Recommendation 13

The Department currently has a set of long-standing key performance indicators in place to monitor the performance of the museums and galleries it sponsors. However, the indicators do not cover qualitative aspects of museums’ and galleries’ service delivery, such as opening times, gallery closures or condition of collections, which could provide an early indicator of deterioration in their resilience, and some KPIs are out of date. The Department had also not set out how it intends to assess museums’ and galleries’ delivery of its priority outcomes. However, it plans to review its KPIs for their coherence, detail and robustness in 2026.32 We therefore asked about its plans. It told us that it is looking at financial resilience metrics, such as the level of museums’ and galleries’ surpluses and deficits and unrestricted reserves and the impact on these of their income and costs. It is also considering wider metrics around its priority outcomes and possibly operational metrics. It aimed to have its new indicators in place from March 2027.33