C O N T E X T 1 0 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 23 Finally, Lamb sought to answer the question; ‘where does all this leave the expert?’ Community engagement, we were told, does not threaten the expert; as Tessa Jowell has said, ‘it is to maintain excellence – it is about them helping communities to find the value of heritage’. Lamb is convinced we are in a strong position to face future challenges. Questions from the floor followed, including one from Bob Kindred asking, in the context of the heritage protection white paper, where the money and resources were coming from to do all this and, if it failed, was there a Plan B? The answer, while up-beat, largely relied on continuing to lobby our case to Parliament. Let us hope the new prime minister, his secretary of state and ministers are ready to hear. Mike Brown Three minutes in the lift with Gordon Brown skills and commitment in the local authority, the scale of the project relative to the area, and the degree of community involvement. However, the research, perhaps unsurprisingly, also showed that maintenance problems need to be addressed not long after scheme completion, costs inevitably rise beyond estimates, and the quality of advice is vitally important to success. So, Clark asked, how do you measure the benefits? A huge data mine of survey work had shown that visitors, residents, participants and businesses had all enjoyed benefits flowing from HLF-backed schemes. Clark noted that it was vital that the surveys fed back into the HLF system to allow them to assess objectively how close they were in meeting the aims set for them by government. These aims are: 1.To ensure that everyone can learn about, have access to and enjoy their heritage. 2. To encourage more people to be involved in and make decisions about heritage. 3.To promote heritage conservation as an integral part of the urban and rural regeneration. 4. To achieve a more equitable spread of funding. On the last point we were told that there was a good spread (not for my authority!) but there were some variations. Clark presented a series of statistics from the surveys. These showed that for participants in heritage projects and visitors there was a strong, reinforcing, feel-good factor and greater appreciation of the heritage. As a tool for regeneration in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, however, the picture was more mixed. Heritage projects clearly created and supported jobs, but they were not cheap. Nevertheless, to get a full picture, the more unquantifiable benefits had to be taken into account; particularly the improvements for local people of their quality of life, which the surveys consistently underlined, in deprived as well as affluent areas. Clark took these points a stage further, and examined the differing priorities and motives of private (£s) and public sector organisations (£s+?). How could the latter be measured? She offered the following thoughts, attributed to David Throsby, a leading cultural economist and professor at the University of Sydney, Australia: ‘There are limits to how useful economic value methods are for cultural heritage. Many of the cultural returns can’t be assessed through monetary proxies. Heritage assets are a stock of cultural capital. If you invest in those assets you can generate economic and cultural returns.’ This may seem obvious, but it is clearly beyond the intellectual grasp of many of our elected leaders. Clark turned to considering ‘How investing in heritage creates value’. She drew out three main themes: 1. Significance: the HLF funds what people value. 2. Instrumental benefits: HLF funding generates economic, social and environmental benefits. 3. Institutional value: the HLF’s own values matter and depend on and reinforce public trust through accountability and transparency. IHBC Annual School 2007 IHBC Annual School 2007 IHBC Annual School 2007 Kate Clark, deputy director, policy and research, Heritage Lottery Fund (since moved to private practice) Kate Clark is an enthusiastic, engaging speaker who lifted the morning’s proceedings. She spoke about the public value of heritage and the huge challenge that its proper identification represented for the sector. For the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), responsible for the distribution of some £3.9 billion, this is now a key activity and the focus of much of its research. What was being achieved with all this money? Who was benefiting? She ran through the huge range of HLF-funded projects that had been assisted over the past 13 years: 26,000 projects, over £1 billion on conserving 10,000 historic buildings, 250 public parks, an area three times the size of the Isle of Wight conserved, 570 archaeological projects... It was an impressive list but, as Clark asked, is it answering the real needs of the heritage?What were the outcomes, for people as well as the heritage? The HLF was currently occupied with grappling with these questions. Clark detailed the HLF’s research and evaluation activities: monitoring, data collection, analysis and evaluation, notably of Townscape Heritage Initiative schemes. These had gone some way to ascertaining the benefits: obviously, the improved appearance of the area, but also increased confidence from local businesses and the community. The research revealed the elements that contribute to making a good scheme:
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