Arts Council England – Mandatory Requirements for National Portfolio Organisations Using the Impact & Insight Toolkit; Financial year 2021-22

The information on this page was written by Arts Council England for NPOs using the Impact & Insight Toolkit. View/download a PDF version of this page here.

It is a mandatory requirement for band 2 and 3 National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) to undertake a minimum amount of evaluation activity each year using the Impact & Insight Toolkit (the Toolkit). 

This document provides a full description of what is required of band 2 and 3 NPOs with respect to the Toolkit, and guidance as to what the expectations are for band 1 NPOs.

Mandatory evaluation expectations for band 2 and 3 NPOs 

For the year 2021-22, the mandatory evaluation expectations have been developed to provide more flexibility for NPOs using the Toolkit. 

A band 2 or 3 NPO must complete four evaluations, where: 

• At least two adhere to the Core evaluation type 
• The remaining two adhere to either the Core or the Flexible evaluation type 

The Flexible evaluation type is new and allows the NPO to choose their own dimensions for that evaluation. A comprehensive description of what both the Core and Flexible evaluation types must include is given below.

Within a month of completing each of the four evaluations, the NPO must then: 

1. Create an Insights Report and submit the data to Arts Council England (ACE) – this process occurs entirely within the Culture Counts platform.
2. Share the Insights Report with their Relationship Manager via email – this requires the NPO to save the created Insights Report and send it to their Relationship Manager manually via email. 

Band 2 and 3 NPOs must also create a second report type – the Annual Summary Report.  This is an annual, combined report of the NPO’s four submitted evaluations. It shows comparisons between the different evaluated works and provides opportunities for reflection. 

In preparation for June’s Grantium submission, the NPO must: 

1. Create an Annual Summary Report – this occurs within the Culture Counts platform. 
2. Submit the Annual Summary Report to ACE – this process occurs via Grantium as part of an NPO’s June submission. 

NPOs are encouraged to include additional questions within their surveys, and there are suggestions made within the platform to make this simpler for specific types of work (e.g. Online Works or Participatory). However, this is not mandatory. 

 Beyond the minimum requirement of four mandatory evaluations, all NPOs are welcome to undertake as many additional evaluations as they like.  There is no requirement to share these evaluations with ACE and they can be designed in any way that NPOs choose.

Evaluation Type Definitions 

There are two types of evaluation which may contribute to band 2 and 3 NPO mandatory requirements, these are Core and Flexible. 

For both evaluation types, survey data resulting from specific questions must be collected from four respondent groups. These requirements are shown in the tables below. 

Core Evaluation Type 

Flexible Evaluation Type 

*The contents of question categories are given in the appendix 

**At least 4 flexible dimensions must be the same across all respondent groups 

*** Standard demographic questions are shown in the appendix 

Event/activity choice  

We encourage NPOs to evaluate a range of their work (e.g. theatre productions in a main house and studio).  NPOs can use the Impact & Insight Toolkit to evaluate any public facing work, including participatory work and work that is delivered online or outdoors.  NPOs will find the Toolkit most valuable if they use it to evaluate work where they can learn something interesting about the experiences of their audiences, or where they have a particular hypothesis about programming or marketing that they wish to test.  NPOs can discuss their event choices with their Relationship Manager if that would be helpful.   

Special Circumstances 

Where an organisation is primarily participatory, the NPO should discuss with their Relationship Manager whether more than two of their evaluations can be built around the Participatory dimensions instead. 

Touring and receiving NPOs can use the Culture Counts platform to carry out a shared evaluation of the same event.  Each organisation will need to submit a separate report on the event to their Relationship Manager; this will count towards the quota of mandatory evaluations for both organisations. 

Band 2 and 3 NPOs that do not have four events per year to evaluate, such as biennials or those with a limited public programme, should discuss suitable usage with their Relationship Manager.  

Sampling Guidance  

Counting What Counts has produced guidance specifically on appropriate sample sizes for different types of event, including participatory events which typically involve smaller groups of people.  The minimum number of public responses required in order to meet the mandatory requirements is one; however, it is advised that NPOs follow the guidance available to ensure maximum insight is gained. 

Peer Review 

 In addition to including at least one peer review in each evaluation, it is a mandatory requirement for all band 2 or 3 NPOs to register at least one peer reviewer from their organisation to the Peer Matching Resource, available via the Toolkit.  This peer reviewer may be invited by other NPOs to provide a review.  It is expected that each NPO will provide four peer reviews over the course of each evaluation year.  In some instances, this may not be possible.  If the NPO is uncertain whether they will be able to provide four peer reviews per year, they should discuss this with their Relationship Manager.   

Evaluation expectations for band 1 NPOs 

There is no requirement for band 1 NPOs to use the Impact & Insight Toolkit but, if they do choose to use it, we expect them to follow the standards set out here for at least one Core evaluation each year.  Findings from this evaluation should then be shared with their Relationship Manager, using the agreed reporting template.

Appendix 

Survey Type Definitions 

Please know that it is possible to conduct the Self Post and Peer Post surveys within one survey, as demonstrated in the original Mandatory Evaluation Template.

Question Categories 

Standard demographics question set: 

Age: What is your age? 

Gender: How would you describe your gender? 

Postcode: What is your postcode? 

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The information on this page was last updated on 26 March, 2021.