Searching for the “public” in Public Value: arts and cultural heritage in Australia

摘要

What constitutes the value of publicly funded arts and culture heritage is a much discussed and debated subject. As the debates have gained momentum over the last decade, considerable discourse has been devoted to who should be involved in decisions about what values we should be measuring to substantiate funding from the public purse. The concept of Public Value has been of interest to these discussions because it reminds us that public funding should be spent effectively to provide benefits for citizens and that it is the duty of governments and their funded agencies collectively to achieve this end.Though Public Value emphasizes the relationship between government decision makers and the managers of public sector institutions, the role of citizens in the process of identifying and defining Public Value is both unclear and contested. This article examines what, if any, role the public play in defining Public Value within Australia's publicly funded arts and cultural heritage sector. Although evidence of increasing consultation and engagement between industry stake holders and what Moore (1995)29. Moore, M. 1995. Creating public value: Strategic management in government , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. View all references calls “the authorizing environment” and examples of engaging the general public in identifying Public Value exist, it finds that the public view of value is not formally embedded into decision-making processes at the government policy and planning levels.View full textDownload full textKeywordsPublic Value, value, measurement, policy, consultationRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2010.515003