Economic impact and social value of the arts in Northern Ireland

Engagement with the arts provides a wide range of benefits to both society and the economy. Identifying and quantifying these benefits is essential to highlight the importance of the sector and ensure it continues to receive the funding it deserves.

In light of this, Simetrica-Jacobs, in partnership with TFCC (Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy), was commissioned by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) to estimate the economic impact and social value of their funding in the Northern Irish arts sector. Two strands of analysis were conducted:

·       The first examined the overall economic impact of ACNI’s investment portfolio on the Northern Irish economy.

·       The second focused on estimating the social value generated by four representative organisations within ACNI’s investment portfolio.

The first strand used revenue and expenditure data from each arts organisation, as well as visitors spending in the local economy linked to those visits. Northern Ireland-specific figures were then used to estimate the knock-on effects of ACNI’s funding (which supports part of these organisations’ expenditure) has on Northern Ireland's economy. The gross impact attributable to ACNI’s funding was found to be £24m per year. To get a sense of how much of this impact is additional (that is, how much of the economic impact would not be felt were ACNI not to provide funding), a displacement factor was applied to this figure. This gave a net impact attributable to ACNI’s funding of £11mper year.

The second strand involved direct engagement with a subset of funded organisations to explore and evidence the social value of their programmes. Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy led on the engagement with the four organisations to capture through case studies their process of creating impact and value. Analysis was then undertaken to quantify the amounts of benefits generated. The analysis focused on applying the wellbeing value of engagement with the arts to the number of participants engaged within each organisation. This value was monetised using WELLBYs, which follows the latest HM Treasury supplementary guidance on wellbeing. To avoid overclaiming, a deadweight figure was applied e.g. accounting for the change in engagement that may have happened anyway. All three organisations for which social value was calculated were found to deliver positive value of money, with estimates ranging from £2.10 to £6.30 of wellbeing benefits for every £1 spent.

Lastly, an impact framework was developed to assist art organisations in Northern Ireland to understand and measure their own impact. With a focus on wellbeing, it aims to support art organisations in asking the right questions to further build the evidence and demonstrate their social value in the future

Our work is consistent and compliant with current best-practice methodologies, such as those set out in the UK HM Treasury Green Book (2022) and associated supplementary Wellbeing Guidance for Appraisal, which Simetrica-Jacobs contributed to.

This work was pivotal in developing an understanding of the positive impact of ACNI’s investment portfolio and support organisations in the data collection process to measure and evidence their impact in a meaningful way.