How to identify your improvement priorities

It is important to target improvement activity to those parts of a service or institution where it is most needed or where it will have the greatest impact.  This also helps appropriate improvement support to be targeted. 

Identify :

• What outcomes your museum, library or archive service is best placed to contribute to?
• What are your institution’s or service’s strengths? The Outcomes Framework (PDF 287KB) will help you clarify the most appropriate outcomes.

To match your contribution to the local and national priorities which are of importance to the communities in your area, you should consult the relevant Sustainable Community Strategy and also the most recent Local Area Agreement.  

Identify:

• How your service or institution contributes to the LAA.  It may be possible to secure the sector’s place within the LAA itself through this process, or it may be more appropriate to undertake service planning with reference to the LAA so that the sector is built into the strategic and delivery structures underpinning the LAA.

Identify:

• What are the priorities for improvement so that the sector is able to deliver these outcomes?
• Is your service or institution able to deliver those outcomes?
• Are there impediments to it meeting its full potential?

The Culture and Sport Improvement Toolkit helps services and institutions to assess themselves against a benchmark.  Once the service or institution has found out its position against the benchmark, improvement activity can be considered. The toolkit includes guidance on improvement planning (PDF 162KB)

Other ways to identify priorities for improvement:

• Establish a risk register as part of service planning, and set out actions to mitigate risks.  These can form part of your improvement priorities.
• What are your participation and user satisfaction results telling you?  If satisfaction or participation is falling and you do not know why, then survey your users, and potential users, in more detail about their experiences and expectations.
• What does your performance management information tell you?  If you have built a relevant, robust and useful framework then you can use this to identify areas where you are underperforming. 
• Are you meeting the relevant service standards?  If not, then in what areas and how would you need to improve to meet them?

If you are a local authority provided or enabled service, ask: 

• What does the regional cultural commentary tell about your service and what should be your priorities for improvement?  This discussion is best taken forward in conjunction with the MLA Regional Agency.
• What does the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) for your authority – corporately and for the Culture Services Assessment Block – tell you about what you need to improve?  CPA allows you to track performance over time and comparatively against other councils.
• What do your results against Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI) tell you about what you need to improve?  BVPIs allow you to track performance over time and comparatively against other councils.  BVPIs and their predecessor indicators have been collected since the mid-1990s. 

                   o BVPI 119 Resident satisfaction with libraries
                   o BVPI 119 Resident satisfaction with museums and galleries
                   o BVPI 170 a Visits To and Use of Museums and Galleries: all visits
                   o BVPI 170 b Visits to and Use of Museums and Galleries: visits in person
                   o BVPI 170 c Visits to and Use of Museums and Galleries: school groups
                   o BVPI 220 Compliance against the Public Library Service Standards

Look at the most appropriate package of support to help you meet your improvement priorities, and build this into your service planning.