures and b) this has not been investigated quantitatively. However, our own research in 2010/11 for MLA on the sustainability activities of Renaissance Hub museums based on 18 in-depth case studies that involved over 200 museums (of which seven case studies were focused specifically on economic sustainability), looked at these issues in some detail. For instance, while various models of non-public ownership have certain structural advantages, there are ways that local authorities can find to gain some of these advantages (e.g by setting up a museum charitable trust that channels foundation and trust money, and setting up trading subsidiaries). Conversely, some of the key disadvantages of local authority ownership seem to stem rather less from structural characteristics, but from more everyday operational processes (e.g. the lack of autonomy that cultural organisations within a local authority structure often experience in terms of finance, marketing, and catering; the slowness of the decision-making process – as well as more traditional ‘incentive’ problems regarding not being able to recoup cost savings and retain profits). But our research also showed that these challenges were by no means uniform across different local authorities; rather we found that organisational characteristics varied within ownership models as well as between them. The present research therefore presents a great opportunity to be able to look at what the relationship is between organisational performance, understood to include measures beyond simply financial performance, and a range of differing organisational characteristics. Delivering this insight will allow the CASE Board and other stakeholders to consider what kind of organisational characteristics and behaviours they should target and encourage through their investment strategies and other policies.