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CHAPTER NINE RECOMMENDATIONS
Application Process
9.1 The development of the application process for funding for Tartan Week has been effective but there are a number of areas which the evaluation team believe would increase its accessibility and, in turn, widen its scope. In Chapter Seven we have detailed weaknesses within the application process and seek to address these within this section.
- Widen access to the guidance notes through notifying all arts and cultural organisations in Scotland giving them the opportunity to cascade the information within their sector.
- Consider introducing a two staged system for applications. This would allow the Scottish Executive to sift through the larger number of applications and identify the most relevant applications for short-listing. It would also ensure that partnerships between organisations could be identified at an early stage. The two staged system would require PQQs to be available during June in order for a shortlist to be drawn up and applications received from shortlisted organisations by the beginning of September. Whilst it is acknowledged that this is not achievable for Tartan Week 2008 it is a recommendation for Tartan Week 2009.
- Shortlisted organisations would be required to submit a detailed response to the guidance notes which could be broken down into two categories:
- o information required without which the application cannot be considered - "base" information
- o information which would be considered to be supplementary to the "base" information, the provision of which would improve the case for funding
9.2 Applicants should be required to include SMART targets within their submissions as a means of measuring the impact of their event/s. Advice should be provided to applicants on appropriate targets. Their use would benefit the applicants in understanding what their events can and ultimately do achieve. Importantly, using SMART targets would also enable the Executive to evaluate more fully the success of Tartan Week and to start to quantify the broader economic benefit of its investment. The evaluation team should be present at one of the Tartan Week meetings with event organisers to provide guidance and support regarding gathering data and preparing an evaluation for the Scottish Executive.
9.3 Clear selection criteria for applications should be agreed and adhered to to allow the process to be capable of scrutiny. These criteria should be published with the guidance notes. It may be useful to develop a system of weighting for different criteria to ensure that projects selected best meet the objectives of the Executive, but these require to be transparent and should not be changed after they have been agreed.
9.4 All successful applicants must be notified by the beginning of October at the latest.
Marketing
9.5 Event details should be available on www.tartanweekny.com and the What's On Guide earlier than at present. www.tartanweekny.com should be the main source of information about Tartan Week on the Internet and all marketing/promotional material should feature its URL. Clear guidance must be given to event organisers on the technical requirements for each of these promotional materials in order that deadlines can be met.
9.6 Event organisers should be encouraged to "cross market" other Tartan Week events to encourage greater attendance at more than one Tartan Week event. This would increase awareness of events amongst attendees and raise the profile of Tartan Week as an entity.
9.7 There is a need for consistency of Tartan Week branding at events and more support for event organisers from the Scottish Executive to ensure that Tartan Week is effectively communicated both inside and outside venues.
Evaluation process
9.8 All applications should clearly state the evaluation criteria to be used for event/s based on SMART targets.
9.9 In order to evaluate the impact of Tartan Week on attendees it is important, where relevant, that event organisers agree that surveys may be conducted with their attendees at their events and at the post-event stage. To this end, event organisers should demonstrate how they will collect attendee data within the confines of the Data Protection Act.
9.10 Event organisers should submit their evaluations six to eight weeks after Tartan Week and a small proportion of funding should be withheld until a satisfactory evaluation is submitted.
Development of Tartan Week
9.11 Findings from the qualitative research with attendees suggests that there may be opportunities to have a Tartan Week presence in other geographic locations within North America and Canada. This would ensure that Scotland is promoted to a wider audience in locations where there may be greater affinity with Scotland.
9.12 In the light of the lack of understanding of the word "tartan" and its association with Scotland, it is recommended that the name is changed to Scotland Week.
9.13 It has not been possible to fully assess the value for money aspect of the Tartan Week programme in 2007 but an economic impact assessment would be beneficial to the Scottish Executive in future. This would be carried out by:
- Event organisers would be asked to determine their existing level of activity in New York (and possibly across the USA) pre-Tartan Week.
- Event organisers would then have to agree to provide further information immediately after Tartan Week on their expectations of future business/activity as a result of their events.
- After one year they would then have to provide additional information on the key variables and so on.
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