Evaluation of the Wales Museum Strategy
The Museums Strategy for Wales 2010-2017 (the first Strategy of its kind in the UK) was developed in consultation with the sector and sought to provide strategic direction for museums in Wales through offering realistic actions to enable museums to improve their services and demonstrate their value to society. Responsibility for delivering the actions detailed in the Strategy was shared between MALD, its partners, and museums/museum organisations in Wales responsible for local implementation.
In 2017, ERS were commissioned to evaluate the Museums Strategy for Wales with the specific objectives to establish what had been achieved to date and review the success of the Museums Marketing Strategy, identify lessons learned and define a critical steer for the next strategy 2017 – 2022. The evaluation considered the extent to which museums in Wales had improved their services according to the three guiding principles (and actions) set out in the Strategy: Museums for Everyone; A Collection for the Nation; and Working Effectively.
The evaluation demonstrated a clear appetite for a refreshed Strategy albeit with improvements. Recommendations offered for the successor strategy included clearer presentation of its vision, aims and focus, linkage with cross-cutting Welsh Government agendas, more clearly defined outcomes and roles for museums and the building in of a more formal review process. In order to add value we produced a visual executive summary in order to assist in dissemination of the findings and recommendations of the evaluation.
This project demonstrates our ability to conduct an effective impact evaluation of a unique intervention using multiple phases of work. It largely involved reporting on the experiences and perceptions of the sector in order to establish and attribute impact.
